60km weekend + C4C

With the wet and snowy weather giving me an easy excuse to bail on my training plan this week, I found myself catching up this weekend with 2 longish runs.

First, thanks for your comments during my slump. I'm happy to say that it lasted a whole 3 days. On Thursday I did a weights session and found a dreadmill on Friday where I lasted an entire half hour for what I hope is a total of 3.5 miles. It felt way too fast to be kilometres. I guess the treadmill is a learned exercise for longer distances. I can't believe some people that are doing their 2 or 3 hour runs on the machine! I remember a few years ago when I had regular access to one that I was able to do up to 60 minutes before getting bored. Maybe if there was something more exciting than curling playing at the gym I could have thoughed it out a bit more ;)

So on Saturday I set out to replace a workout that should have been done on Monday with 22km.
I was pretty happy with the pace (5:26m/km) for a total time of 1h58m27s.

Then the very next day, on Sunday, I went out for the longest run of this training cycle: 38km. I wouldn't necessarily have chosen to do back to back with the 22km but time has been very scarce these days and the weather today was just beautiful. It's starting to feel like spring already and I'm grateful for not having to worry about my water freezing or even catching something nasty if I decide to slow down and my sweat freezes over. My shoes didn't like the muddy conditions but then they are on their last lap anyways so I won't worry about them too much.
With a pace of 5:43m/km I would be about 1 and a half minute behind my 4 hour goal for the marathon but then I don't expect I'll run a 22km the day before the race :) My sleeping schedule hasn't been optimal either and nutrition also has been a bit hectic with meals at odd hours and from sources that I wouldn't consider healthy or nutritious.

I must admit I'm pretty happy that the longest run is done. All the upcoming "long" runs are under 30km until race day. These smaller training runs are easier to fit in the schedule and easier to recover from.

Because people are hungry throughout the year, this post is my monthly cans for comments post. You know the drill, you leave a comment and I donate a non-perishable food item. This month's cans will go to the Kanata Food Cupboard. Let's hope we can beat the 5 items donated for January.