WEEKLY SUMMARY (December 23-29): 50 miles (87.5% E, 8% M, and 4.5% I paces)
  Sunday: 13 miles at 7:07/mi. (last four miles in 6:52, 6:46, 6:46, 6:45)
  Monday: 5 miles at 7:36/mi.
  Tuesday: 8 miles at 7:14/mi.
  Wednesday: off
  Thursday: 8 miles at 7:19/mi.
  Friday: 8 miles at 7:24/mi. in Raleigh
  Saturday: 2.75 E, 3 x (1200m I at 6:11/mi. avg. + 800m E), 1.5 E in Atlanta (8 miles total)

This week I managed to cover 50 miles, in spite of taking a day off, and to get in the two non-easy runs that I hoped to do. Sunday's run was an encouraging sign that running a tolerable marathon in 12 (now 11) weeks might not be too ambitious. After 9 miles I was averaging 7:15/mi. before I kicked it down to 3:00 marathon pace or below for the final 4 miles. It wasn't easy but felt smooth running at that faster pace. By halfway through my run on Tuesday afternoon (Christmas day), I felt like I wanted to speed up to marathon pace again but resisted. The next day's weather was gross: cold and raining hard all day. I needed to finish some work before heading off to a conference anyway, so I took the day off. On Thursday I was just able to run easy again before driving to Raleigh, NC, whose extensive trail system I was able to explore a small portion of the following morning. Then I hopped back in the car and drove to Atlanta, where my conference is. Looking at the map of downtown Atlanta, I discovered a park with a half-mile oval path about two miles from my hotel. So I planned to do an interval workout there. The path turned out to be crushed gravel, and it had rained the night before, which left the footing on the path somewhat uneven. When I showed up on Saturday morning it was still raining lightly, windy, and colder than I expected Atlanta to be (high 30's). The result was that again I had an underwhelming interval workout in the south, but at least this time it wasn't a complete failure. It was just slow. I couldn't even get going faster than my current tempo pace for the second interval, but then for some reason on the third one I managed to run 6:00/mi. pace. The conditions can be to blame only for part of this. I'm also just not used to running faster than tempo pace for more than a quarter mile and need to keep working on this. So I'm considering doing another 1200m interval workout next week (maybe with 4 instead of 3 intervals) instead of a 400m repetition workout, since that's the only type of workout that I haven't been able to get at least a handle on since the MCM. Some people talk about speed endurance as something different from endurance, and maybe this is what they mean. Right now I'm very strong running at my easy pace and pretty strong at my marathon pace, but as the pace descends from there my endurance drops off more rapidly than it should. Anyway, I'd also like to do a longer run next week, maybe 16 miles or so, possibly not incorporating any marathon pace this time. I registered for a 5k race on Sunday 1/6, but after that I'll get back to marathon pace, 400m repetitions, and tempos. Once my travels and the holidays wrap up in the next few days, it'll be time for the long, cold, and dark winter to really set in (if it's going to this year, unlike last). But since December wasn't wintry at all (I ran in shorts more often than not in December), that leaves only two potentially wintry months before March. I have some trail shoes that I wear only for running in snow, and I look forward to getting to use them soon.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (December 16-22): 50 miles (90% E, 8% T, and 2% I paces)
  Sunday: 3 E, 1 x (1200m I + 800m E + 500m I), 1.5 E in Florida (6.1 miles total)
  Monday: 8.2 miles at 7:25/mi. in Florida
  Tuesday: 6.7 miles at 7:22/mi. in Florida
  Wednesday: 2 E, 4 x 1 mile T at 6:18/mi. (1 min.), 2 E in Florida (8 miles total)
  Thursday: 6 miles at 7:24/mi. back in DC
  Friday: 7 miles at 7:23/mi.
  Saturday: 8 miles at 7:26/mi.

Finally, a week with no days off and cracking 50 miles. Not everything went to plan this week, though. On Sunday, my first full day in Longboat Key, Florida, I tried and failed to do my first VO2 max interval workout in some time. I attempted to do 3 x 1200m I (800 E) in 4:15-18 for the 1200m, which is low 5:40's pace. But the 96% humidity on Longboat Key left me huffing and puffing after only 400m and I only managed to cover 1200m in 4:27.5, which is 5:56/mi. pace. I started a second interval but aborted after just over 400m. My easy runs over the next couple of days confirmed that the humidity and sun were largely to blame this, especially since I had just come from cool and dry DC. But on Wednesday the weather was mercifully a bit cooler, and perhaps I had acclimated a bit by then. I managed with little difficulty the basic tempo interval workout that I had been doing before the MCM, then hopped on a plane back to DC. The plan had been to run a 5k club race on Saturday, but several converging factors led me to skip it: I didn't really feel like racing, there was a high wind warning and the race course was very exposed, and my son came down with a cold the night before. So I ended up doing three easy runs in a row at the end of the week. Next week I hope at least to do a medium-long run and to attempt an interval workout a second time. Since I've now done a couple of repetition workouts and one tempo, that will put me back on track towards establishing a regular pattern that incorporates all four of those elements. Soon I hope to be doing something like a (medium-)long run, a tempo (or marathon pace) run, and a track (i.e., interval or repetition) workout each week, with shorter races replacing the track workout and longer (up to half-marathon) races replacing the tempo run about every third week. I'll have to be flexible for the next couple of weeks, because of the holidays and another trip (this time a road trip to Atlanta via Raleigh). But the goal is to get in each type of workout so that they begin to build on one another and so that, after New Year's, I can establish a more regular pattern. Right now I'm still hoping to do the full instead of the half marathon in mid-March, which is only 12 weeks away. And I was accepted in the lottery for the Cherry Blossom 10-miler three weeks after that. So if I start getting serious now, then I'll have some fun races ahead of me beginning in early Spring. But my attitude right now is the same as it was right after the MCM: I want to train for the long term, not for any specific races. I want to establish a more balanced routine that will enable me to improve at every distance from 5k through the marathon. I'm thinking of running some short race or other the week of January 6-12, depending on weather - possibly the BRATS Frozen 5k on 1/6 where last year I set my current 5k PR, such as it is. Then, between the half-marathon on January 27 and the marathon on March 16, I'll probably run one or two shorter races TBD - possibly including the GW Classic 10k on 2/17. Anyone local who reads this is welcome to sway me towards one race or another, and of course to join me at any of them.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (December 9-15): 43 miles (85% E, 11.5% 8k, and 3.5% R paces)
  Sunday: 2 easy, 8k race in 30:30 (see below), 2 easy (9 miles total)
  Monday: 6 miles at 7:28/mi.
  Tuesday: 7 miles at 7:20/mi.
  Wednesday: 2.5 E, 6 x (400m R in 79 + 400m E), 2.5 E (8 miles total)
  Thursday: 7 miles at 7:19/mi.
  Friday: 6 miles at 7:29/mi.
  Saturday: off (traveling)

Another low mileage week, this time because I didn't manage to fit in a run around traveling to Florida on Saturday. But end-of-semester weariness set in at the end of this week anyway, so I didn't mind the day off. I recovered fine from the 8k race last weekend and had another good repetition workout on Wednesday, which again left me feeling better the next day. Running the quarters in 79 seconds, the same time as two weeks ago when I did 4 intervals, was much less difficult than last time and my form was significantly less bad. Whether this workout will pay other dividends besides improving my form a little remains to be seen. I need and intend to start rotating in VO2 max interval and tempo workouts as well, but all this takes time and I need two easy days between such workouts. Now that my semester is over, I hope to get more serious about establishing the balanced training routine that I wrote about after the MCM. I will be traveling for part of this coming week and then again the next week, though. I'll do what I can around that and keep trying, at least, to avoid taking days off and to get a few more miles in each week.

