WEEKLY SUMMARY (JUNE 24-30): 65 miles (90% at E/L, 5% at T, and 5% at 5k paces)
  Sunday: 3E, 2T at 6:20/mi. (2 min. rest), 1.25T, 2E = 8.25 miles total
  Monday: 9 miles at 7:37/mi., plus 4 hill sprints
  Tuesday: 9 miles at 7:30/mi.
  Wednesday: 16 miles at 7:34/mi.
  Thursday: 7.3 miles at 7:59/mi.
  Friday: 7.7 miles at 7:48/mi.
  Saturday: 2.7E, 5k race in 18:26, 2E

This was a more interesting running week than the previous one. I reached 65 miles, which was my volume target before taking a recovery week next week; and I got in each of the main types of run I need to be doing right now. For my tempo run on Sunday I intended to do 2 x 2 miles at 6:20/mi. with 2 minutes rest in between. But I got up late and started the tempo intervals around 11am when it was 85 degrees and humid with no wind. I felt strong at that pace on the first one, but the sun got to me after the first mile on the second one. So instead of pushing it out and wearing myself down when increasing volume is already wearing me down enough, I stopped after 5 laps on that second interval. Tuesday was suddenly cool and dry, but the heat and humidity started coming back already on Wednesday. My long run that day was fine, which surprised me since I was feeling worn down beforehand. I ran a negative split but less of one than last time (7:37 pace for the first half and 7:31 for the second), and I didn't push things in the final miles. That night my left quad ached enough to wake me up a few times, and it bothered me the next day as well. I had tweaked it on the downhills of last weekend's four mile race but thought it had recovered, but apparently my long run this week (which should have been a recovery week) was enough to re-aggravate it. So I ran very easy on Thursday and iced it a few times. I planned to run pretty easy again on Friday but ended up having no choice, since it was 96 degrees when I finished running at 10:15am and it reached 104 later that day. Apparently that was the hottest June day on record in DC. Similar conditions were forecasted for Saturday, but a freak storm blew through around 11pm on Friday night, knocking out power to more than a million people (not us, though) and cooling things down about 10 degrees more than expected in the morning. So it was (only!) perhaps 80 degrees at 8:15am when the Semper Fi 5k started. That's hot with humidity and bright sun, but I was expecting outright dangerous conditions that didn't materialize. Still, I was just looking to get a good workout in without running all out, and somehow that resulted in my running one second slower than my current 5k PR. I've now run 18:25, 18:26, and 18:27, which is similar to the cluster of races I ran just under 19 minutes last Fall before suddenly busting out a 30-second PR in January. If I can run 18:26 in this weather at the end of a 65 mile week (my heaviest week in 9 months) on significantly less than a 100% effort, then clearly another 30-second or so PR is on the horizon, though I don't expect to run another 5k race for months. Next week I head to Greece for a month, and anyway it's marathon training time now. I'll take a day or two off next week while traveling and probably end up with around 45-50 mostly easy miles, hopefully with a tempo run in there somewhere. After next week, I'll try to run three weeks in the 70's (or maybe one in the high 60's and then two in the 70's), with Daniels's tempo and 5k intervals each week, before taking another recovery week when we return to the US on August 3.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (JUNE 17-23): 63 MILES (94% at E/L and 6% at 8k paces)
  Sunday: 2E, 4-mile race in 24:08, 2E
  Monday: 8.5 miles at 7:37/mi.
  Tuesday: 12 miles at 7:25/mi.
  Wednesday: 9 miles at 7:46/mi. plus 4 hill sprints
  Thursday: 9 miles at 7:28/mi. on a treadmill (PM)
  Friday: 6 miles at 8:08/mi.
  Saturday: 10.5 miles at 7:38/mi.

