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.