JINGLE ALL THE WAY 8K (race report):

This race is on the same course in downtown DC as the St. Patrick's Day 8k in March, and I've done both several times. Every time I've run it, my Garmin has measured the course at or just over 5 miles, perhaps because of the wide avenues downtown. The course is mostly flat except for a small hill from the end of the first mile through roughly the first third of the second mile, which you then run back down. The main feature of the course that slows one down are the turn-arounds, of which there are four, including two in close succession at the top of the hill just mentioned. Going into this race, my "8k" PR was 30:51 from the last time I ran the course in March 2012. Since tons of superfast runners show up for this race, I wasn't foolish enough to imagine that I could come anywhere close to winning or even to running with the leaders briefly. My goal was to break 30 minutes, or at least to beat my previous PR. I tried to run the race as if I were doing a 5k and trying to hold a 5:58 average pace, and then I just hoped that after 5k competitiveness and guts would kick in to help me maintain or lower that pace for another two miles. Basically, I stuck to my plan through 5k but slowed down after that. Here are my paces for each mile, next to those for the last time I ran the course (but the times don't add up perfectly because the distances are not exactly the same, depending on how well or poorly I ran the tangents):

           12/9/12   3/11/12

mile 1 - 5:58        5:58

mile 2 - 6:05.5     6:11

mile 3 - 5:55        6:09

mile 4 - 6:18        6:17

mile 5 - 6:11        6:16

finish  - 30:30      30:51

My pace through 5k was 5:59, just a hair slower than my goal. I can blame the weather both for being slightly under my goal pace at 5k and partly for slowing down after that, because a little before 5k we hit a moderate headwind that we ran into for much of mile 4, which (like mile 5) also included a turn-around. Before hitting that headwind my pace for mile 3 was in the high 5:40's, but even the 5:55 split I ended up with for mile 3 accounts for most of the difference between my finishing time in this race and in the race last March. The wind may have been at my back for part of mile 3, but I think the main difference is that I was able to conserve more energy (and run slightly faster) on the hill and the turn-arounds in mile two, and then discharge that energy in mile 3, simply because I'm in slightly better shape than I was in March. Maybe I could have broken 30 or gotten closer to it with better weather - besides the wind, it had stopped raining shortly before the race and was oddly muggy for December. But such speculation aside, my actual performance shows that I'm slightly stronger in miles 2 and 3 than I was last Spring, but after 3 miles I remain as weak as I was before at this sort of pace. It's a small PR, which means that complaints are not allowed. But it's still disappointing that I haven't made more significant gains in 9 months, even if I was focusing on the marathon for most of that time. With some more balanced training, I should be able to run faster at this and similar distances soon. I'm starting to think that 6:00/mi. pace is just a kind of psychological barrier for me. If winter weather continues to hold off for a while longer, I may test that hypothesis in a 5k or two by starting out with and trying to hold onto a pace that's much faster. 

WEEKLY SUMMARY (December 2-8): 47 miles (87% easy and 13% 10k paces)
  Sunday: 2 E, 10k race in 40:42 (see report below), .8 E (9 miles total)
  Monday: 6 miles at 7:24/mi.
  Tuesday: off
  Wednesday: 13 miles at 7:24/mi.
  Thursday: 6 miles at 7:20/mi.
  Friday: 7 miles at 7:21/mi.
  Saturday: 6 miles at 7:34/mi.

Again I took a day off this week, but still I managed to get a little more than minimum mileage in thanks to a mid-week medium-long run. After Sunday's 10k, which I discussed in my previous post, I recovered well on Monday but had an unrelated stomach problem that prevented me from running on Tuesday. I still felt puny on Wednesday but could manage 13 miles at easy pace well enough. The rest of the week involved ordinary easy runs, with Saturday's extra easy because of another race the following day. So, running-wise, this was a pretty uneventful week between races. I'm quite busy with work right now but am eager, when possible, to quit slacking with running and get back into some more serious training. Next week I hope, once more, to avoid taking any days off, to get back over 50 miles for the week, and to do two quality workouts in addition to the 8k race on Sunday.

DC ROAD RUNNERS CLUB BREAD RUN 10K (race report):

This race marks the beginning of a new attitude toward racing for me. My goal now is to win, rather than just to run some particular time. If I can't win, then my back-up goal is to place as highly as possible. The idea is to use competition to spur me on to running faster and to dictate my pacing strategy (along with how I feel, of course) instead of some pre-race plan. Deploying this attitude is difficult at big races in the Washington, DC area, because they draw elite and semi-professional runners with whom I can't possibly compete, although I find running behind them motivating in a different way (when I can see them). But I can let competitiveness drive me at big races in relation to the runners I find around me at a given point. It's easier to deploy this attitude at smaller races, though, which I do have some realistic hope of winning. My plan at this DCRRC race was to stay at the front as long as possible, unless the leaders were obviously much faster than me, in which case I'd let them go and stay with the fastest runners I could possibly imagine keeping up with. Again, the idea is to push myself through competition, and I realize that going out fast and trying to hang on for your life isn't the best pacing strategy for a fast time, because you're likely to drop off and slow way down. But it's a great strategy for testing your limits and trying to push through them.

I started this race knowing nothing about the course except that about half of it was on the C&O Canal towpath, which is a dirt and gravel trail that's mostly flat and straight. The rest of the course was on an asphalt path and, briefly, roads. Immediately before the race, the starter said something about steep hills, mud, and low tree branches, but it was difficult to tell whether this was truth or bravado. I led the race from the start as the course went up a short hill, turned 180 degrees, and then followed an asphalt bike path for a couple miles. One runner was just off my left shoulder and occasionally I could hear at least one other runner behind him, but I never looked back and had no idea how many others were nearby. My first mile split was 6:13 and I felt comfortable. But I must have slowed a bit after that, because the runner on my shoulder decided to pass me and set the pace after 1.5 miles. At that point I realized that I was in a pack of six runners that was stretched out a bit because of the narrow bike path. Our split for mile 2 was 6:17, and I was still doing fine. Then the course turned off the bike path and onto residential streets that sloped gradually downhill. Another runner moved to the front and pushed the pace down to around 6:00, which felt good to me although I knew that I couldn't do it for very long. Soon, though, we were directed to turn off the street and onto a narrow, dirt path that zigzagged down a steep hill. At the bottom of the hill, we crossed a bridge and careened down a tightly curled spiral walkway that zipped us around 2-3 times before throwing us out onto the towpath. By this point I was getting disoriented. I pretty much always run on asphalt or concrete and haven't been running many hills lately. That steep downhill trail, then the weird spiral thing, and now the loose footing on the towpath left me struggling to stay with the lead pack. Just before halfway I started falling back and never regained contact. Another runner, the one who first passed me, also fell back shortly after I did and stayed about 20 feet ahead of me as the pack maintained its pace and receded down the trail ahead of us. The two of us slowed down at roughly the same rate: my split for mile 4 was 6:32, and mile 5 was 6:43. I had lost my drive once winning was no longer a possibility, but what I should have done was pushed until I caught the guy in front of me. Then we could have had a mini-race of our own to the finish. Instead, I just kind of hung on as the course crossed back over the canal after 5 miles and started up a dirt trail as steep as the one we had flown down before. It was so steep that wooden steps had been built into it so that people don't just slide down the dirt. About halfway up the hill, I figured that I wasn't running much faster than I could walk, so I power-walked up the steps for a little while. This enabled the next runner back to make up some ground on me. I waited until he was about 10 feet away before starting to run again, figuring that I could hold him off once the course leveled out. At the top of the hill, we found ourselves on the bike path again, and the guy ahead of me looked to be doing at least as badly as I was. So I set my sights on passing him and holding off the guy who was closing in on me from behind. But in the end I achieved neither. The guy behind me really got moving on the level path and passed me just before the 6 mile mark. Soon he caught the guy ahead of me too, which galvanized him to speed up and try to hold onto his place (which he also failed to do). No doubt I could have dug deeper and put in more of a fight at the end, but honestly I quit fighting when I lost touch with the lead pack miles earlier, and that steep climb near the end was not the sort of thing I'm used to encountering in a 10k. I coasted across the finish line in seventh place in 40:42 - a time that reflects the nature of the course. It was at least as much a trail run as a road race.

So this was a learning experience. Next time, especially if I don't know the course, I'll try running with the lead group without setting the pace from the start. Even if I had done that today, it wouldn't have helped me deal with that steep off-road downhill and spiral thing that forced me out of my rhythm, which I couldn't get back again on the towpath, in part because of the loose footing. I don't deal well with pace or course changes that break my rhythm, or with trails for that matter. But still, in hindsight I think I could have just suffered for a little while longer in order to stay with the pack and see whether I could find a new rhythm on the towpath at that pace instead of slowing down.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (Nov. 25 - Dec. 1): 40 miles (97.5% E and 2.5% R paces)
  Sunday: 7 miles at 7:26/mi.
  Monday: 2.5 E, 4 x (400R at 79 + 400E), 2.5 E (7 miles total)
  Tuesday: 7 miles at 7:22/mi.
  Wednesday: 7 miles at 7:21/mi.
  Thursday: off
  Friday: 8 miles at 7:16/mi.
  Saturday: 4 miles at 7:33/mi.