Pretty boring running week mainly because of a heat wave, but I managed to continue increasing volume a bit. It was still cool the first couple days of the week, and conditions were good for the Dash4Dad race on Sunday. It annoys me when a race billed as mostly flat turns out to be quite hilly and in fact not flat at any point on the course. But I went into it with a relaxed attitude and ended up enjoying the hilly course along with the general atmosphere and competition from a small group of guys right around my ability level. Running down a steep hill near the end (which we had run up on the way out) trashed my quads, though, and I was feeling that for the next couple days. So I decided against doing a tempo run on Tuesday before things really heated up, which would have been pushing it anyway. Instead I did a medium-long run in which I dropped the pace below 7:15 for the last four miles. The temperature and humidity were already rising on Tuesday, but by Wednesday we were in the midst of our first full-blown DC heat wave of the summer, with highs near 100, lows around 80, and dew points in the low-70's. I wasn't acclimated to that yet after the cooler than average weather we've been having here lately, and my easy run on Wednesday was a struggle even at a slower pace. Thursday would have been no different, but my son kept us up for much of Wednesday night with a fever, so I didn't manage to get up early on Thursday morning to run. Luckily, it turns out that the fitness center on campus is open weekday evenings this summer (unlike in the past, when it has been closed all summer). So I ran on one of their treadmills on Thursday evening, which is only marginally less unpleasant than running outside during a heat wave. Having run on Thursday evening, though, and not being accustomed to doubles, on Friday morning I could handle only a very slow and shorter run, which is why I barely missed my mileage target for the week. The weather started improving a bit today (Saturday), so I ran slightly further than my usual easy run but not enough to reach 65 miles for the week. I wanted to save my strength for a tempo run tomorrow. We're supposedly in for some nice weather again next week starting on Tuesday, so in addition to tomorrow's tempo I hope to get in another negative-split long run next week before a 5k race on Saturday, by which time it looks like the heat may be back. I'll aim for mileage in the mid-60's next week and then take a recovery week the following week.

Week of June 10-16: 60 miles (93% at E/L, and 7% at T paces)
  Sunday: 5 mile family jog pushing a stroller at my wife's pace
  Monday: 8.5 miles at 7:38/mi. plus 2 hill sprints
  Tuesday: 8.5 miles at 7:34/mi.
  Wednesday: 3E, 4x1T at 6:23/mi. (1 min. rest), 2E
  Thursday: 8.5 miles at 7:39/mi. plus 2 hill sprints
  Friday: 15 miles at 7:35/mi.
  Saturday: 5.5 miles at 8:11/mi.

This week went well and according to plan. It was hot the first half of the week, and I needed to recover anyway from the 10k race last Saturday. So I did a slow family jog on Sunday and kept it easy the next two days as well. On Wednesday I got in some solid tempo intervals with short rests, or cruise intervals in Daniels-speak, at something close to my actual tempo pace. They felt good but hard, and I was having difficulty imagining how I'm going to do workouts like this in a few weeks that are twice as long. Happily I found a new track that is open to the public, or at least was that day, around 2 miles from where I live, which is perfect for a warm up and cool down. If it turns out to be closed in the future, apparently there's an entirely public track that's open 24 hours just a few blocks further that I can use as back-up. So I won't have to waste any more time getting kicked off, locked out of, or locked in (!) the track at the university where I work and next door to where I live. The weather turned quite nice for the latter part of this week, and that helped my long run on Friday. It had been 3 weeks since my last longish run of 14 miles, but I still felt strong and ran negative splits: 7:40's for the first half, 7:30's for the third quarter, around 7:20 for miles 12-14, and the last mile around 7:00 until I decided to relax for the last fifth or so. After that I was tired and did only a slow recovery run today, which is sometimes necessary without days off. Because of the nice weather, I decided to run a 4-mile race tomorrow, since this may be my last chance for a long time to run a race, let alone a short one, in non-oppressive weather. I don't expect to run particularly fast but will simply use the race in place of an interval workout. Since it's supposed to heat up again around mid-week, if possible I may try to get in another tempo run on Tuesday this coming week and then wait until the heat subsides somewhat before hazarding another long run. In any case, I'll try continuing to move the mileage up to 65 next week and also continue two other small but important things that I started doing this week: hill sprints and supplementary strength exercises. I got the idea of hill sprints - 8-10 second all-out sprints up a steep hill with full recoveries - from Brad Hudson's book, and in the past they've helped me become less injury-prone. Now I've got a weak glute/upper hamstring area on one side that has given me trouble for some time. I've read stuff on the internet about high hamstring tendonitis and the hilariously named dead butt syndrome that describes many of my symptoms. Since it's not bad enough to keep me from running, some good old strength training is probably the best medicine. So I'm returning to a form of targeted strength training that has worked for me in the past, hill sprints, and also adding some basic "core" exercises (as people say these days) that I've rarely done before. In the next few weeks I'll try to establish a pattern that has me doing hill sprints twice a week on easy days and supplementary exercises maybe three times. This is the time to establish such a pattern, before my mileage gets bigger and the workouts harder.

