Back on July 29th I wrote about how I had signed up for a marathon, but I haven't been very good about documenting my experience. So here goes -
July 2024
On July 17th, I decided to go for it and signed up for the Asheville Marathon. 26.2 Miles!! I have run several half-marathons but never a full. I'll be 57 by the time the marathon comes around but I really think I can do this. The hard part will be training around my crazy hours working in Elections. With this being a Presidential year, the overtime will be really rough so training will be scattered at best.
The week of July 21st, on the Sunday after I signed up, rather than a long run, I hiked 6.4 miles. The next day I did run 4.13 miles on a very hilly course and I believe I wrote about that in my last post. I did another short hike of 2+ miles and two short runs of 1.5+ miles the rest of that week.
The week of July 28th, was not the best of my efforts. On Sunday, rather than a long run, I hiked 3.7 miles. The rest of the week, I did another hike of 2.35 miles and two short runs of 1.54 miles.
August 2024
The week of August 4th I was away at a conference but I was good and ran. On Sunday I ran a 10K - not a race, but why run 6 miles when you can run a 10K? That Thursday I ran my neighborhood run of 1.54 miles.
The week of August 11th, I was not much better. I did run 7.54 miles for my Sunday long run but I only ran one other day that week for 1.54 miles.
The week of August 18th, I did a long run of 7.88 which I thought would be 8 miles but my Fitbit messed up and tracked things wrong so I guessed. I later tracked my route on Footpath and found out I came up short. The rest of this week I hiked one day for about 90 minutes and then ran on Wednesday and Friday for 2.2 miles each.
The week of August 25th I ran a Sunday long run and felt great! I went 10.64 miles and I ran it at a 13:28 pace. I'm still not sure how I managed that for 10 miles but like I said. I felt strangely really good. I should have documented the weather and what I ate but I hadn't thought of it. I only ran one other time this week for 2.64 miles but I did hike 4.2 miles.
September 2024
Now we are up to September so I'll fill you in on the month so far. Work at this point has gotten crazy! A lot of late nights and weekends proofing ballots, setting up an online portal for visually impaired as well as military and overseas voters. Of course we had to proof the regular ballots as well. However, once we had everything ready and ballots were set to be mailed, the courts got involved and made us change our ballots. We had to start everything all over from scratch to remove a candidate. This candidate sued to get on the ballot and then turned around sued to get taken back off. Talk about a major headache and SO MUCH unnecessary work!
Anyway, the week of September1, I backed off my long run and ran 8.08 miles. The rest of that week I hiked 2.5 miles one day and then ran two other days for 2.8 miles each time. I should have made it 3 miles but it's the route I experimented with. I was trying to find something new.
The week of September 8th, I missed my Sunday run long due to work but made it up on Monday but running my longest run so far in this training which was 12 miles. Later that week, I ran 1.5 miles and 4.3 miles. Friday, Sept. 13th marked 30 days until the Half-Marathon I signed up for in Hendersonville. I can't wait to run it. My goal is go sub-3. Hard to believe in 2012 I ran sub-2 but that's what 12 years of not running will do to you.
The week of September 15th, I also missed my Sunday run due to work but ran 8 miles on Monday. I wanted to go longer but I was running out of daylight with the sun setting earlier. That week, I ran 4.3 miles one day and 3.15 miles another day. I also took a 3 mile hike in the middle of the week.
That brings us to this week. Did I do a long run today? No. But I did hike 5.37 miles and I plan to do my long run tomorrow. I will again run into the issue of running out of daylight, but I have an idea where I can do trails until dark and then snake my way home on streets after sunset. My area seems pretty well lit at night. I'll find out tomorrow.
That's enough for now, but next time when I wrap up this month, I'll also cover my diet and weight training elements.
