BQ by 40

I hope I’m ready for my marathon now.  I just finished my first 300 mile month ever:

Build-up to a 300-mile month

I also just finished my first 80-mile week last week:

Last 6 weeks including 80 mile week.

It’s a been long road since my best marathon time ever, in May 2009, to now.  I’ve had to learn how to push myself without putting myself out of commission for 4-8 weeks at a time, as the graph shows below:

The lessons learned? [Your mileage may vary]

1. There should be at most only 2 strictly paced workouts per week:  1 tempo or interval, and maybe 1 long run at pace (don’t obsess on pace for the long run).
2. If you’re going to be on the treadmill for easy/recovery runs, undershoot the pace on these.
3. For a double-run day, one of the runs should be a minute per mile slower than “easy pace”.
4. During the bulk of the mileage build-up, it’s okay to go slower than you’re capable of.  Really.
5. If you must track your time and distance always, use a stopwatch on a measured route instead of GPS.
6. If anything stops working for you mentally or due to time-constraints, make a change:
   1. Split up longer workouts if schedule is a constraint.
   2. Run at a different time of day.
   3. Run on the treadmill.
   4. Avoid the treadmill.
   5. Drive to a park that you don’t normally run in.

I’ve also learned that beyond about 50 miles per week, the mental, psychological, and political [home and work] aspects of getting workouts in become more difficult than the physical aspects.  I absolutely don’t have answers for any of that, except to be as generous and flexible as possible when not running to buy the good graces of those who you depend on and who depend on you.

RunningAHEAD – Strings_n_88keys’s log: View Workout.

• My planned running schedule for this week - 75 miles #running With my schedule this week, it looks like the following schedule will be how my attempt at 75 miles will happen: Monday: 7 miles AM - Recovery (9'30" pace or slower) Actual workout:  nice and easy.  Legs are hard to wake up. 6 miles PM - Easy (natural, full stride,......
• At a medium pace... 5.7 miles in 47:32 (8:22 pace) #twit2fit #running After weeks and weeks of building mileage and mostly running slowly, I'm ready to start testing the waters a little bit on what my legs actually have in them. If my mileage stays steady, it looks like my legs currently have roughly a comfortable 8:30 pace in them.  After a......
• How long was your marathon? /caption] How long was your marathon?  It's a question that annoys the slightly-less-than-novice marathoner.  There's an air of offense that comes in response to the question:  "How dare you not know how far I ran?  It's a marathon.  Worship me." But there's not that much that is special about finishing......
• I get more miles in before sun up than most people get all week #running #twit2fit I ran 12 miles (just below 10-minute pace), mostly in the dark, on a clear morning in Fern Creek this morning.  When away from main roads, I could clearly see more stars in the sky than I ever did growing up in my old neighborhood.  The sun came up by......
• Help... I'm working on a 70-mile week, with a goal marathon on 11/8... #running Ok, clarification...  the help I seek is with my plan, not with my sanity. Working on a 70-mile week, goal marathon 11/8. [Training log summary] Should I push through to 80 miles over the next 4 weeks or down to the 50-60 mile range and work on pacing?  Currently, my......