Marathon Pre-Training, Week 7

Okay, so I figured out that my knee pain last week wasn't a result of running.  It was the stupid jumping jacks our trainer had us do.  Thankfully, it only took a couple of days of gentle treatment to get my knee back to normal, I've run on it (paying more attention to form, now) and had no problems since, and I'm going to completely avoid jumping jacks for the foreseeable future.  Because (and I never thought in a million years I'd be even thinking this, but...) I really don't want to quit running.

This week's stats:

• 12.08 treadmill miles
• 0 outdoor miles
• 1 hours on the elliptical machine
• 3 weightlifting sessions
• 0 pounds lost

Total pre-training stats:

• 7 weeks
• 53.94 treadmill miles
• 20.83 outdoor miles
• 10 pounds lost (still @ 205)

Seven weeks.  This is going by kind of fast.  I'm about halfway through my pre-training time, which is kind of scary.  Two months should seem longer.  And there's only six months, give or take, to go before race day.  At this rate I'm afraid I'm going to blink a couple of times and find myself standing at the starting line with no idea what's going on.

Which is why I had to get serious on my lovely training partner this week.  Sure, our new weightlifting routine isn't as interesting as our old one was, and we really liked some of the old exercises more than we like the new routine, and sometimes everybody has a day or two when they just really don't feel like working out, but letting somebody else influence me to slack off isn't an option.  It's one thing to skip a workout here and there, and having a workout partner means balancing each others' schedules and such, but I can't start letting myself be talked out of going to the gym when I have no other reason to skip or letting myself be convinced to cut workouts short when I'm not ready to stop yet.  I don't want to be the only reason she goes to work out, and I shouldn't be made to feel guilty for not stopping when she wants to stop.  I know this marathon thing is kind of extreme and I don't expect Kourt to keep up, but it certainly shouldn't be that hard for us to find a compromise.

And we shouldn't be giving in to each others' occasional need to cut things short or stay home when we each have our own legitimate reasons to do so often enough.  Like Tuesday, when I learned what a bad idea it is to eat fried rice a few hours before a demanding session of intervals.  Three fourths of the way through I became acutely afraid that if I kept adding water to and shaking up my stomach contents I'd end up depositing them all over the treadmill.  So I stopped before the last interval and waited in the locker room until Kourt finished up.  Stupidity happens.  But it shouldn't happen all the time, and neither of us should be slacking for two.

Anyway, cold temps and early morning thunderstorms kept us off the trail Saturday morning, so we hit the treadmills at the gym for 90 minutes.  I'm hoping this is the last snap of nasty cold weather this year.  I'm not really ready for summer temperatures yet, but some consistent spring would be nice.  Gotta love Missouri weather, right?  Two weeks ago I got sunburned, two days later it snowed.  Last week it was nice and sunny, this morning I had ice on my windshield.  I suppose if I just made myself go out in the weather no matter what I'd be ready for anything Chicago has to dish out in October, but... meh.  I'm okay with a little rain, but there's a limit.