Week of June 3-9: 50 miles (80% at E, 8% at T, and 12% at 10k paces)
  Sunday: 8.5 miles at 7:35/mi.
  Monday: 8.5 miles at 7:31/mi.
  Tuesday: 2E, 2T, 1E, 2T, 2E (T=6:35)
  Wednesday: 8.5 miles at 7:39/mi.
  Thursday: 5 miles at 7:41/mi.
  Friday: off
  Saturday: Lawyers Have Heart 10k in 38:49

Running some more miles again this week felt good, but the 10k race at the end of it wasn't so good. I had been wondering whether I'm in a funk. But then I looked back over my training log for the past few months and realized that I've simply tried to extend my shorter-distance racing season for too long. My best races this year (not counting the 5k in early January, which really belonged to the previous year) were the Cherry Blossom 10-miler and Pike's Peek 10k, which came 7 and 10 weeks after I started doing speedwork again in late February. Shortly after that I ran an ok 5k, at 12 weeks out, but even then my speed was beginning to fizzle. Today's race wasn't a disaster, but it was a minute slower than my Pike's Peek time, and the course wasn't especially slow (as illustrated by my friend Patrick, who ran a PR by nearly 2 minutes). From the beginning it was clear that I wasn't going to run a fast time, but I stuck it out and ran as hard as I could. In the future I should start speedwork a bit later and plan my target races within the next 12 weeks. For now my focus is shifting toward marathon training anyway. Since I can't run very fast right now, I'll run more instead. Let's see whether I can get in 60 miles this coming week, and no more planned days off. I'll continue getting some speed in about once a week in order not to lose what little speed I have left (though not this coming week). But, as I mentioned in a previous post, my focus in the near term will be primarily on gradually increasing volume, and also on tempo runs that gradually become more difficult. This week's tempo on Tuesday was a slow and short version of the sort of thing Daniels has in store for me later.

Marathon training plan:

Here are the basic principles and a sketch of some details of my marathon training plan for the 2012 MCM.

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.

Rationale: As I explained in an earlier post, I have never trained properly for a marathon, and my current marathon PR (3:19) is much slower than a properly trained marathoner with my current PR's at shorter distances (5k 18:25, 10k 37:48) should be able to run. The simplest and most obvious way to improve marathon performance is just to run more. But in the past I have already emphasized regular (almost weekly) long runs (18-22 miles) heavily, so the remaining way to run more is to increase my weekly mileage. I have found that I am more susceptible to injury when I run less and less susceptible to injury when I run at least 50 miles per week, but I have never run more than 60 miles per week consistently. Several indicators suggest, however, that my body not only can handle running significantly more weekly miles, but also that it will respond positively to it after an initial period of adjustment. So let's try it. In 2012 I have gradually increased my easy runs to 8.5-9 miles and have noticed benefits in recovery, injury avoidance, and race performance. Two quality workouts in a marathon training week filled out by 9-mile easy runs and perhaps a medium-long run add up to around 80 miles per week without doing doubles. If my body can handle that volume, then it should help me substantially in the later miles of the marathon. But I'll settle for 70 or whatever if that's all my body can handle right now. There's no need to obsess over a specific number of weekly miles, as long as it's higher than in the past and reasonably consistent. A heavier training volume alone is not sufficient, though. Most of the sources I've read agree that tempo-pace running is the most important training focus, besides long runs and higher weekly mileage, for developing the endurance needed to run a marathon faster (approaching one's lactate threshold). So I will try to follow the key workouts in Jack Daniels' marathon training plan, which emphasize tempo-pace running heavily. As he recommends, I will do some races at marathon-pace along the way, but I also want to race a half-marathon in order to run one race all-out before the marathon.