Life prevented me from achieving my main goal for this week of not taking any days off. On Thursday, there was nothing wrong with me physically, but I just couldn't fit in a run and unfortunately had a tempo run planned for that day. With a race the following Sunday, and remembering the hole I recently dug myself into by doing workouts too frequently, I decided to skip the tempo run altogether instead of doing it on Friday. Then I did only a short and slower run on Saturday, because I couldn't manage to run until afternoon and had a race the next morning. So for the second week in a row I've now run what I consider the bare minimum weekly mileage (barring injury or, perhaps, marathon recovery). On the positive side, I think I'm getting a lot more out of the miles I do run lately in comparison with before the MCM when I was running as much as twice this volume. My easy runs feel great in this new, faster pace range, and with two days of them in a row I seem able to recover well enough between workouts - at least while my mileage remains low. Monday's repetition workout also felt good. Well, it felt hard and my form was abysmal. But it felt very productive and left me feeling better rather than worn out the next day. A 79 second 400m is 5:18-19/mi. pace, and I took full recoveries (i.e., stood around and stretched for a minute or so) instead of going straight from the recovery lap to the next interval. My bad running form would benefit significantly from doing this workout more often (building up gradually to doing more repetitions). Next week, my main goal is again to avoid taking any days off and to get in around 50 miles. Exactly what runs I do on which days depends on how I recover from Sunday's race, and I'll be careful not to try fitting in too much because I also have a race the following Sunday. One possibility that I'm leaning toward is to do a medium-long run on Wednesday and to do regular easy runs on all the remaining days. Another possibility is to try to fit in another repetition workout mid-week instead, but that may be too much faster running right now with a race on two weekends in a row. We'll see.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (November 18-24): 40 miles (92% easy and 8% 5k paces)

  Sunday: off

  Monday: 6.2 miles at 7:26/mi.

  Tuesday: off

  Wednesday: 5.2 miles at 7:25/mi.

  Thursday: 3 easy, 5k race in 18:44, 2.5 easy (8.6 miles total)

  Friday: 7 miles at 7:34/mi.

  Saturday: 13 miles at 7:28/mi.

I did indeed dig myself into a bit of a hole last week. After taking Sunday off this week, I still felt pretty bad on Monday and wasn't up to doing a tempo run. Then I woke up on Tuesday clearly fighting off a cold and didn't want to get out of bed, let alone run. On Wednesday I felt better but out of shape when running, and I kept things short because of the race on Thursday, which turned out ok. My mile splits from the race tell the story: 5:59, 5:47, and 6:06. I started out fast, maybe in the 5:30's, because I haven't run a 5k in months and got somewhat carried away by the masses who sprint for about half a mile and then jog the rest of the way. I too slowed down early once my body absorbed the fact that I wasn't going to stop very soon, as I had done in the only short intervals I've run at that sort of pace anytime recently (last week). But after I passed the first mile marker in 5:59, it became apparent that I had slowed down too conservatively and could hold a faster pace comfortably enough. This was something new. I don't think I've ever sped up or run that fast (5:47) in the second mile of a 5k. My strength from marathon training seems already to have translated a bit into endurance at higher speeds. But soon I was reminded that when I slow down in a 5k, it's almost always because of stomach discomfort. That once familiar sour ache revisited me in the third mile and prevented me from running under 6:00 pace. I couldn't even manage a finishing kick. But that was nothing new and doesn't worry me. The second mile, on the other hand, was an encouraging sign that I'm in a different place than before I switched to marathon-mode early this past summer, despite my setback earlier in the week. Perhaps I can hold 6:00 pace for longer without setting off my stomach by trying to run faster? Maybe I'll test that hypothesis in next weekend's 10k race. But back to summarizing this past week: on Friday I was somewhat stiff, especially in the hip flexors, which have been tightening up on me a lot lately, perhaps because I kicked my easy pace up a notch. But on Saturday I managed to get through my planned medium-long run in spite of very windy and suddenly colder weather. Next week I want, above all, to avoid taking days off and to keep steadily putting in some miles. I won't do a medium-long run because I want to do two workouts before next weekend's 10k: a short repetition workout with a few 400's at a faster pace than I've yet managed (ideally in the 5:20's), and 4 x 1 mile tempo intervals - with two easy days between these workouts (to avoid falling back into the hole I dug last week). So I might run about 50 miles total next week. 

WEEKLY SUMMARY (November 11-17): 53 miles (89.5% E, 5.5% T, 3% I, and 2% R paces)

  Sunday: 6 miles at 7:20/mi.

  Monday: 2.5 E, 4 x (400m R at 84=5:41/mi. + 400m E), 2.5 E (7 miles total)

  Tuesday: 7 miles at 7:25/mi.

  Wednesday: 2.5 E, 3 x 1 mile T at 6:18/mi. (1 min.), 1.5 E (7 miles total)

  Thursday: 7 miles at 7:24/mi.

  Friday: 2.5 E, 3 x (800m I at 2:51=5:47/mi. + 400m E), 2.5 E (7 miles total)

  Saturday: 12 miles at 7:23/mi.

Let me finally explain these abbreviations, which I take from Daniels' Running Formula. "E" means easy/long pace (which I sometimes write as "E/L"). Descending to faster paces in order: I also sometimes use "M" for marathon race pace, though not this week. "T" means lactate threshold or tempo pace. "I" means VO2 max interval pace, which is around 5k race pace and is used in intervals from 800-1600m, 1200m being my preferred distance for workouts at this pace. "R" means repetition pace, which is supposed to be faster still (Daniels says about 6 seconds per 400m faster than I pace), and which I use mainly in 400m intervals. This week I use "R" loosely for the best pace I could muster at this stage for 400m intervals, even though it's barely faster than my I pace for some 800's a few days later. Finally, when I write something like (1 min.) at the end of my description of some sort of intervals, as I do for Wednesday this week, that means I rest (i.e., stand around) for 1 min. between those intervals. When I don't write that, then I run the intervals continuously without stopping. So on Monday and Friday this week, I didn't stop running between intervals but used the 400m easy jog to recover between the hard intervals. "E" is thus used loosely too. I tend to jog those "easy" recovery laps around 8:15-8:45/mi. pace. My cool down after a workout, which I also mark "E," is not that much slower than my standard easy pace but is still a little bit slower: in the range of 7:30-8:00 these days, depending on how worn out I am. I usually do the warm up miles before a workout in the same pace range that I run the first 2-3 miles of a standard easy run, though before a race my warm up tends to be a bit slower.

This week I did the right sorts of workouts but didn't take enough easy days between them, and as a result I'm a bit tight and worn down now. Monday's workout felt good. I didn't look at my watch during the hard intervals but concentrated on getting the right form and feeling. I also didn't decide in advance how many 400's to do but stopped after my pace lagged on the fourth one. Even though I wasn't running all that fast and didn't do many intervals, I was tired afterwards and should have begun taking two easy days between workouts at that point. Instead, I was back out doing tempo intervals on Wednesday, which was a windy day. I prefer not to do tempo runs on the track and often (including on Wednesday) do these tempo intervals on the same asphalt trail that I do most of my easy runs on, because I can run a full mile (with a couple turns) in one direction, then turn around and run back. When it's windy, running one direction is typically much harder than running the opposite direction, since the wind usually comes from the north (or, sometimes at warmer times of year, the south) and this trail runs north-south. It's also slightly uphill running north, so a strong wind from the north makes running that direction particularly tough. Anyway, I felt good enough but stopped after 3 intervals in order to avoid running uphill into the wind again. I'm glad I did, because on Thursday I woke up feeling tight. Even though I still felt tight on Friday, I went ahead and did another workout that day, thinking again that these workouts aren't hard enough to warrant two days of rest. The tightness in my muscles wasn't a problem during Friday's workout. I was able to do a few 800's at a respectable 5k race pace, but my huffing and puffing showed that my oxygen transport system hasn't been taxed at that level for some time. Saturday's run was nothing special: just a slightly longer easy run. But afterwards my muscles felt alarmingly tired. I'm prepared to take a day off tomorrow (Sunday) if necessary, something I've been hoping to avoid except in emergencies. In any case, it's now clear that I need two easy days between workouts and that I should have been doing that this week. If I haven't dug myself into too deep a hole, then my plan for this coming week is to do tempo intervals (4 x 1 mile) on Monday, and then a 5k race on Thursday (Thanksgiving), with easy runs every other day, including a medium-long run of 13 miles on Saturday. I hadn't originally been planning to do this 5k race but decided last week that I'm far enough along to benefit from doing it in place of an interval workout. I did the race last year and want to support the cause anyway, so I may as well show up and run instead of running around a track by myself. I don't expect to run a fast time but figure that I could benefit from absorbing the shock of a 5k race (for the first time in nearly 5 months) and from using the thrill of the race environment to help me try to hold whatever pace I'm dumb enough to start out with. If nothing else, it'll be a useful demonstration of how much more work I need to do to get into 5k shape, as well as a good initial workout attempting to hold some sort of fast pace for longer than I have been trying to do. 

