Weeks 48 and 47 wrap-up...better late than never

Life, as it often does, seems to have inserted itself into my little blogging schedule and has put me a bit behind my normal updates--could just be my fault by taking vacations and road-tripping back to Iowa too often, but I prefer to blame it on the insanity that is the real world. At this point, though, it seems I'm doing a decent job of balancing real life with training..although truth be told, this past weekend about pushed me over the edge (more to come on that in a following blog entry). So far, I've only missed about 6 miles in my marathon training program...which I justified by the fact that I hiked about 19.5 miles instead--seemed like a fair trade.

I need to get back into a cross-training habit--sort of let that slide over the past couple of weeks. I'm hoping I can start working back into a cycling mode at least once or twice a week and continue to hit my swim sessions at least once a week--cross-training seems to be the first thing to fall off in my training (which is probably OK, I guess). Also, need to hit the weights again--hoping perhaps to kick start that this week with at least one strength session and then get back into a routine next week. The only kicker...the longer the runs get, the more time they take--funny how that works...

Here's the roll-up for Week 48...

Run: 4:02:41 / 20.43 miles
Bike: Big fat 0 again
Swim: Ditto with the bike
Strength: Make it three goose eggs...
Other (Hiking): ~9:30:00 / ~19.5 miles / ~3000 ft total elevation change

And for Week 47...

Run: 5:57:28 / 36.54 miles
Bike: Still nada
Swim: Still nada
Strength: 0:20:00 (all core)

Goals for Week 46:
1. Work in a cross-training session (since I swam Monday morning and it's now Tuesday night, seems like I can check that one off)
2. Maintain my HR at 142 or less during non-pace runs
3. Get at least 7 hours sleep each night
4. Complete the Grand Rapids Half Marathon on Sunday and have fun doing it
5. Daily stretching of both IT bands

As always, bring it on...