Saturday, September 29, 2012


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.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

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.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

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.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

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.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

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.