WEEKLY SUMMARY (November 4-10): 48 miles (94% E, 4% T, and 2% I paces)

  Sunday: 6 miles at 7:28/mi.

  Monday: 7.2 miles at 7:24/mi.

  Tuesday: 6 miles at 7:26/mi.

  Wednesday: 2 E, 2 x 1 mile T @ 6:26/mi. avg., 1.2 E (5.2 miles total)

  Thursday: 6 miles at 7:36/mi.

  Friday: 2.7 E, 2 x (800m I @ 3:01 avg. + 400m E), 2.7 E (6.9 miles total)

  Saturday: 10.7 miles at 7:18/mi.

This turned out to be a fine recovery/transition week - much better than it would have been had I run the second half of the marathon faster. I just ran by feel for the first few days of the week, and I felt pretty good after a week of mostly rest. I ended up running around 10 seconds/mile faster than my typical easy pace before the marathon, but that's to be expected with rest, shorter runs, and no workouts. On Wednesday and Friday I did baby workouts to ease into just a smattering of faster running. It was quite windy both days (as well as Thursday), which added to the unpleasantness of trying to start running faster just a week and a half after a marathon. But it went well enough and I successfully erred on the side of caution. Then the weather changed on Saturday: the wind disappeared and it was much warmer.  I felt great extending the sort of easy run from earlier in the week a bit further. It looks like I ran a notch faster on Saturday, but in a way I didn't. On most easy-paced runs I start out slower and gradually speed up over 3-5 miles as I loosen up (without increasing effort). On a 6-7 mile run, that leaves me with only a couple miles at the faster end of my easy range. But on a slightly longer run like Saturday's, most of the run ends up being at the faster end of that range. This time I was pushing a little more than I normally do on an easy run during the last few miles, because I have a shorter easy run planned for Sunday. Next week I plan to continue with smatterings of speed on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with easy runs in between and another medium-long run on Saturday. I should be able to handle doing speedwork that often while the workouts remain light, though I'll have to space them out more when I can handle tougher workouts. On Monday I plan to continue bringing the pace down with some even shorter intervals (or repetitions in Daniels-speak). Friday's 800's at 6:00/mi. pace felt about the way I want 5:20/mi. pace to feel in a month, but I'm not ready to run that fast yet. On Monday I'll do some 400's in maybe the 5:40's. Then Wednesday and Friday will be the same sort of thing as this past week, but with a couple more intervals depending on how I feel: mile repeats at tempo pace on Wednesday (6:20 this time), and 800's on Friday around (or, this time, just under) 6:00 pace. At least that's my thinking now, which I'll adjust if it feels like too much too soon. I'm not much concerned about overall volume. It'll probably drift upwards into the mid-50's next week as the workouts become a little less brief, and I might bump the easy runs up to 7 miles and the medium-long run up to 12 - again, if it feels right. All of this is aimed at getting fast for some December races, the first of which is a 10k in three weeks. My current 10k PR is 37:48, which is 6:04 pace, on a fast course. I should be capable of getting into faster 10k shape now, but three weeks is a bit soon, and the race is not on a fast course as far as I know (not having done it before). For now I'll target challenging my PR, but really that'll be my warm-up race before I expect to be in better form for the races one and three weeks later. I'm strong right now from marathon training, so it's just a matter of doing the right speed workouts to translate that strength into speed that I can maintain for the relevant distance. But working up gradually to the point where I can do those workouts is the tricky part. It's also one of the parts of running I like best, though: the beginning of a training cycle, when the most rapid changes occur from shifting your focus from one kind of training to another. In general, I get a kick out of planning and executing a series of workouts that enable me, on a target date I specify, to do something (in this case, to run a certain distance around a certain pace) that I could not have come close to doing just a short time earlier. It's even more gratifying to make longer-term comparisons (e.g., I just ran a marathon at a faster pace than I could run a 5k three years ago...and was disappointed), which is why taking down my PR at a given distance is always among my goals. Anyway, next week should be another kind of transition toward doing the sort of workouts the following week from which I'll be able to get an idea of the 10k pace I'll be up to on Dec. 2.

POST-MCM PLANS:

A week after the MCM, I'm still bummed but not very banged up. I took a few days off, then ran 4-5 miles very easy for a couple days and took another day (Saturday) off. I feel ready to ease back into the swing of things this coming week. My mind is recovering less quickly than my body, though. As I said at the end of my last post, I don't know whether I can wait until next Fall for another shot at the marathon. So I registered for the Rock 'n Roll USA Marathon in DC on March 16, 2013, which is the current instantiation of what used to be the National Marathon (which I ran in 2011). My original plan had been to focus on speed at shorter distances this coming Spring, as I did last Spring, and then to shift toward longer distances in the Summer on the way to another Fall marathon. But it's not just a desire to run another marathon sooner that has me second-guessing that plan. It's also a desire to train in a more balanced way. Part of what I called marathon malaise a while back is a dissatisfaction with doing primarily one main kind of training all the time. So why shift from one imbalanced training regime to another one that is imbalanced in the opposite direction? I'm putting this too strongly - there are actually good reasons for so-called periodization in training. In my case, last Spring I made significant gains by focusing primarily on speed for the first time. And my underuse of tempo runs prior to late this summer gave me good reason to base my Fall marathon training around them, and that too was a significant step forward for me. But now it's time to integrate all of these elements into a balanced routine. Since I haven't done speedwork for months now, I'll need to focus disproportionately on that for a while in order to get back into it (carefully). That (along with shorter tempos) will be my focus for the next couple months, and I've registered for some shorter races in December as near-term goals. But once I get some speed back online, my plan now is to reduce the speedwork in January to one element in a more balanced routine that gives equal weight to endurance training - i.e., long runs, marathon-pace runs, longer tempos, and higher overall volume. Those endurance elements, starting in January, will build over 12 weeks or so toward the RnR USA Marathon, while the speed-oriented elements (shorter repetitions or hill repeats, longer VO2 max intervals, and ordinary tempo runs or tempo intervals) follow their own trajectory. This will be my first serious attempt at non-periodized training - I've never tried to do all those things at once. It will probably take a fair amount of trial and error before I hit on a way of integrating all those elements that works for me, if I ever do. But I'd like my priority to be trying to make that work, rather than just preparing for some specific race, whether it's the marathon in March or some other race. I plan on racing a lot over the Winter and Spring anyway, because I love and miss it. So there's no reason to overemphasize any particular race.

MARINE CORPS MARATHON (race report):

The MCM course is tricky. It's hilly (up and down) for about the first 9.5 miles and then almost totally flat until the very end, where there's a rude little finishing hill. The obvious strategy for running such a course is to conserve energy during the early hills, then pick up your pace for miles 10-20 and hold on as best you can for the final 10k, the beginning of which is marked by a long bridge over the Potomac known to me most unaffectionately as The Bridge of Horror. But I have never succeeded at deploying this strategy successfully in my now three attempts, because the hills at the beginning take too much out of me and prevent me from establishing a rhythm. Perhaps one simply must run a more significant negative split on this course than I have attempted? This time I aimed to run an even or only slightly negative split and to finish in under 3 hours. I went through the half in 1:30:14 pretty much on track. Up to that point the weather had not been a factor. It was cloudy, about 60 degrees, and windy from the approach of hurricane Sandy, which didn't really set in on the area for another 24 hours or so. But just after halfway, we rounded a bend and were hit with a steady 15-20 mph headwind. We ran straight into the wind for about 2.5 miles, then were blown around by crosswinds for about 3 miles as we circled the exposed National Mall. Mercifully, the wind wasn't too bad on The Bridge of Horror, but shortly afterwards we turned straight into the wind again for the final 3 miles. The windy second half made the course considerably slower than it otherwise would have been for everyone running this year. But the wind turned out not to be my biggest problem. Shortly after halfway, literally within a minute of rounding that bend and hitting the headwind for the first time, I had a sudden and sharp GI pain after eating a gel (my second of the race) and drinking some water. The pain was low down on my left side and was bad enough that I immediately slowed way down and struggled to continue running at all. It's difficult to tell with hindsight how long it lasted. It was probably a sharp pain for 1-2 minutes and then weakened to a duller pain for about the time it took me to run a mile or so. It was gone after less than 10 minutes, but by then I was broken. Over the next few miles, I tried initially to speed up again, then realized that was impossible to sustain, and finally resigned myself to gritting out the rest of the race at a much slower pace. At least I never walked, but I did stop briefly at a water stop the next time I ate a gel in order to make sure that everything went down ok (it did). After averaging 6:53/mi. over the first half, I ran the second half at an average 7:47/mi., finishing in 3:12:17. Here are my 5k splits:


5k 21:39 = 6:58 pace
10k 42:38 (20:59) = 6:45 pace
15k 1:04:04 (21:26) = 6:54 pace
20k 1:25:33 (21:29) = 6:55 pace
25k 1:48:04 (22:31) = 7:15 pace
30k 2:12:09 (24:05) = 7:45 pace
35k 2:35:57 (23:48) = 7:40 pace
40k 3:01:02 (25:05) = 8:04 pace

So this was a disappointing race for me. I was slowed down by two factors outside my control on race day: GI trouble and wind. I suspect that the GI problem may have been caused by something I ate in the day or two before the race, given how low it was - perhaps too many vegetables? In any case, because of those two factors, the race became more a test of grit than of my marathon training and fitness, and it's impossible to know how close I might have come to my goal had the stars aligned differently. But that's the marathon, isn't it? Not having run one in a year, I had forgotten how much sheer grit is involved in the second half. Oddly, that may be what makes me keep coming back to the marathon: that it's so complex and unpredictable. It has almost as much in common with mountain climbing as with running a 10k. I'm not sure that I can wait another year before doing one again.