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).

Phase 1: In this phase (which corresponds roughly to Daniels' phases 1 and 2) I will continue doing one 5k-pace interval session (or, rarely, a short race) per week, along with one long run and/or tempo run. These are stresses to which I am already accustomed. My focus will be on increasing volume (mostly at easy/long pace) while keeping these stresses mostly constant. The tempo runs will also need to become gradually more difficult in order to prepare me for phase 2, but the killer workouts will be reserved for phase 2 itself. If I have trouble adjusting to the increased volume, then the least important workouts, the 5k-pace intervals, are what I should sacrifice first. As in the next phase, I will take a recovery week about every 3 weeks.

Phase 2: In this phase (which corresponds roughly to Daniels' phases 3 and 4) all of my quality workouts (two per week) will be long-runs, tempo runs or long tempo workouts, or tune-up races. There will be no more 5k-pace intervals, and I will not do any shorter races. My focus will be long tempo runs and workouts, and the following three tune-up races:

Tune-up races: 1) Leesburg 20k, run at marathon-pace (August 19)

                        2) Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon, raced all-out (September 16)

                        3) Annapolis Striders Metric Marathon, run at marathon-pace (October 7)

As in phase 1, I will take a recovery week about every 3 weeks. Other weeks I'll try to maintain around 80 miles per week. If I can't keep up with Daniels' demanding workouts, then I should shorten those workouts before cutting overall weekly volume, because I tend to get injured when the percentage of faster miles that I run in a given week gets too high. I intend to begin keeping track not only of overall weekly miles run, but also of the number and percentage of miles run at each pace (easy/long, marathon, tempo, and 5k interval) in order to keep a close eye on this.

Phase 3: I've never tapered right for a marathon, and I want to hold off on planning this out until I get closer to it, in part in order to see how the rest of the training goes.

Of course I reserve the right to adjust any of this as I see fit, and flexibility is no doubt essential. But I can't train without a training plan, so here it is.

Week of May 27 - June 2: 40 miles
  Sunday: 6.5 miles at 7:36/mi.
  Monday: 6.5 miles at 7:33/mi.
  Tuesday: off
  Wednesday: track workout (below)
  Thursday: 6.5 miles at 7:35/mi.
  Friday: off
  Saturday: AM: Komen fiasco. PM: 5 miles at 7:29/mi.

A very light week, especially considering that on Saturday (today) I ran 12 of the 40 miles I ran for the entire week; and then a disappointing conclusion to the week. The heat wave that started last weekend extended through Tuesday, so I waited until Wednesday to do a light track workout. I felt ok but too rested to be running fast. Again I did some 200's and 400's in the (this time low) 5:20's, and then one mile at tempo pace (6:15) with several easy miles. By the end of the week I was suspecting that I would not run well in the 5k race on Saturday, and sure enough even as I was warming up for the race my legs felt anything but fast. There's a certain numbness that my legs achieve when I run at least 50 miles a week and either every day or nearly so. When I run less, things ache more and running hard bothers me more. Before today, I had run less than 28 miles this week, and it wasn't just because of the heat wave. I went too far with my taper for this race, in part perhaps because I started thinking about marathon training and that inclined me to rest now before the hard stuff begins soon. In general, I've rarely tapered successfully. Often I feel over-rested for races, but I don't understand why that didn't happen at the Cherry Blossom 10-miler. 5k's in particular, because they require running so hard, don't go well for me when I taper much, if at all. I need to be used to hard training to race a 5k hard. What I don't know is how far into a training cycle I need to be in order to race a 5k best.

