Hitting the Halfway Mark! Strava vs. Garmin data.....

So I'm about halfway through with marathon training..... I'm honestly scared to write out how I'm feeling because I don't want to jinx anything, and I sure as heck don't want to take anything for granted.... So far I have done long runs of 14.5, 16.8, 18, and 15 miles.  This week has been a step down week (long run still was 15 miles)  and next week I have my first 20 miler on the schedule...

Going into the 2nd half of this training cycle, I will be alternating between heavy volume/lower volume weeks. Next week I will be shooting for 50 miles!!!  A few months ago that sounded insane.  But, last week I finished the week with 47.8 miles, and in one 7 day span I ran 49.8 miles....Suddenly 50 miles seems possible.....

Again I don't want to take anything for granted.  I just want to trust the process, put my head down, and do the work.....

Training updates since my last post

Saturday 9/26: 5.1 miles at lunchtime.  The weather was hot. I ran this at an easy pace 9:20 average pace

Here's my carb loading from Saturday night.

This was the first burritto. Spanish rice, pinto beans, and  home made tortillas.
The ultimate comfort food!!  I didn't use any animal fats so this
meal is vegan.

When I first went vegitarian, I was making a lot of pizza and hummus on the weekends, we've kind of become burnt out on pizza so we are switching it up, with tortialls and tacos until we get sick of those.


Sunday 9/27 : 10 mile tempo workout--I had been worried about some hamstring tightness in my left leg earlier in the week...  I was also feeling tired from my 18 mile long run from Wed.  I decided to split my tempo workout into 2 sets of 3 miles at 10-15 seconds below goal pace.  For my goal pace I'm trying to hit 8:00 per mile for the marathon distance....  I was just hoping that my splits would be below 8:30.  I ran two miles to warm up and then I got the workout started. After the workout I ran another mile to cool down. Here's the data:

Monday 9/28-   For the last ten days in a row, the Las Vegas weather reporters have been telling us the same white lie over and over again...
" It looks like, this will be the last day of the year that we will see 100 degree temperatures"....

 7 mile run, I ran this at recovery pace. It was a warm morning, and I had the day off from work.  I left the kiddos with grandma and I went for a nice relaxed run.  I stopped about halfway through to buy a bottle of Gatorade...I almost didn't stop because I had some water left in my handheld.  But, man I was so glad that  I did stop,  Heat stress can sneak up on you so quickly, you will be feeling fine one minute and then the next things can go south.    I ended up using the rest of the water in my hand held to dump over my head and face while running, while I sipped on Gatorade.
Here's the data

That night I had some beet, carrot, celery juice for recovery

Tueseday 9/29 Rest

I'm trying to be more creative with the vegan cooking.  I made this really great vegetable stew and I served it over brown rice and quinoa.

The sauce was really thick and rich (I used a lot of olive oil)

Wednesday 9/30- 15 miles with a fast finish.  I chose this route  on purpose.

I started near Cornerstone Park, and
I ran a route with two out and back sections.

 I felt like running some hills, and since I had done my last two long runs at Sunset Park I wanted a change of scenery as well.   I ran a few miles uphill, then a few miles downhill, then uphill, and the last four miles were a nice downhill ride.  I wanted to push the pace at the end a little bit.  I'm going to post both Garmin and Strava data... Because I love data!!!  Well I also want to be transparent in my training.... Stava over estimated my run or Garmin underestimated the run.  I have a feeling that Stava may have been off because mile 12 was fast but not that fast.

View of the elevation for funsies

It was also a pretty warm morning, I ran the first six miles, and then I stopped briefly by my car to pick up my water.  I only ran with one bottle of water, and I was trying to be conservative and nurse that bottle the rest of the run.  I brought my energy chews in my wrist pocket, but I was having a heck of a time trying to pull them out of the stupid pocket.   This run, felt great.....But again, I don't want to get too confident..

After my run  I treated myself to a Diet Coke, Gatorade with Chia Seeds, and a Recovery Smoothie.

Thursday: 4 miles recovery at Cornerstone Park.  Today the daytime high was finally 96 degrees!!!

Friday:  I ran 2.2 miles easy this morning, and at lunch time I headed out for 4 more miles... I ended up doing some strides at the end of the run.  I also did a very short circuit training routine for upper and lower body.  These were the exercises that I did:

Bench Press
One armed rows,
Single leg Bulgarian split squats

The second set of exercises:
Step ups onto a bench with a knee lift
Incline Push ups
Regular Push ups
Step ups onto a bench with a back leg raise.

The one thing I have noticed since ramping up my mileage is that I am losing some of my upper body strength.  I'm not too worried about it for now.  I know that my high mileage is a temporary thing and I hope to get back into the weight room more after marathon training ends.

Well that's all I've got for now.  Thanks for reading!