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.

I tried to repeat the workout that I pulled off last week–5-4-3-2-1 @ MP on a long run.  Last week, that run made me feel that I had a shot at 3:20 for a marathon.  This week, my run made me feel I would struggle to hit my PR.  While I *did* add 2 miles to the week and long run distance, my 20 miler today was 50 seconds per mile slower than my 18 miler last week.  Not to mention that the weather was much cooler this weekend.

I have had low quality runs this week, and had quite a bit of trouble with coughing today.  I also dropped about 2 pounds this week, and spent an hour and a half straight standing up last night and was feeling pretty sick last night.  I’m feeling quite a bit better now, although I still have this lingering cough.

- 2.08 mile warm-up, 19:04 (9:11/mi)
- 5 mile MP interval, 41:11 (8:15/mi)
- 5 minute recovery, 0.56 mi
- 4 mile MP interval, 31:55 (7:59/mi)
- 4 minute recovery, 0.45 mi
- 3 mile MP interval, 26:02 (8:41/mi)
- 3 minute recovery, 0.31 mi
- 2 mile MP interval, 16:55 (8:28/mi)
- 2 minute recovery, 0.21 mi
- 1 mile MP interval, 9:01
- 1.41 mi cool down 13:17 (9:26/mi)

RunningAHEAD – Strings_n_88keys’s log: View Workout.

I just noticed that my rolling 30 day total stands at over 300 miles.  I never would have dreamed of doing that earlier this year.

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, ballpark 8′50″-9′00″) 8′31″/pace is pretty easy
  • Actual workout:  6 miles at an average 8′21″ pace–quite a bit more aggressive than originally planned.  I opted for the treadmill, because I wasn’t in the mood to deal with lunch time traffic outside.  I started at a solid 8′31″ pace, but felt pretty good at 8′00″ and even 7′30″.  I even added a few strides of 6′12″-6′25″ in for variety towards the end.

Tuesday

• 7 miles AM – Recovery
  • Actual workout:  ran a third run on Monday, while watching the Packers-Vikings game.  7 miles at an average 9′31″ pace.
• 6 miles PM – Easy
  • Actual workout: 6 miles at an average 8′33″ pace–first half at 7.0 mph on the treadmill, second half at 7.1 mph on the treadmill.

Wednesday

• 10 miles APM – Tempo (8-miles @ 7′23″ pace)
  • Actual workout: 8 miles in 58:46 or 7′21″ pace, 10 miles in 1:17:46 or 7′47″ pace.  Hacking cough tripped me up at miles 5 and 6.

Thursday

• 7 miles AM – Recovery
• 6 miles PM – Easy

Friday

• 6 miles PM – Recovery

Saturday

• 20 miles AM – marathon pace workout
  • 2 mile warm
  • 5 mile @ 8 minute target pace
  • 5 minute cool (0.5 mile)
  • repeat @ 4 miles, 4 minute recovery, 3, 2, 1
  • finish 20 @ jog

The pants that I bought at the outlet after my first marathon in OBX (Nov 2007) are now at least 3″ too big. That was a year and half after starting running and 45 pounds lost. I’ve also dropped about 20 pounds since.

Pre-running: 40″ Now: 32″