So I ran the first mile at Komen in 5:52 and the second in 5:59, which is well off my goal pace of 5:45 and even slower than the goal pace I had in mind for the 10k next weekend. I was running over 6 minute pace in the third mile when I realized that I, along with everyone around me (which included maybe the top 50 runners in front of and behind me, all but the top two of whom I could see), was off course. I had looked at the map online before the race, and it indicated that we were supposed to have turned several blocks back from where we then were on Constitution Avenue, one of the main boulevards in downtown DC. There were major storms last night, and routes sometimes change at the last minute in DC for other reasons, so I hoped that there had been a last minute course change. But soon we were all running in traffic, and people on the sidewalks started shouting that we (all of us!) were off course. This was not a mistake some runners made: the course was not properly marked, and literally everyone I could see was off course. There was no indication that we were supposed to turn off Constitution Avenue at any point, let alone the usual barricade forcing us to turn. When I realized that we were hopelessly off course, I stopped running and went home. My Garmin says that I had run 2.64 miles. People around me were angry. The top woman was ahead of me, but the second-place woman came running by after I stopped and was furious when I told her that we were off course. I wasn't too angry because I hadn't been running well anyway, and because I ran Komen last year (on a slightly different course) and knew that it was poorly organized. It's not really a race but a fundraiser. Some races manage to be both, but not this one. It's all about getting a lot of people to raise money and then to come out on the day of the event. Last year I ran well, felt like I broke through a psychological barrier by pushing hard through a rough patch, and placed in my age group. But I was given a mere banana after the race and sent my merry way. There were banquets scattered across the Mall for survivors and top fundraisers, and you could buy food; but I could find no awards ceremony or free food for mere runners. This annoyed me, especially given that Komen costs more than most 5k's. But I overlooked all this and signed up again because I had run well there last year and wanted to run a 5k on a fast course downtown. Well, it turns out they changed the course this year to include a big hill that wasn't included last year. And then they failed to mark the course properly, sending all of the faster runners off course into traffic. I won't run Komen again and will be leery in the future of races that put a lot of emphasis on fundraising.

Even if the race had been well organized, though, I still ran poorly. Can I pull things together for the 10k next weekend? I think my legs need some more miles in them, so I'm thinking of running around 50 mostly easy miles this coming week, with maybe a slower but longer (6 mile?) tempo run on Tuesday the only faster running for the week. Then I want to start scaling up the weekly mileage for the start of marathon training.

On my shake-out run this afternoon I tested out my new Newton Gravity trainers for the first time - my first pair of Newtons. I've always worn Brooks running shoes almost exclusively, and lately my favorite trainers have been their Pure Flow model. The Newtons have the same low heel-drop as the Pure Flow, but the distinctive feature of Newtons is the weird lugs across the sole at the ball of your foot. They're supposed to encourage proper form and to give you some spring as well, since they retract into the shoe as you land and redirect the force of your landing outwards as you push off again. The lugs will take some getting used to. After a few miles I didn't notice them as much, and the shoes felt not dissimilar to the Pure Flows. But my right achilles has been bothering me lately and aches now after my run in the Newtons. A lot of people get calf or achilles injuries trying to adjust too quickly to Newtons, so I need to be careful. One problem with Pure Flows is that they wear relatively quickly. My current pair has just over 300 miles on them and already is nearly worn out. That's earlier than most trainers, which should last 400-500 miles. Newtons supposedly last longer than average, and some people say way longer. But they also cost twice as much: $175! They have a 30-day return policy, so I'll need to decide in the next few weeks whether I think they're worth it.