Nov. 19-25: top of the hill

Daily details:
We: 6
Th: 8
Fr: 12 x 400m averaging 87.7 (5:52/mi. pace) with 90 second recoveries
Sa: 9
Su: 9 plus strides
Mo: 7
Tu: 20 with 15 averaging 6:41/mi.
Week total: 67

This week ended with my peak workout of this training cycle: 15 miles at goal marathon race pace. I felt good and ended up running 2:55 marathon pace, which is a bit faster than expected. It didn't feel hard until the last 2-3 miles, and even then I had no serious difficulty hanging on. But hanging on for 2-3 tough miles is altogether different from maintaining a hard pace for the entire second half of a marathon. My coach thinks that I will be able to hold this pace for a full marathon after a few more sharpening workouts and tapering. Maybe he's right, but in any case I'll probably go out slower for the first half and try to run a negative split if I still feel good by 30k or so. Certainly it is encouraging to have run a workout like this while my mileage and intensity are still at their height for this training cycle. It's now less than 4 weeks until Pisa, and most of the hard training is behind me. My weekly mileage will gradually drop from here, and my remaining hard workouts will be of the shorter, faster variety before I enter full rest mode in the days leading up to the race. There's still more work to be done, but I'm starting to think about the race itself and to steel myself for the mental challenge of maximizing the physical capacities at my disposal on race day. In the meantime, I'm also about to reach the top of another hill: my 40th birthday is in a few days. I don't plan on descending down the other side of that particular hill anytime soon but fully expect instead to continue improving at least at distance running for years to come (which is made easier by the fact that I really started running only in my mid-30s, aside from some rare, light jogging before that and, a lifetime earlier, one half-hearted season of cross-country in high school). Running serves me in many ways as a prism through which I can look at things in a more healthy, productive light than I might otherwise be inclined to do. Seen through that prism, turning 40 is an opportunity to be more competitive as a masters-level runner. Don't get me wrong: in races I compete with everyone indiscriminately, and I always want to improve absolutely, not just relative to other people in whatever category. But still, it is more gratifying and encouraging to have a realistic chance of competing for the top spots in some category or other. I look forward to measuring myself against other masters runners in the Washington area when I return to the US and recover from Pisa.

Oct. 22 - Nov. 18: four solid weeks

Daily details:
We: 6
Th: 8
Fr: fartlek: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 min. with equal recoveries
Sa: 8
Su: 9 plus strides
Mo: 8
Tu: 18 pushing miles 3-5 @ 6:19/mi. and miles 15-16 @ 6:28/mi.
Week (10/22-28) total: 69

We: 6
Th: 9
Fr: 6 x 2k with 2 min. rests @ 6:19/mi. average
Sa: 9
Su: 9 plus strides
Mo: 10
Tu: 15
Week (10/29-11/4) total: 70

We: 6
Th: 3 x 3 miles with 3 min. rests @ 6:23, 6:19, 6:17/mi. average
Fr: off (traveling)
Sa: off (traveling)
Su: 6 in Sorrento
Mo: 6
Tu: 19 mile progression run with miles 14-17 in 6:46, 6:39, 6:43, 6:28
Week (11/5-11) total: 50 (planned recovery week)

We: 7
Th: 4
Fr: 3.5 miles (3.5 min. rest), 2.5 miles (2.5 min. rest), 1.5 miles @ 6:12/mi. average
Sa: 10
Su: 9 plus strides
Mo: 7
Tu: 23
Week (11/12-18) total: 71

Allow me to compensate for not updating this running blog for four weeks by finally adding some more photos from Italy. Here is the trail by the Tiber river where I do most of my running in Rome:

Where I usually start running, facing southwest.

Me running on a different part of the trail.

My son using tactics to beat his mother to the finish line.

I've had four solid weeks of training since my last post. Only one workout, on Tuesday of the first week above, fell short of my goals. I was supposed to run 19 miles with 3-mile tempo sections near the beginning and the end, but I fell apart during the second mile of the last tempo section (mile 16) and stopped early. Otherwise I've met or exceeded expectations in every workout. I was especially happy with what felt like a breakthrough 3 x 3 mile workout on Thursday of the third week above, just before I took two days off while traveling in the Bay of Naples during a planned recovery week. With the extra rest I then came back and hammered my long run on Tuesday of that (third) week, starting faster than usual and speeding up from there. My average pace of 7:05 for 17 miles, before doing two more cool down miles, is a hair faster than my marathon PR pace. Three days later (Friday of the fourth week above) I still felt strong and lowered what had become my standard 6:19-ish tempo pace down to 6:12. Lord willing and the creek don't rise, as the saying goes, I should be stronger than ever at the Pisa Marathon nearly a month from now. But the creek - i.e., the Tiber river - did rise on the day I was scheduled to run 23 miles (the last day above). The first two photos show the river at a typical level next to the trail and the late 19th-century flood walls rising ominously beside it. Those walls now protect Rome from the flooding that plagued the city for most of its history. So far the river has risen high enough to flood the trail only twice while I've been here: during my trip to Naples, which didn't affect me, and on the day when my longest run of this training cycle was scheduled (and the following day). But the goal of that run was just to be on my feet running for roughly three hours, without pushing the pace, so it was no big deal to run on sidewalks and streets for part of the way until I got to parts of the trail that were high or far enough from the rain-swollen river to be safe to run on. I finally discovered the end of the trail on this run as well: there are 11.5 continuous miles of asphalt trail along the Tiber river in Rome. It extends further than that to the northeast, but I don't run that direction because the surface becomes rough, uneven concrete. The direction to run from the Borgo area, where I live (near the Vatican and Castel Sant' Angelo), is southwest, past Trastevere and opposite Testaccio, then roughly parallel to Via Ostiense (Via del Mare), as the river travels, until the trail ends nearly halfway to the coast. Along the way you pass suburbs, gypsy camps, stables, and fields, before turning around and seeing it all again in the opposite order on the way back into the city. I'll miss running in Rome when we leave the day after Pisa, but I still have more work to do before then.