Daily details:
Mo: 7
Tu: 5 x 1 mile with 3 min. rest, starting at 6:27 and cutting down to 6:07
We: off
Th: 11
Fr: 4 mile tempo averaging 6:37/mi.
Sa: 7
Su: 14
Week total: 55
Grandma's marathon was 6 weeks ago, and the Turin marathon is in 15 weeks. So in accordance with the tradition of allowing 16 weeks for a marathon build-up, let's call this week 1 of my training for Turin. I took a week off after Grandma's, then ran 33, 37, 44, and 50 miles in the weeks before this one. During that time I have felt like I'm both beginning to get back into shape after a long period of light training, and beginning to adapt to some of the methods of my new coach, Ryan Vail, which I really like. For the previous three weeks I had been doing a fartlek once a week, which prepared me for the mile repeats and the tempo run this week. They still felt like a significant uptick in intensity, but I was pleasantly surprised at my budding fitness from those three fartleks. The long runs and overall volume are coming along too. It doesn't look like much yet, but 55 miles is the most I've run in a week since last October, and I'm doing more intensity while increasing mileage than I've typically done in the past. I'm beginning to feel it this week, both more fatigue while not running and more strength while running. The latter, I think, comes substantially from including some faster running early in the build-up, so that I'm not just slogging through more and more miles but instead gradually feel stronger and smoother even as I build volume. As for the former, fatigue while not running, I recall in the past a sort of hump that I just need to get over and then I begin to feel better. The magic number for me has seemed to be 50 since I first started running that many miles per week in 2011. Getting up to that level, and getting used to it, was a lot harder than staying there or increasing either volume or intensity beyond that point (at least up to 80, which is the highest I've gone so far), and in fact I usually feel much better once I'm used to running 50+ miles a week than I do when running any fewer. Once I realized this, I largely succeeded at keeping my weekly mileage at or over 50 throughout most of the year for a couple years - until this past calendar year. I'm over the hump numerically now but haven't fully adapted to it yet. I'm looking forward hopefully to not letting the volume slip consistently lower again in the foreseeable future. Another thing I'm looking forward to right now is fall weather. This has been probably the nicest summer weather we've had in the DC area since I moved here six years ago, but the humidity can still be really oppressive. Two and a half weeks from now I'll be in Rome, which is the only place I've been where the humidity rivals DC's - at least it did for the few days I was there back in 2010. I'm interested in comparing the two climates but don't expect the weather in Rome to be an improvement over DC in late August. It very well may be hotter, especially than DC has been this summer, which Greece (where I usually go in the summer) is too. But typically the humidity is low in Greece, which more than makes up for the heat in my opinion. Rome will be more humid than Greece, but we'll see whether it's more humid than DC and how its combination of heat and humidity compares with DC's. This comparison interests me less, however, than the approach of fall weather does. In my opinion, fall is hands-down the best season of the year, for running or anything else. Thinking about that helps me get through late summer, when I sweat so much on longer runs that by the end I'm somehow wetter than I ever feel after swimming. When this coming fall arrives I will be in Italy, no less. For that I can handle a few more - realistically, around half a dozen more - muggy weeks.
Mo: 7
Tu: 5 x 1 mile with 3 min. rest, starting at 6:27 and cutting down to 6:07
We: off
Th: 11
Fr: 4 mile tempo averaging 6:37/mi.
Sa: 7
Su: 14
Week total: 55
Grandma's marathon was 6 weeks ago, and the Turin marathon is in 15 weeks. So in accordance with the tradition of allowing 16 weeks for a marathon build-up, let's call this week 1 of my training for Turin. I took a week off after Grandma's, then ran 33, 37, 44, and 50 miles in the weeks before this one. During that time I have felt like I'm both beginning to get back into shape after a long period of light training, and beginning to adapt to some of the methods of my new coach, Ryan Vail, which I really like. For the previous three weeks I had been doing a fartlek once a week, which prepared me for the mile repeats and the tempo run this week. They still felt like a significant uptick in intensity, but I was pleasantly surprised at my budding fitness from those three fartleks. The long runs and overall volume are coming along too. It doesn't look like much yet, but 55 miles is the most I've run in a week since last October, and I'm doing more intensity while increasing mileage than I've typically done in the past. I'm beginning to feel it this week, both more fatigue while not running and more strength while running. The latter, I think, comes substantially from including some faster running early in the build-up, so that I'm not just slogging through more and more miles but instead gradually feel stronger and smoother even as I build volume. As for the former, fatigue while not running, I recall in the past a sort of hump that I just need to get over and then I begin to feel better. The magic number for me has seemed to be 50 since I first started running that many miles per week in 2011. Getting up to that level, and getting used to it, was a lot harder than staying there or increasing either volume or intensity beyond that point (at least up to 80, which is the highest I've gone so far), and in fact I usually feel much better once I'm used to running 50+ miles a week than I do when running any fewer. Once I realized this, I largely succeeded at keeping my weekly mileage at or over 50 throughout most of the year for a couple years - until this past calendar year. I'm over the hump numerically now but haven't fully adapted to it yet. I'm looking forward hopefully to not letting the volume slip consistently lower again in the foreseeable future. Another thing I'm looking forward to right now is fall weather. This has been probably the nicest summer weather we've had in the DC area since I moved here six years ago, but the humidity can still be really oppressive. Two and a half weeks from now I'll be in Rome, which is the only place I've been where the humidity rivals DC's - at least it did for the few days I was there back in 2010. I'm interested in comparing the two climates but don't expect the weather in Rome to be an improvement over DC in late August. It very well may be hotter, especially than DC has been this summer, which Greece (where I usually go in the summer) is too. But typically the humidity is low in Greece, which more than makes up for the heat in my opinion. Rome will be more humid than Greece, but we'll see whether it's more humid than DC and how its combination of heat and humidity compares with DC's. This comparison interests me less, however, than the approach of fall weather does. In my opinion, fall is hands-down the best season of the year, for running or anything else. Thinking about that helps me get through late summer, when I sweat so much on longer runs that by the end I'm somehow wetter than I ever feel after swimming. When this coming fall arrives I will be in Italy, no less. For that I can handle a few more - realistically, around half a dozen more - muggy weeks.
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