Marathon Training Thread - Week Ending 2/20

Georgia Half Marathon (3/20)

Pittsburgh Marathon (5/15)

Goal paces still TBD.

M: 4.9am recovery (8:29 pace), 1pm as warmup to lifting

T: 11 total (7:18) with 5mi of steady state (6:25 pace)

W: 14.5 hilly (7:23). Legs tired after these two days.

H: 5.6am recovery on icy trails (8:34), 2.5pm recovery (8:07) felt good.

F: 10.5am with 10k of steady state, first 8k at about 6:30 and last 2k at about 6:13 pace. Felt great. pm 2.75mi recovery (8:19)

S: Hiking - 7mi easy a.m.

Run - 6.1mi recovery pm (8:08)

Su: 20mi (7:30), mostly at 7:15 on the flats, but with an indulgent little uphill run through muddy trails at the end.

Total: About 79mi + 7 miles of hiking

Highest mileage week I've ever run, not counting the hiking. Previous few weeks: 62, 70, 67, 59.

The 20 miler on Sunday felt like garbage - I didn't bother keeping to my usual paces or HR targets and just ran comfortably. Left knee was slightly sore and I'd eaten a lot at brunch beforehand. In retrospect, running on Saturday evening after spending the morning hiking was probably just a stupid excuse to keep my mileage total up and all it did was make me more tired for Sunday. But moving to two lactate-raising steady state runs in the week was a lot of fun. I felt the mileage a few times during the week, so I decided to split a few days into doubles with pathetically small mileage on the second run, and it seems to have helped with recovery. So I'd call it a successful week from a learning perspective despite the pretty crap long run.

vf, congrats on a successful week and healing!

oz, the next time I'm feeling wimpy, I'm going to say to myself "no poisonous snakes around here, so get your lazy ass in gear."

all, thanks for the continuing inspiration to try to raise my game.

Goal: Cleveland 5/15 sub-3

Sun- 10 hilly

Mon- 18 decent pace

Tues- 8 easy with 10x100 meter strides

Wed- 10 with 7 miles at 6:26 pace

Thurs- 14 fast pace final 3 miles

Fri- 8 3xmile (5:42, 6:03, 6:01) erratic pacing due to wind- should have done 4

Sat- 12 miles

Total= 80

Decent week. I was hoping to squeeze in three hard efforts.

Goal: B&A Half 1:09:29, Boston 2:27

Mon: 4 miles easy, 9 miles 5:42 pace.

Tues: 17 miles

Wed: 9 miles

Thurs: 10 miles, 6x800 (2:24-2:29 400m jog)

Fri: 9 miles 5:31 pace

Saturday: 6 mile recovery

Sunday: 16 mile tempo (5:22 pace)

Total=80

Two weeks till the half. Hoping to get 85 in next week, then a little taper for the half.

Good to see Marmite stepping it up now. I know how frustrating injuries can be.

Good work on the 5k Pablo. A PB at this time of year is impressive. You should nail 15 minutes in the summer mate.

Thanks to everyone for their kind words.

Easy week planned for this week. Any advice on how not to go crazy? I think Nole has the same problem!

brumrunner, if you can do a 21 mile run averaging 6:00 pace the day after a 5k race I really think you are setting your goal too slow at 2:35. Is it your first marathon?

It's my 6th Marathon. My PB is 2.44 from London last year.

The guy I ran the 21 with yesterday said the same as you but I don't want to get carried away. Might go off at a quicker pace. Got a half in 2 weeks and a 20 in 3 weeks so those races should be good indicators.

Easy all week.

Wed. I did 4mi ez, 3mi @MP (17:25) then 2mi ez.

Raced Austin Sunday with a goal of 2:32ish. Went through the half in 1:16:15 then fell off really bad. Temp at the end was near 70, humidity the same, with wind gusting to 20+mph. Course was also tougher than I had anticipated. All things considered still not pleased with the time but not much more I could have done so not going to beat myself up over it too much. Finished 5th in 2:38:35...

Recovery will be quick, I have never been able to walk this well after a marathon before...

Good work to you all, hoping for continued success!

Abu - take care of that ankle mate, easy does it.

Pablo - Wow. Awesome 5k. Very impressive.

Another - The fact you're able to run the finishing 10M of an 18 miler @ MP on the back-end of a 100M week indicates that you're in excellent shape. Reckon your target is well within your grasp.

4TM - thanks! Great week and you did the right thing not trying to battle into the wind - gotta go on effort/intensity in conditions like that.

des - excellent 10M race in there, nice one.

oz congrats on the PR and kudos to you (and all others - Pablo etc) who train in high temps & humidity. Personally, I think you can afford to throw a few races into the mix whenever you feel like it. Especially the shorter distances (e.g., 10k) as you'll recover quickly from those. Perhaps do some of these on the back of a step-back week when you're feeling a bit fresher. There's quite a while to go until your target marathon so I think you've got plenty of flexibility in terms of an interim racing schedule.

Goals: 15:15, 1:12, 2:35

Prs: 15:28, 1:13:15, 2:30

Su: 6

M: 7

T: 12 (2 x mile at 5:07, 2 x 1200 at 3:40, 4 x 200)

W: 4

R: 10

F: 7 (3k hard effort on xc course)

Sa: 6

Total: 52

What a lame week. To light some fire under under my legs, I just signed up for an 8k in three weeks.

