Sunny San Diego

Alisa has called me out on my lack of training posts so I'm hoping to start that up again. First off, I spent a whirlwind day going down to San Diego to meet up with old friends from Scotland. Side-note: 5 hours is not enough time to catch up on 8 years. I had a free hotel night credit and got to book a night at a really grand hotel. I usually book the cheapest hotel I can find that doesn't have super shady reviews so this was a real treat.

View from my hotel room

The hotel! I was on the 29th floor in the right tower.

What is that shiny, warm, yellow orb up in the sky? I haven't seen it in SO long!

I hadn't planned to run outdoors in San Diego and was kind of bummed about that because the weather was grand and there was a pretty straightforward waterfront path I could have followed.

Sunday: 7 miles @ 10:28 pace; It has been a long, long time since I've run on a treadmill. It has been an even longer time since I've run more than 3 or so miles on a treadmill. The hotel in San Diego had amazing treadmills with little television screens and ipod ports. I actually used to enjoy running on treadmills and detested running outdoors. I have turned a complete 180 and couldn't stand the treadmill! There was a great view of the water from the gym, but that gets old pretty quickly. Should I stare at the mileage slowly ticking away every 0.01 miles at a time? Should I stare at the time changing second, by second? Bleh. I did bump up the speed to do 1 mile at about a 9:00 pace (first time since pre-CIM I've attempted this) which helped to get it over more quickly.

Monday: 12 miles @ 10:36 pace; Last two miles were pretty rough, but I have to bump the mileage back up since I have another marathon in about three weeks.

Friday: 16 miles @ 10:38 pace; I don't like this 5 weeks-between-marathons thing because that means I actually have to do some training in between them! Got this done in anticipation of knocking out 20 miles next week.

Next week marks my return to real training. It was actually supposed to be this week, but I hit the 1 hour snooze button on my pre-work run on Thursday. Sue me. I've been putzing around ever since CIM. My legs have retained a great deal of the work I did for CIM. But, they are slowly losing some of the speed I got and I'm going to try to do at least one run with some tempo pace miles each week. The faster I can keep my "easy" pace, the better!

A few quick comments on some comments people have left:

I do think running 12 marathons in 12 months doesn't have to be a Jan-Jan cycle to count. I personally feel that counting my two December '09 races is "cheating" because when I ran them I didn't have a clue I was going to be attempting this and I'd be counting them only to lighten my load the next 11 months. Does that make sense?

I will not be trying to PR at any race this year. I am mentally PR'd out. It was fun to train to try to PR at the half marathon and marathon last year but my mind needs a break from that mindset and pressure. We'll see if this changes as the year goes on, but I doubt I will attempt it if only for the fact that I don't want to increase my risk of injury.

Yes, Mario is adorable and even when he acts up, all I have to do is look at his chubby little cheeks and I go and fetch him a craisin. Often he'll be chewing on the walls and I'll go over and clap my hands to get him to stop. Then one second later, I moosh his checks in with my hands and exclaim, "I love you, Mr. Mario! You're the best bunny in the world!" Talk about bad positive reinforcement.

I started writing up a ditty about my thoughts on future marathon PR attempts, but it was getting long, so I'll save that for another day.

I have a Disney race report in the draft folder and will get that up soon!