Cupcake Marathon - The Recap

So, I signed up for this - how do you NOT sign up for a Cupcake Marathon!? Hello?! - and almost immediately had The Ankle issue. And I was a little concerned about hitting the 26.2 miles, since I... wasn't running. But I did it, over a series of 6 runs. Yep. You read that. Six runs, to put in 26 miles.

Day 1 - 3/17/11, 1.7 miles, 20 minutes I bought new shoes with custom orthotics, that I was breaking in. My instructions were to run 20 minutes 1 day, then 40, then 60. So, I did. And man, it SUCKED a lot. It was my first time running in 10 days, but it was like I had never run a step before in my life. The entire last .2 was spent asking who DOES this, WHY you would do this, and HOW did I just run 13 miles?! Awful.

Day 2 - 3/19/11, 3.25 miles, 40 minutes Equally sucktastic, but for a new reason. There's this trail, by my house, that I've always gone right on. Today, we felt like trying left to see where it leads. Well. Where it leads, is under a tunnel, up a couple hills, and to across the street. 10 minutes of jogging hills, and we ended up 1 block away from where we started. I was pissed. We took off in the other direction and ran the regular trail for my 40 minutes. It made for an ugly map...

Day 3 - 3/20/11, 5.25 miles, 60 minutes

Treadmill run, nothing exciting to report, other than it was easy peasy, and I felt fine the whole time.

Day 4 - 3/22/11, 3 miles, 35 minutes I ran the route from the Suck It Up, Buttercup 5K back in January... It *felt* really tough (in a good way!), but... I don't know that it actually was. My splits...

Day 5 - 3/24/11, 4 miles random hill program, 47 minutes First time doing a hill program! I don't have any hills that I can run at night, so I hit up the treadmill at my complex, and burned through 4 miles topping at 5 incline. It was... kind of fun. I did breeze through it, so I probably could have picked up the pace, but.. I didn't want to push my luck.

Day 6 - 3/26/11, 1 mi time trial (9:23), followed by 8 miles, 1:40 I've been meaning to do another "Magic Mile" to see where my training times should fall. I'm not sure why I thought this was a good plan at noon on a Saturday following a donut and giant coffee at 8am and nothing since, and with no warm up. It was - shockingly - awful.

After grabbing my handheld (TWSS) and some GU, I headed out to finish. I found another entrance to the trail we tried last weekend, and decided to try it. Almost immediately, I was starving, tired, my legs were lead, and I wanted to puke. I probably should have eaten something, before heading out, but. I didn't. And I walked almost the enirety of miles 1 and 2. It wasn't pretty.

Just before mile 2, I ran (haha) past the hospital where I brought Gabby on New Years Day. That kid is like my personal motivating kick in the ass. I started running, and kept running until the end of the 8 miles. And it was beautiful from there home. Total, 26.31 miles, 5:10:23 Thanks, Silly Girl Running and Cook Train Eat Race for organizing!

“I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”

Last week, the plan got tweaked a little. Mainly because I hate the elliptical and have totally zero motivation to touch it. So, instead, I tried an easy 1.75 miles on Thursday, and it was fine! Then 3.25 on Saturday, and also fine!!! And, then, 5.25 on Sunday, and MAGIC!! I'm doing a lot of stretching, and icing, and foam rolling, but so far, so good. The Ankle gets a little fiesty occassionally, but nothing over a 4/10, and nothing I can't run through. Awesome. Plus, the hiking was cancelled because of ridiculous weather this weekend. Hello, SoCal, it's SPRING. Keep up.

Speaking of, seriously, did you SEE that mess that was the LA Marathon?! Holy crow. The folks that ran that, and the spectators and volunteers that participated... wow. Impressive. I nearly didn't run Sunday because I'd have to jog over to the gym in the rain/wind. I can't even imagine running in that for 26.2 miles.

Which got me thinking...

What DO you do if you've paid a small fortune in registration (LA was $145) and the weather is ridiculous? It's no secret that I'm a giant wuss about the weather. I don't like it too hot, too sunny, too windy, too wet, too cloudy, too cold...

Anyway.

The Suck Less Program seems to be working! When I took the initial test HERE, I was at 17 crunches, 3 push ups, 27 squats.
Yesterday, after week 2, I was at 27 crunches, 10 Push ups, 70 squats (!!!).

Plan for this week:
Monday - Suck Less Program
Tuesday - 5 mile easy run
Wednesday - Yoga, Suck Less Program
Thursday - 4 mile tempo run (yikes!)
Friday - Suck Less Program
Saturday - 8 mile easy run

And Saturday will mark the completion of my first marathon - of the Cupcake variety.