The marathon I had planned on running is just 11 weeks from yesterday. I am thinking I might run the half instead, so that I can actually focus on running some faster races in march and april (5k-10k). And then go at it again for a fall marathon.

Goal Marathon: Country Music, April 30th

Goal Time: 2:30

Mon: Easy 3 mile and 9 mile runs

Tue: Easy 5.5 miles; 8.5 miles with 8x10s all-out hills

Wed: 8.5 miles with fartlek. I wanted to do some repeats up a hill, so I tried to time it so I would start my surges on the hill. Ran 2:00 fast/2:00 easy, 90s fast/90s easy, 4x600mish hill with jogdown recovery and then four more of 90s fast/90s easy. Ran the fast portions about 5k effort and wanted to run more of these, but my lunch break was about over; 7.5 miles with 4x200m strides

Thu: 8 miles medium (a little over 6:00 pace); 6.5 miles easy

Fri: Easy 7 and 6 mile runs

Sat: 20 miles with 17 miles of it as a progression working down to a steady effort. Splits were: 7:24, 6:44, 6:34, 6:24, 6:25, 6:19, 6:16, 6:10, 6:03, 5:57, 5:57, 5:56, 5:59, 5:59, 5:54, 5:42, 7:47, 7:24, 7:17. Felt really flat on this run but I ran this right after waking up and purposely didn't take in any carbs before/during the run

Sun: Easy 5.5 and 7 mile runs

Week Total= 102 miles with 110 miles Sunday-Saturday.

Pablo: Nice 5k! Running that well without any specific work is pretty impressive stuff. It looks like you're building the wheels to support a run at 2:25 in the fall.

brumrunner Like others have mentioned, I think you have 2:35 locked in the bag and will run 2:30 low for sure.

oz - Excellent 5k...and you certainly closed the race very well with the 3:11 last km. In addition to the races you list, I'd try another shorter race (like 5k/10k) maybe somewhere between your training run marathon and your half. On the weeks that I race (races are typically on Saturday here), I'll race Saturday and run long on Sunday. It doesn't look like you're planning that many races, so on weeks that you race, why don't you just do a long warm up and cool down to maintain mileage, but not really get in a true long run? Or you could just scratch the long run that week and call it a down week? Considering the fact you plan on long MP workouts most every weekend, you could use a rest week once a month or so.

NoleRunner - Wow, very impressive string of mileage. That's a very solid plan you have for the next couple of months...I'm very much looking forward to see what kind of times you'll drop. You ran 15:35ish off pure base, so it's only logical you'll drop a massive chunk of time when you drop the mileage. BTW, after my 5k this weekend, I'm considering running the 5k @ FL Relays to make an attempt at sub-15. If not that, there's a track meet at Disney the week before I may give it a shot there.

cbreeze - Congrats on a gutsy performance despite the conditions. Even with the heat, humidity and wind, you still held on pretty well. And the best part is that it sounds like you're gonna bounce back in no time

Aim: Boston 2:44

Mon.—10mi., slow.

Tues.—15mi. 7:53ave..

Wed.—12 mi.: 9mi. in 57:47; 3mi. down.

Thurs.—9mi. 1:09.

Fri.—13mi. 7:35ave. Sick.

Sat.—0mi. very sick.

Sun.—0mi. still sick.

Week: 59 miles. Only now, on Monday, am I back on my feet after this sickness. I’ll try to get the mileage back over 100 this week.

Goal Boston ~ 2:25

M : 60 mins

T : 50 mins

W : 65 mins + strides

Th: 40 min Tempo (~5:40)(15 mn wm / 15 min cd)

F : 65 min

S : 3 x 3 miles (~5:15 pace)(15 mn wm / 15 min cd)

SU: 130 mins

~ 80 miles

Weekends are good. The weekdays not so much.

Next Race: Providence Half

Goal: 1:11:xx

M - 11

T - 11

W - 10.5

T - 10.5

F - 6A/6P

S - 7

S - 13

A planned down week ~75 mi, back to ~100+ for the next 5 or 6

Late to the game this week, but wanted to contribute...

Goal Race: Boston

Goal Time: 2:48

Last week was a backoff week, and by the end of the week I felt like crap. Amazing how doing less can make you feel worse. This weeks starts a three week "up" cycle before another backoff week.

M: AM: 10 really EZ; PM: 60 min Stretch/core routine

T: AM: 10 EZ; PM: 3 EZ treadmill

W: AM: 5 x uphill mile @ MP. Averaged 6:13(!); PM: 60 min Stretch/core routine

T: AM: 10 EZ; PM: 3 EZ treadmill

F: AM: 11 decent pace

S: AM: 11 EZ

S: AM: 18 @ 6:56, last 5 @ 6:17. Undulating course in rain and sleet. Great long run.

Total: 86.7 for the week.

Weather aside, some good building blocks for Boston! Last few weeks have been 75, 82, 82, 62, 87. Will probably top out with a few weeks at 90. Less that 8 weeks until the big day!