MARATHON TRAINING SUMMARY

On June 3, I posted the following about my marathon training plan:

"Main goal: to finish in less than 3 hours. (A more specific goal time is TBD later)

Main strategies: 1) Run more, progressing toward around 80 miles per week.

                        2) Emphasize tempo runs and long runs incorporating tempo-pace running.

                        3) Race less: only 3 tune-up races in late Summer and Fall.

Phases: 1) 10 weeks increasing mileage to around 80 miles per week (June 3 - August 11).

            2) 8 weeks emphasizing long tempo workouts (August 12 - October 6).

            3) 3 week taper (October 7 - October 27)."

I go on to say that in accordance with strategy 2) I'll follow the key workouts in Jack Daniels' marathon training plan. I have pretty much done exactly what I planned to do, with the main exception being that I only managed to run 80 miles in a single week. Here are my weekly mileage totals for the 20 weeks prior to the marathon, beginning on June 10, with some notes about how much non-easy pace running I did each week:

Week 20: 60 miles (including 4 miles at tempo pace)

Week 19: 63 miles (including a 4 mile race)

Week 18: 65 miles (including 3.25 miles at tempo pace and a 5k race)

Week 17: 45 miles (all easy)

Week 16: 68 miles (including 3 miles at tempo and 2.25 miles at 5k paces, and lots of hills)

Week 15: 63 miles (including 3 miles at 5k pace, and lots of hills)

Week 14: 72 miles (including 3 miles at 5k and 4 miles at tempo paces, and lots of hills)

Week 13: 45 miles (including 1.5 miles at 5k and 5 miles at tempo paces)

Week 12: 70 miles (including 4 miles at tempo pace)

Week 11: 53 miles (including 6 miles at tempo pace)

Week 10: 70 miles (including a 20k race at marathon pace and 3 miles at tempo pace)

Week 9:   75 miles (including 5 miles at tempo pace)

Week 8:   75 miles (including 4 miles at tempo pace)

Week 7:   40 miles (including 4 miles at tempo pace)

Week 6:   60 miles (including a half-marathon race)

Week 5:   80 miles (including 10 miles at tempo pace)

Week 4:   76 miles (including 3 miles at tempo pace)

Week 3:   40 miles (including a 16.3 mile metric-marathon race at marathon pace)

Week 2:   52 miles (including 8 miles at tempo pace)

Week 1:   41 miles (planned, with 3 miles at tempo pace)

Avg. last 20 weeks: 60.65 miles

Avg. last 16 weeks: 61.25 miles

I started shifting my training toward a marathon focus around 20 weeks out but didn't fully get going until 16 weeks out, once I put a couple more short races behind me. So I include averages for both 20 and 16 weeks. For pretty much this entire period, my 5k training pace has been between 5:45-6:00/mi., my tempo pace has been around 6:20/mi., and my marathon training pace has been around 6:45/mi. I've done most of my easy and long runs in the range of 7:30-8:00/mi.

By August 11, which is the end of week 12 and the date by which I hoped to reach 80 miles, I had reached 72 miles instead. That isn't far off, but it took 7 more weeks to get up to 80 miles, since my workouts became more difficult after August 11 (due to the introduction of long tempos) and it's difficult to increase both mileage and intensity at the same time. As I said in my original post, 80 miles was just a number and I didn't want to fixate on it. Despite slightly lower volume than planned, I still averaged about 10 miles per week more than before my last marathon a year ago, which is a substantial increase. More may have been too much anyway.

Another thing that stands out from this summary are the down-weeks I took about every 3 weeks, as planned. Next time around I might not do that and might instead try to reach a more or less stable high mileage before starting in on the long tempo workouts. But this time around I think it was appropriate, since both those workouts and the higher mileage were new to me, and my body probably needed regular recovery weeks. Next time I may also want to throw in a little bit of running faster than tempo pace even after 12 weeks, though perhaps not as often as weekly, for two reasons. First, it'll help with stride mechanics and efficiency. Second, that's the only way to race a half-marathon around tempo pace. As I learned in the Navy Air-Force Half about a month ago, it's just not possible to run very far at that pace unless I've been doing at least some training at a faster pace. So I'll either need to do only M-pace tune-up races in the lead up to my next marathon, or I'll need to add some regular training at 5k pace or faster.

In general, though, I think this has been a fantastic training cycle for me, however the marathon race itself ends up going. Before this past June, I had never done regular tempo runs, and the last few months have begun to remedy that serious deficiency. I'm not much, if any, faster than I was last Spring, since I haven't focussed on speed. But the longer tempo workouts have increased my strength/endurance substantially, as my tune-up races have shown (especially the metric marathon a couple weeks ago). Whether my weekly volume and long runs have been enough to enable me to sustain that pace through 26.2 miles remains to be seen, but I couldn't dream of even attempting that last Spring. As I said, there are a couple things I might tweak next time around, and after the race I might think of a couple more things. But, in general, I think this is the first time that I've managed to do the right kind of training for a marathon (on my fifth attempt). We'll see how it goes.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (October 14-20): 52 miles (84.6% at E and 15.4% at T paces)

  Sunday: 6 miles at 7:31/mi.

  Monday: 2E, 2 x 2 miles T @ 6:19/mi. (3 min.), 4E (10 miles total)

  Tuesday: 6 miles at 7:38/mi.

  Wednesday: 8 miles at 7:38/mi.

  Thursday: 6E, 2T @ 6:18/mi., 4E, 2T @ 6:18/mi., 2E (16 miles total)

  Friday: off

  Saturday: 6 miles at 7:32/mi.

This week went to plan, except that I took Friday off in order to feel more rested. The mild cold that worried me towards the end of last week was gone by the beginning of this week. Another cold scare worried me at the end of this week, but as I write this (on Sunday) it seems to have passed as well. I felt pretty strong all week and let myself glide a tad faster on my shorter, easy runs. But I intend to reign that in next week. Thursday's run was my last significant effort 10 days out from the marathon. I didn't feel great from the beginning but had no trouble with the tempo segments. By the second one, I was feeling low on energy but stuck it out without eating a gel, at least not until my cool down. Afterwards I wasn't more tired than I'd expect but figured that I should rest up more than usual because of the taper, so I took Friday off and did a short easy run on Saturday. For next week, I've decided that I can't think of a better schedule than Daniels', who gives a daily schedule for the final week before the marathon, whereas every other week on his schedule specifies only the two key workouts and leaves it to you to fill in the remaining days. So here's the plan for October 21-28:

Sunday: 12 miles easy

Monday: 8 easy

Tuesday: 2E, 4 x 3/4 miles T (2 min.), 2E (7 miles total)

Wednesday: 6 easy

Thursday: 4 easy

Friday: off

Saturday: 4 easy

Sunday: marathon

That'll be 41 miles for the final seven days before the marathon. I probably won't write an additional post about next week, except perhaps if I diverge from this plan significantly. Since the weather forecast is predicting warmth and sun this coming week, which may extend to race day on Sunday, I ran yesterday (Saturday) in the early afternoon and will do the same today (Sunday) in order to re-acclimate to bright sun and what warmth there is now. I'll switch back to morning runs at some point during this coming week, though, since running in the middle of the day is not always possible for me on weekdays. The rest of my plan for next week is basically to sleep and eat well, and to try not to let myself get stressed out about anything, especially towards the end of the week. My mind is turning now to the details of the race itself, and how my training over the past few months may have prepared me for it, which I'll discuss in a separate post.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (October 7-13): 40 miles (60% at E and 40% at M paces)

  Sunday: 1 mile warm up, then metric marathon race (see below)

  Monday: off

  Tuesday: 4 miles at 8:05/mi.

