Posts Tagged ‘marathon plan’

This is not a post about quality booze or friendly ghosts, just good spirits in the happy sense.

Yesterday’s weather was gorgeous, a Spring-like 52 degrees, so I broke out the capris and made it my LR day.  I was being silly about getting out there, though.  With 17 on tap, I just wasn’t wanting to do it at all but I had a chick potluck party to go to and had to be done with the run in time to buy something to bring (because I’m not a cooking contributor in situations like these, too lazy).

Finally got my ass out there with the plan to make it all easy miles, though I took it to the trails so at least there’d be some level of hills and footwork, better than my usual easy jaunt around the river.  But once I got to the trail system (mile 5.5), a really sweet girl I had passed caught up to me while I waited at the street crossing, and said something about “fast” and gave me the thumbs up before running on.  I couldn’t hear it all because I had my headphones on, but I was so surprised by this unexpected niceness that it gave me a sudden shot of energy.

In the trails, I plowed (or ploughed) – either way…I pushed.  It was great fun and I was doing low 8s going uphill, sub 8s down, despite the gravel and ice patches still on the ground.  Even added an extra 1/2 mile to the turnaround to make it an 18-miler.  Once back on the road (mile 12.5), I kept up the pace through mile 16, then slowed back down to normal.  Ended up with 18@8:18 avg.  After 8 easy in a couple hours, I’ll have a 63-mile week.

I won’t lie, between this and last cycle, I’m having a hard time living with my decision to take it easier, though not enough to actually do something about it.  I mean, I’m not exactly sitting on my ass eating bonbons, and maybe it’s because I’m not doing Pfitz, Daniels or Hudson (Marathon Race Training Forum’s favorite sons) that I feel a little off-kilter.  On the other hand, I’m running harder 2 times a week, got my MLR and LR, which is basically what every marathon plan calls for anyway.

I guess it’s my active imagination wondering what I’m going to feel like when I see that Citgo sign in the distance.  Will I be dying?  Will I be surprised that I feel good?  How I can have a better race not busting my butt as hard as last time?  But last time sucked, so is this easier approach the gold?  Man, I sure wish I had a crystal ball.

Glad to say, I’m truly happy to be training again.  I’ve been messing with the schedule, tweaking it like mad, but only by adding miles. I like the way the simple workouts look for now, so no edits for those aside from the mileage padding.  That might change as we get closer to the race because 6 or 8×800 (Yasso, hello) would probably be happier morphing into the same distances worth of 1200s or 1000s, but for now…all good.

This is what I’ve tentatively got on tap for the month of January. Here’s the original plan so you can see how it compares. I’ve entered on week 4.

What I've got planned plus what I've done up till Jan. 5th.

I took an extra day off on Sunday because it was 12 degrees windchill with 30mph winds and I was all, “screw this, training starts tomorrow!”  So that was my last day of  vacation.

Today’s run was 4 x 1/4 mi hill repeats, 9.4 miles total.  I had a great time doing them though it was cold and windy (21 windchill, admittedly not quite as bad as many of you have it).  The only crappy part was coming home and seeing the last time I did reps on that hill, I did 7 of them and was 30 seconds faster.  But it was 62 degrees that day and 3 weeks out from Philly.  Plus, I’ve been running easy for the last 6 weeks, so I’m fine with it.

I had a funny mini-freakout after I read Robert’s comment on the last post “Only three 20’s all training period?”  Suddenly, I was scrambling to add another 20, then I realized how silly it was.  There is nothing magical about a 19 vs. a 20 (if we lived in Europe, we’d be doing 30k Long Runs…18.4 miles) so for all intents and purposes, three 20s and a 19 make for 4 proper long runs.  Looks fine to me.  Besides, my lovely 22,22,24 and 20 for Philly didn’t even get put to the test since I started walking at mile 18.

More important to me is putting mid-long runs in there for general endurance.  Though ok, I penciled in a tentative extra 20 in there if the weather’s great and I feel like it, but probably not.

February at this point looks like 52 (cutback),63,69,73, then March will be 60 (cutback), 73, 54 (Shamrock Half), 74 and then April’s first week is 60, then taper.  I’ll still be messing around as it goes, but this gives you an idea of how I’ve modified the mileage.

On the Heart Rate front, it continues to be wonky, but I’ve now accepted it as a permanent part of the picture.  Instead of lamenting and comparing the past, I’m going to wear it but use the current readings as baseline.  As long as it shows natural  improvement with the passing weeks, everything’s A-OK.  The underlying quandary I’ve had has been whether to slow my runs down to make for a “better” HR.  But they’d end up being slower than last January when I was a much slower runner, so I’m using effort as the main guide and the monitor to note  trends.

That’s it for now, I’ll be back for more blather in a few days.  Have some fabulous runs!