2010 LA MARATHON TRAINING= OFFICIALLY BEGUN!

well! my [2010 LA marathon] training has OFFICIALLY begun! a few things that have recently helped to make it more "official"...

01] jen booked a room @ LOEWS in santa monica where we're staying for the first part of the trip [closer to the action + near the finish line], before heading down to the beach house in hermosa beach to unwind a bit post-race. already working on a list of restaurants + shops we're going to hit while we're down there- can't wait.

02] NEW SHOES! not a big deal to most people, but to marathon runners switching shoe brands is usually quite a deal [what a dork]- justifiable when considering how much time and suffering you go through with them- so! after 5 years of loyalty to asics, i shed the stability control and went with the lighter [mizuno wave rider 12's], and... so far so good!

03] finally dusted off my old garmin forerunner to start timing my runs in an attempt to pressure me into shaving of some unwanted minutes from my runs. sadly i averaged ~30 seconds slower per mile than last year, and ~1.5 minutes slower per mile than a couple years ago.
ALTHOUGH... i suppose that's a bit of apples and oranges considering how much hillier this area is than the beach trails in cali. i did manage a 37. 39 5-miler on the treadmill last week, so hopefully i'm a bit closer to my peak than garmin suggests.
on the bright side, with such slow times, i'm really looking forward to my times plummeting over the next ~4 months of training. here was today's out-and-back route...


04] and last but not least- my brand-new custom marathon training schedule! i'm sure i'll be doing a bit of tinkering with it after seeing how my legs respond to the mileage, but here it is so far: [2010 LA MARATHON TRAINING SCHEDULE]

... that's it for now!, patenaude

2010 LA MARATHON training...

So! I've decided to FINALLY OFFICIALLY starting to train for next year's LA MARATHON on Nov. 1st.
After managing a weak 10-15 miles a week since Lily's birth [super tough finding the time to run with a newborn]], Jen and I are finally starting to get serious about building our base mileage- I was actually able to sneak in 22 miles this week...

I started last Sunday with this 6.5-miler [my first >5 mile run THIS YEAR!] with the hounds...


And then took another step towards getting serious by logging these somewhat hilly 5.5 miles the next day- Yes- QUITE tame compared to the height of my training but it's a [re]start...


... followed by a couple more of my normal 5-milers with the hounds later in the week, and ramping up to this 8-mile course to start next week's schedule...


I'm hoping to start my official training with a 10-miler on the 1st up into Juanita.

My next SERIOUS priority is incorporating some speed work to get my times back down- I might have to rely on the gym for due to the difficulty of swinging that type of stuff on the hills of Kirkland, but it's worked in the past so- that's that.


That's all,
Patenaude

NEW ROUTES...

in an attempt to get back into a more consistent running schedule, while still spending some time with lily in the mornings, ive started running from work a bit more during lunch. and my go-to 5-mile route is already getting a bit old, so here are a couple of new routes i'm adding to my repertoire to keep things interesting...



... still _considerably_ slower than just a couple years ago, but i'm really looking forward to getting back to boston-qualifying speed in the next year or so- maybe not another 3:07, but hopefully low enough for the male 35+ 3:15:00 that will be applicable next year.

... patenaude

6ish-mile kirkland route...

dusting off one of my old "out-and-back" routes in the process of ramping back up on my mileage...


... off with the hounds!

... patenaude

new kirkland 5.5 mile route...

trying to start increasing my mileage a bit from 3 days @ 5 miles... starting off with a simple .5 mile bump on this new route...

still CONSIDERABLY slower than i used to be [& _WAY_ off 3-hour marathon shape], but will hopefully be able to maintain a respectable speed over the next few months as we welcome patenaude junior onto the planet, in case we end up running new york @ the end of the year & possibly another.

... patenaude