  Wednesday: 6 miles at 7:51/mi.

  Thursday: 6 miles at 7:45/mi.

  Friday: off

  Saturday: 7 miles at 7:46/mi.

This week was, as planned, very easy after the marathon-pace tune-up on Sunday. I was pretty sore afterwards and couldn't motivate myself to get out and run in the (relative) cold the next day. I was surprised by how tired and weak I was two days later. By Wednesday I started feeling marginally better, but on Thursday I felt weak again and realized that I was fighting off a cold. So I took Friday off and tried to get as much sleep as possible. I feel ok on Saturday but am still fighting off the cold. My plan for next week depends on how much of a grip this cold gets on me. I'd like to run about 60 miles, with a light tempo workout on Monday and a medium one (my last significant workout of any kind before the marathon) on Thursday. I need to push myself at least some to feel sharp before backing off again the following week. But my first priority right now is making sure that I don't end up with a prolonged cold. So I'm prepared to postpone or modify those workouts, and to lower the overall volume for the week, if necessary. 

ANNAPOLIS STRIDERS METRIC MARATHON (race report):

This was my first time running this 26.2k or 16.3 mile course in Harwood, MD, whose terrain is similar to the Capital Ale House 10-miler in (coincidentally) Hartwood, VA, which I did last year. The race is three weeks before the Marine Corps Marathon, so many and perhaps most people running it were, like me, tuning up for the MCM. The course has beautiful, rural scenery and rolling hills throughout, which become a bit steeper from around 11 miles and include a moderately long but not especially steep uphill from the end of mile 13 into mile 14. The weather wasn't too bad: low 50's and no wind to speak of, though it did start raining lightly when I was around halfway and picked up from there but never rained hard. The race went well for me: my goal was to run marathon pace and I succeeded. My finishing time of 1:49:15 corresponds to a 6:43/mi. pace, but my Garmin put my average pace at 6:46/mi. So either the course was a bit short, or the clouds messed up my Garmin a little. Either way, that's about what I had been thinking my marathon pace should be before my discouraging half-marathon a few weeks ago, after which I scaled back my hopes to the high-6:40's or 6:50. It's encouraging that I felt comfortable running at that pace today on terrain that's more difficult than the MCM course. I started feeling tired around mile 12 when the course got hillier, but I didn't slow down and I think that it was the hills (and the rain) rather than the distance that started wearing on me. I recovered well enough to run the mostly flat mile 16 in 6:29, so clearly I wasn't spent at the finish. Somehow my back, which had been tight for a couple days, didn't bother me during the race at all. So I'm feeling confident going into my taper now and will probably keep the rest of this week easy with whatever mileage feels comfortable.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (September 30 - October 6): 76 miles (96% at E/L and 4% at T paces)

  Sunday: 22 miles at 7:39/mi.

  Monday AM: 4 miles pushing a stroller very slowly (no watch)

               PM: 6 miles at 7:36/mi.

  Tuesday: 9 miles at 7:50/mi. on a treadmill

  Wednesday: 6E, 2T at 6:19/mi. (2 min.), 1T at 6:20/mi., 3E (12 miles total)

  Thursday: 9 miles at 7:55/mi.

  Friday: 10 miles at 7:38/mi.

  Saturday: 4 miles at 7:57/mi.

This final pre-taper week went pretty much to plan. For Sunday's long run I had beautiful, cool, dry weather. Instead of trying to run faster, I focussed on getting my body to metabolize fat better by taking in very little sugar before and during the run. I ran the first half conservatively, averaging 7:48/mi. at halfway, then ate my only gel of the run and started progressively picking up the pace. Soon I realized that I'd have to chose between a) eating another gel and getting down to marathon pace for the final 2-3 miles, or b) not eating another gel, getting down only to MP + 30 seconds or so and then probably bonking a little near the end. I chose b) and did indeed bonk a little, but not so much that I couldn't keep the pace in the 7:20's at the end. That was the first time the weather has allowed me to do a low-fuel long run this season, and I'm very glad to have gotten it in. The weather turned first rainy and then just muggy from Tuesday through Thursday, which caused me to cut back my second quality workout of the week on Wednesday a little. The problem was humidity rather than the tightness in my back and hamstring that I was worried about last week, but by Friday that tightness had come back and I still haven't shaken it. That plus the weather forecast have me a bit worried about tomorrow morning's (Sunday's) metric marathon. A cold front blew over us this afternoon and is supposed to bring rain and much cooler air (upper 40's) by tomorrow morning. If it's windy and rainy, then much cooler air than we're used to could cause already tight muscles to stiffen up further. We'll see how it goes. My plan is to run marathon pace: high 6:40's or 6:50 average. If the weather slows me down, then I'll try to put in that kind of steady effort anyway. It'll be my last hard and sustained effort before the marathon. I have no particular plan for next week except to start resting up, lowering weekly mileage, and shortening workouts. For starters, I'll probably do only a very easy run on Monday and then take Tuesday off.  

WEEKLY SUMMARY (September 23-29): 80 miles (87.5% at E/L and 12.5% at T paces)
  Sunday: 8 miles at 7:37/mi.
  Monday: 2E, 4x1T @ 6:18/mi. (1 min.), 10E, 2x1T @ 6:28/mi. (1 min.), 2E (20 miles total)
  Tuesday: 8 miles at 7:57/mi.
  Wednesday: 10 miles at 7:37/mi.
  Thursday: 8E, 4x1T @ 6:19/mi. (1 min.), 3.8E (15.8 miles total)
  Friday: 9.2 miles at 7:48/mi.
  Saturday: 9 miles at 7:45/mi.

This was a heavy-duty marathon training week and my first week ever at 80 miles. It would have been better, as I had originally planned, to get up to 80 miles several weeks earlier and to have kept my volume steady since then while increasing marathon-specific intensity. But things didn't work out that way and I wasn't content staying at the mileage I was at by August, though in fact I haven't increased it much since then (10 miles). Anyway, this week had two longer runs with some tempo miles mixed in. Monday's was the harder one with tempo intervals toward the beginning to wear me out and then again near the end to finish me off. It was considerably less difficult than the similar workout I did several weeks ago because the weather was much more accommodating. I could have done more than two tempo miles at the end and wasn't suffering all that much on the two I did, but I didn't want to take any risks. By Thursday I was feeling pretty worn down. But when I got to the tempo interval portion of that workout, I surprisingly felt fine, and I felt ok the next day too. The only worry is that my main weak point - somewhere in the nexus of my upper hamstrings and lower back on my right side - has tightened up some this week. Because of that, I'm going to play things by ear next week. I may stick with my original plan of doing another 80 mile week, with a steady 22-miler on Sunday (tomorrow) and a medium-long run on Wednesday with some tempo stretches. The following Sunday is also my final tune-up race, a metric marathon that I plan to run at marathon pace. My idea has been to run that tired and then to begin my taper afterward. But I may back off either of those two quality workouts next week if I feel too tight and/or worn down, and that would probably mean cutting mileage for the week as well. I'll spend some time with the foam roller and see how it goes. As for the taper, I still don't have a definite plan. I suspect that the reason why tapering for a marathon has never worked out well for me in the past is that my mileage has never been high enough before the taper, so that dropping down to 50-60% of peak mileage has taken me down too far. But maybe I won't have that problem now that my peak mileage is a bit higher. Daniels recommends that I already be down to 70% of peak mileage and drop down to 60% and 50% in the last two weeks. But when I look at actual training logs of people faster than me, they tend to taper less and later. What matters, I suppose, is that I do whatever leaves me feeling strong and sharp, not over- or under-rested. Since the quality workouts will get shorter and easier after next week, I may feel adequately rested without running drastically fewer miles. I'll just have to play that by ear as well.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (September 16-22): 60 miles (78% at easy and 22% at half-marathon paces)
  Sunday: 2 mile warm up, then half marathon race (see previous post)
  Monday: 6 miles at 7:50/mi.
  Tuesday: 9 miles at 7:49/mi.
  Wednesday: off
  Thursday: 9 miles at 7:46/mi.
  Friday: 10.8 miles at 7:44/mi.
  Saturday AM: 6 miles at 7:46/mi.
  Saturday PM: 4 miles pushing a stroller at 8:07/mi.

