Last Long Skate Before Marathons

Hayward is next Saturday and St. Paul is the following Sunday.

Ah...if only I skated one of the marathons this morning. I had a nice, long, slow skate. Close to perfect!

I couldn't help myself and skated 17 miles. I thought I'd have to skip training for the first time in 16 weeks because of rain. The roads were wet when I started but the sprinkles tapered off to nothing by the time I went my first mile. From there on out I just enjoyed the ride. I actually tried something new this morning, I went the other way on my training route.

Here's a few statistics I've been logging these past 16 weeks:

• Total Training Miles Logged - 402
• Body Weight Lost - 24 lbs
• Average Pace over long skates - 15 mph
• Best Mile Trial - 3:23 minutes
• Longest Sprint at (roughly) 80% effort - 5 minutes
  
• Top speed (on roughly a 20% decline) - 34 mph

I will skate two more times this week just to stay loose. I will do whatever I have to feel like I did this morning. Three key focus areas this week: 1) Sleep, 2) Carbs 3) Stretching.

24.3 Miles

I crawled into bed last night at 10:48 and rolled around for another half hour - ya'know how you are so tired and can't get to sleep? The reason for staying up so late is that I took my three oldest to visit some other families at a group camping event. Even though I slept in until 6:45 a.m. I was in my skates rolling out my driveway at 7:15. As I skated the first blocked I settled in my mind that I would take it easy and only do 20 today.

My sweet spot is between 9 miles and 15. My whole attitude changes, my whole body loosens up and I feel like a million. At 14 miles I made a deal with myself that I was in for another 10.

I finished 24.2 miles in 1 hour and 44 minutes. Here is the route.

Right Now I Love Intervals

Completed!

• 10 miles total distance
• 40 minutes
• 6 Intervals
• Last interval was for one full minute! (Only could do 30 seconds up until now)
  
• Burned 840 calories (based on heart rate monitor)
  
• Officially down 20 lbs since starting training
• No pain and no worsening of blister
  

Long Skate Route In New Skates

I skated 17.5 miles yesterday. Click here to see the route. The whole thing lasted 1.5 hours but the first 30 minutes was really slow as I worked out the pressure points from the new skates. The last hour though I averaged 14.5 mph.

The new skates were fantastic!

The New Inline

I plan on skating two marathons this year. I also plan on buying a new pair of skates.

Ever heard of Landroller? I am not sold on the value to a marathon skater but I am intrigued by the design and features that seem to solve a few problems with traditional inline skates.

I think you will see inline skating make a big comeback in the next two years with more and more recreational skaters sliding into Landrollers. The skate won best product of the year award in 2005 but suffered in 2006 from a large voluntary product recall. This year could be big for Landrollers with Olympian Apolo Ohno endorsing the product line.

I am happy because my wife said she'd try skating in Landrollers.