Where did my time go???

Actually, I know exactly where it went. I have always wanted to teach at the college level and was offered the opportunity to teach an online course at the local community college this fall. Thinking this may be a foot in the door, I jumped at the chance and, what started out as one course, quickly turned into three full sections (78 students) of one subject area.

It is both a blessing and a hindrance. It is a blessing because I am enjoying teaching in the online format and the money I earn will enable me to finally buy a nice road bicycle. (I’ve got my eye on the new Trek 1600). However, all of the hours it takes is making it a hindrance to my focus on training for the toughest task I have ever taken on in my life – marriage (no, just joking honey) – THE MARATHON. (It’s also seriously cutting into my blogging.)

The 14.2 miler race took a lot more out of me than I had planned. I only ran once the week after and took a few more days last week to get on schedule. I think the rest did me some good but my ankle and foot still don’t seem 100%. I can’t afford to take any more time off as I am already behind schedule. Hopefully, the mileage I got in for the 14.2 mile race will help as I jump up in the weekly totals. I’ll have to give it a shot if I am going to manage the distance of a marathon!

I ran just under 20 miles last week. With all the time off it seemed harder than normal. I went 7 ½ miles for the long run, which seemed more like 12. But there were not any added pains to my legs or feet and I am starting to fill motivation ease back in today. My marathon plan includes jumping up to 31 miles this week with a 12-mile long run on Saturday. I will work up to 35 miles and a 15-miler the next week and then start alternating long runs of a half-marathon distance with extended runs reaching 22 miles three weeks before the marathon.

I will try to post my marathon plan later tonight and hope some of you can give me some feedback. Lately, Blogger has not been letting me upload pictures or images of any kind. I don’t know if I am close to my limit in storage space or what. If it doesn’t work, I will type it in another blog entry later in the week. I have some speed work tomorrow and plan to blog much more about training for the first marathon in my life!