Since I already posted about my half-marathon race last Sunday, there's not much more to say about this week, which I spent recovering from that race and getting ready for the two hardest weeks of this training cycle. I intended to run easy every day this week after Sunday's race, but on Wednesday morning I woke up with a migraine and couldn't run that entire day. Mercifully, I don't get migraines very often any more, and they're less intense than they used to be. But when they do happen, it still wipes me out for at least a day and leaves me feeling, even the next day, like I've undergone electric shock treatment and have some stray neural wires that need reconnecting. So I had that to recover from too by the latter half of the week. I guess if it had to happen, then this was a good week for it. I'm ready to get back at it, though, and the weather is cooperating now that it is officially Fall. I've also been thinking more about training after the marathon and about lessons to draw from Sunday's race, but I'll reserve discussion of such matters for another post.

NAVY-AIR FORCE HALF-MARATHON (race report):

This is a new race that was added this year to the Navy 5-miler and follows much of the course of the Cherry Blossom 10-miler, though it goes further up Rock Creek Parkway. It's mostly flat, but there are some rolling hills on Rock Creek Parkway, and we were running into a slight wind from the north for part of the race. I went out fast, thinking that one of two things would happen, either of which would be fine: a) I might have a great day and end up with a fast time, or b) I might soon feel very bad and the second half of the race would simulate conditions late in a marathon. Scenario b) transpired, as my paces illustrate:

mile 1 - 6:18
mile 2 - 6:19
mile 3 - 6:19
mile 4 - 6:24
mile 5 - 6:29
mile 6 - 6:26
mile 7 - 6:32
mile 8 - 6:32
mile 9 - 6:48
mile 10 - 6:48
mile 11 - 6:54
mile 12 - 6:53
mile 13 - 6:42
finish - 1:26:34 (6:36 avg. pace)

We hit the headwind in mile 4, so the minor slow-down there wasn't a big deal. But by 5 miles I was in what felt like a rough patch that lasted the rest of the race. One good sign is that the pace I eventually slowed down to in miles 11 and 12, which felt like a crawl, is 3:00 marathon pace. If I can hold that pace after 20 miles in six weeks, after having run roughly the same pace the entire way, then I'll be happy. This race was discouraging but probably quite useful both as training and as a sign that for now I should set aside dreams of running a marathon any faster than just barely under 3:00. That'll be hard enough. This half-marathon time, in fact, corresponds on both Daniels's chart and McMillan's calculator to just over 3:00 for the marathon. I'm sure that I could have run faster if I had started at, say, 6:25 pace. Still, I don't have much wiggle room to get under 3:00 and will need to pace conservatively. Incidentally, at 10 miles I was 13 seconds behind my time five months ago at Cherry Blossom, which went much better for me than today's race. I'll take the 6 minute half-marathon PR, though, which is what I get for not running one in a year.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (September 9-15): 40 miles (90% at easy and 10% at tempo paces)
  Sunday: off
  Monday: 8.1 miles at 7:33/mi.
  Tuesday: 2 easy, 2 x 2 miles T at 6:19/mi., 4 easy (10 miles total)
  Wednesday: 6 miles at 7:32/mi.
  Thursday: 10 miles at 7:25/mi.
  Friday: off
  Saturday: 5.9 miles at 7:48/mi.

This turned into a very light week for several reasons, in roughly this order: 1) I was more worn down than I thought from the preceding high mileage weeks, 2) September marathon malaise (see below), 3) I started worrying that the half-marathon race on Sunday 9/16 would push me over the edge unless I took things very easy this week, 4) I wanted to see how I'd feel after the sort of light week that Daniels has scheduled for the last week of the taper before the marathon, since I've never felt right after a standard taper in the past and am starting to think about how I might do it differently next month. On Tuesday I did the first part of the long tempo workout that I had skipped earlier. I felt fine, though not as extra fine as I felt on my tempo run the previous week before my stomach freaked out. But that's when I decided to take things easier this week than I had planned. A long tempo just a few days after a 22-miler and a few days before a half-marathon race finally struck me mid-run as crazy, so I turned around and went home. By Thursday I was feeling well rested and, predictably, ran too fast on an easy run. My legs were starting to ache as well when I wasn't running, presumably because some rest enabled me to feel the effects of all the running I've been doing. When the numbness starts wearing off, though, I get worried, because (usually) I race better when numb from having run lots of miles than I do when I've rested too much. This is what has me rethinking my taper before the marathon. I might drop mileage two and three weeks out but increase it again somewhat during the final week (e.g., 50, 40, 60). Or maybe I'll take a very light week like this one three weeks out and then ascend gradually during the next two weeks (e.g., 40, 50, 60). We'll see. I've also started thinking about life, and running, after the marathon, as I typically do about now. Marathon training gets old, and I miss doing shorter races. I suspect that another (or perhaps the main) cause of September marathon malaise is that, as the actual event approaches, I start girding myself for the suffering it involves. A natural defense mechanism tells me to protect myself by not running as hard or as much. But I still have one final push ahead of me. How next week goes depends on how I recover from the half-marathon, but I'll try to get in a good number of mostly easy miles (maybe up to 70) so that I'm fit for attempting two hard weeks at 80 miles after that. Then the taper, whatever it turns out to be, will begin.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (September 2-8): 75 miles (95% at easy/long and 5% at tempo paces)
  Sunday: 9 miles at 7:56/mi.
  Monday: 2 easy, 4 x 1 mile (1 min.) at 6:19/mi., .2 miles easy (6.2 miles total)
  Tuesday: 10.7 miles at 7:47/mi.
  Wednesday: 10 miles at 7:48/mi. on a treadmill
  Thursday: 6.1 miles at 7:59/mi.
  Friday: 22 miles at 7:55/mi.
  Saturday: 2.5 miles; then, 4 hours later, 8.5 miles at 7:43/mi. (11 miles total)

This week was tough. Compared with last week, mileage was the same but my paces and the humidity were up even more. The remains of a hurricane from the Gulf of Mexico deposited a tropical air mass on us that just sat around for a week. It didn't rain much, except on Thursday morning, but the humidity and dew points were constantly very high. When I was a kid, it was thought funny to put a plastic turtle in a bowl of water and call it turtle soup. When "running" this week, I felt like that turtle swimming through soup. The humidity was most tolerable on Monday, especially by the afternoon when I ran. But I rarely run well except in the morning. On this occasion I felt great for the first few tempo intervals, easily finishing them well under my goal time (6:20) and not begrudging the mere one minute of rest between intervals. I thought I had all eight of the mile repeats on Daniels's schedule in me that day. But my lunch intervened. Stupidly, I had eaten something spicy a few hours earlier, and it came back to hobble me on the fourth interval. I couldn't even jog home. But I was happy about how easy tempo pace felt before then, especially since I plan to race a half marathon next Sunday at around that pace. By Wednesday I actually preferred the treadmill to running outside again, and I went slowly because (Mondays and) Thursdays are slotted for longer/harder runs on my schedule. But various events conspired against my schedule, so I ended up struggling through six miles on Thursday and then doing a steady long run on Friday. That was supposed to be my primary quality day for next week, but I couldn't imagine getting through the long tempo workout on Daniels's schedule for this week. So I'll switch the primary workouts for this week and the next. Friday's run wasn't pretty, but it was my first 22-miler this year and took almost as long as I expect to be running in the marathon race (2:54). So I needed to do that and will do it once more before the marathon, but now that the weather is clearing my focus can shift back (from just surviving the mileage this week) to tempo workouts. According to the weather forecast, Fall is arriving on the heels of a severe storm that swept through here this afternoon. It cut short my run, which I had to finish in the evening. I felt surprisingly strong, considering that by the end I had run 33 miles in two days - perhaps a record for me. Supposedly cooler, drier air will be the norm this next week. I'll drop my mileage around a third for a recovery week before the half marathon next weekend. The tempo workout that I was supposed to do this week but swapped for the steady long run will be my only hard workout, probably on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to running faster in autumnal air.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (August 26-September 1): 75 miles (93% at easy and 7% at tempo paces)
  Sunday: 9 miles at 7:48/mi.
  Monday: 20 miles at 7:49/mi.
  Tuesday: 6 miles at 7:56/mi.
  Wednesday: 10 miles at 7:36/mi.
  Thursday: 2E, 3T (6:20/mi.), 2E, 2T (6:20/mi.), 2E (11 miles total)
  Friday: 9 miles at 7:37/mi.
  Saturday: 10 miles at 7:44/mi.

Several important metrics were up this week: mileage, pace, and humidity. The air dried out briefly on Wednesday and Thursday, but the rest of the week was muggy - as next week is also forecasted to be. I just wanted to get through my 20-miler on Monday and didn't care about the pace. Thursday's tempo gave me enough faster running for the week and went fine. On Saturday I didn't get around to running until early afternoon when it was 90 degrees and humid. When I was on the National Mall, I got talking with another runner who was moving at around the same pace. He was much more experienced than me: he was a little older, ran in high school and college, did some high school coaching, and was still running although he said his racing days are behind him. We talked some about marathon training, and he said some encouraging things about how my training has been going, as I reported it. But one thing stuck in my mind: he remarked that when your training seems to be going really well, you may be about ready to cross some line without knowing it and fall apart. I had noticed this in the past, and it's good to hear it now because I was just starting to think that I'm feeling pretty good lately. 6:20 tempo pace is getting easier, I've adapted some to the humidity, and my legs feel remarkably ok after my highest mileage week yet. But I don't want to get ahead of myself. There are still 8 weeks until the marathon, and I'll be in great shape if I just stay on track and don't do anything stupid like suddenly run way more miles or much harder workouts. Daniels's schedule has another long, killer tempo next week, and I'll try holding at 75 miles for next week as well. Then I'll back off for a week before the half on 9/16, after which I'll need another week that's lighter at least on intensity if not also on volume. Then I'll have two more hard weeks before starting my taper. So there are only four more really hard workouts, including the two remaining tune-up races, and three more weeks of 75+ miles (I'm still aiming at 80 miles for each of the two pre-taper weeks). At least that's how things would go ideally, but I need to continue backing off if and when I think I may be on the verge of pushing too hard. I've been pretty good about that so far. It'd be a shame to ruin things now.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (August 19-25): 70 miles (78% at E, 18% at M, and 4% at T paces)
  Sunday: 1.2 mile warm-up, Leesburg 20k in 1:23:06 (6:41/mi.), 1.5 mile cool-down (15 miles total)
  Monday: 6.7 miles at 8:03/mi.
  Tuesday: 9.2 miles at 7:41/mi.
  Wednesday: 10.1 miles at 7:37/mi.
  Thursday AM: 2 miles easy, 3 miles T at 6:22/mi., 2 miles easy (7 miles total)
  Thursday PM: 3.4 mile family jog pushing a stroller at 9:29/mi.
  Friday: 10.6 miles at 7:37/mi.
  Saturday: 8 miles at 7:55/mi.

I was nowhere near as tired after my marathon pace 20k on Sunday (see below) as I was after the long tempo workout last week. That seems to provide some confirmation that I didn't run too hard and that I have some chance of running a full marathon somewhere around that pace. But I still took three easy days afterwards and shortened the secondary workout of the week, on Thursday, to an ordinary 3 mile tempo run. It was my first trip to the park on a non-rainy day since returning from Greece, but the National Park Service was not about to let me get away with it. They had set up crop sprinklers all along the 3 mile loop, drawing filthy water from the Potomac River to water grass, trees, and other plants on both sides of the road, presumably because of the drought that has hit the region, like much of the country, this summer. This essentially involved watering the road itself and anyone driving, biking, or running on it. Normally the park is full of walkers, bikers, and runners at all hours, but I was almost the only person to brave the powerful sprinklers on Thursday morning. So I was doused with a stream of stinky water moving at high velocity roughly every 50 meters or so. This comical situation helped dissuade me from attempting the longer (but not long) tempo workout that Daniels had scheduled for the day, which I wasn't up to in any case. The percentage of easy miles I ran this week was already dangerously low, I now realize, and that would only have made it worse. My legs and lower back are unusually tight now, and those percentages explain why. At least I got back up to 70 miles this week. Next week is my best chance to increase volume any further, if I can manage it, since the primary quality day on the schedule is a steady long run, which I'll keep easy.

LEESBURG 20K (race report):

Last year I had probably my worst race of the year at the Leesburg 10k. It was warm and especially humid, as one would expect in August, and I wasn't prepared for the rolling hills on the 10k course that year. This year I did the 20k (12.4 miles) as a marathon-pace training run instead of running it all-out. We lucked out with the weather: mid-60's at 7:30am with only moderate humidity and cloud cover but no rain. My goals were 1) to average around 6:43/mi., because that's Daniels's marathon pace for the "VDOT" I've been training at (55), and 2) never to push too hard, so that it's conceivable that in 9 weeks I might actually hold something like that pace for a full marathon. Those two goals potentially conflict. After the first couple miles, I felt like I had to push too hard to stay under 6:50/mi., so I backed off a bit to the low- or mid-6:50's for the next few miles, thinking that I just wasn't in shape to run Daniels's prescribed pace. But after the turn-around, it became clear that we had been running slightly uphill for most of the first half of the race, even though it somehow didn't look like it. That explained why I was having trouble with the pace. After the turn-around, though, it not only looked like we were running slightly downhill, but also the running became both easier and faster. There were modest rolling hills throughout, so the pace wasn't very even. But in the second half I probably ran around 20 seconds per mile faster than in the first, without ever pushing too hard. I finished in 1:23:06, which is 6:41/mi. and 2:55 marathon pace. So I hit the goal pace and didn't push too hard. But it's very difficult to tell whether that'll be a feasible marathon pace for me in 9 weeks. I guess that wasn't the point of the run, which was instead to start getting used to that pace on the assumption that it'll be around my marathon pace. My workouts are supposed to be the fitness gauge that tells me what kind of marathon pace I'm up to, and racing a half marathon all-out in 4 weeks should also be a useful (though by no means flawless) gauge. I should be able to race a half at around 6:20 pace, or maybe a bit slower without a taper, in order to have any hope of running a 2:55 marathon, though of course my ability to hang on in the later miles can't be tested in that way. That's why Daniels schedules long runs in which there is tempo-pace running both toward the beginning and near the end. Anyway, things seem on track, and I enjoyed running moderately fast for an extended stretch. It's not by any means easy for me to run that fast even for a little while, which makes it difficult to imagine running a full marathon at that pace. But once I get into a grove, it feels like I can sustain the pace indefinitely, or at least until a wall looms that I haven't reached at that pace yet. Daniels is a wizard to emphasize training about 20 seconds faster at tempo pace, since that makes this (marathon) pace feel just manageable for longer distances by comparison. Again the question: but for how long? That only the marathon race itself can answer.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (August 12-18): 53.3 miles (89% at easy and 11% at tempo paces)
  Sunday: off
  Monday: 10.2 miles at 7:30/mi.
  Tuesday: 2E, 4x1T (1 min.) at 6:19/mi., 8E, 2x1T (1 min.) at 6:30/mi., 2E (18 miles total)
  Wednesday: 5 miles at 8:05/mi.
  Thursday: 10 miles at 7:40/mi.
  Friday: 10.1 miles at 7:37/mi.
  Saturday: off

This week was all about my first killer, long tempo workout on Tuesday and then recovering for my first marathon pace run on Sunday the 19th. I took Sunday the 12th off because I was planning on doing the big workout on Monday and had some minor calf pain. But my son had a bad night, so I postponed the workout a day and enjoyed Monday's great weather on a mid-day easy run. Tuesday morning brought weather that was nearly identical to when I did my workout in the park last week: storming as I drove to the park, and I ran immediately after the rain stopped when it was super humid. This time I survived the humidity, though. In fact, I almost got through Daniels' entire workout. The only modification I made was in the second tempo leg, which he scheduled as 15-20 minutes at the same tempo pace run earlier. By then I had already run 14 miles, including 4 solid mile repeats right at tempo pace, and I couldn't quite get down to 6:20 again, though I wasn't far off. I was pretty sure that I'd die before getting to 15 minutes, so I took a 1-minute break after one mile and was able to hold on for another mile, which put me a little short of 15 minutes total. It was perhaps the hardest workout I've ever done, and I was pleased with how it went, especially after cutting both of my key workouts short last week. It really wiped me out, though. The next day I had to take a walk break midway through my slow 5-miler. Doing the big workout on Tuesday meant that I had to cancel the second, shorter tempo run on Daniels's schedule this week in order to recover for the marathon-pace run on Sunday, which didn't bother me at all. Coincidentally, around then I was reading an article in Running Times about Renato Canova's training methods, which sometimes involve emphasizing big workouts that require the better part of a week to recover from. For me, Tuesday's workout was worth taking some extra time to recover, and I took another day off on Saturday because I didn't feel recovered enough yet to embark on an equally important marathon-pace run. In the future, I hope to keep my mileage higher while recovering from these big workouts, but I don't expect to take fewer easy days between them - just fewer days entirely off, if my body can handle it. The next big workout like this one isn't for a couple weeks, though. Next week is the marathon-pace run and then a shorter tempo workout, and the following week has a steady 20-miler (take two) and another shorter tempo workout. Next week is also my last before Fall classes start up again....