The 100 Mile Express continues to roll on, bound straight for Virginia Beach. Last week, I put another 105 miles of work into my legs as I get ready for the Shamrock Marathon now only 5 weeks away. I came into this week off of a very tough weekend the week prior. On Saturday I used the Frosty 5k in Lewisburg as a hard tempo run, breaking the tape in 14:56 before cranking out 10x300 meters at 3k pace which ended up being between 46-48 seconds. It was not quite a race effort, but it was the first time I had asked my body to work a little harder than normal tempo pace in a long time. I came away from the workout feeling very pleased with the fact that I could run 14:56 as a controlled effort and follow it up with some fairly quick intervals. Following this workout on Sunday, I set off on a 2:30 progression run. This would be the longest progression run that I had ever done, and it went very well. I gradually worked the pace down until I was hitting close to marathon pace the last 20 minutes of the run. The final tally for the day was 24.5 miles with the last 3.5 miles run at 5:20 pace. What wound up being a 37.5 mile weekend left me very tired entering this week, but with under a month of real training time left before the marathon, I had to keep the train rolling along.
I am not typically very conscious of the pace I run on a given training run, even an easy day. My philosophy has always been that the body will settle in at the fastest pace it is capable of on a given day, whether that is 6:00 or 7:00. For me, it has always been closer to 6:00, but last week, I was very careful to take my foot off the gas pedal a little more than normal on my easy days. As I enter the heaviest volume workouts of my training cycle such as 3 x 3 mile and 3 x 4 mile, it is of the utmost importance to be feeling as fresh as you possibly can in the middle of a 100+ mile week.
I did 3 key workouts last week. On Tuesday I did 5 x 2k with a 2:00 recovery jog between reps. The goal for this workout was to feel comfortable right around 5:00 pace. With only one full day of recovery after my hard 24.5 miler, there was no reason to push this workout extremely hard. I ended up averaging 6:11 for the reps, which put me just under 5:00 pace. This was a good workout for me, and I am confident I could have handled one or two more reps at the same pace, always a good sign when targeting threshold pace. On Friday, I cranked out a very good 6 mile tempo run in 30:40. I like to start my tempo runs at marathon pace, and gradually work the pace down to the very edge of my areobic threshold. I was pleased that I could comfortably close the last 2 miles of the tempo in under 10 minutes, and did not come away with my legs feeling too heavy and sore on Saturday, always a good thing when you are trying to avoid lactic acid production as you should in a tempo run. On Sunday, I did my favorite long run workout. As I have previously written, when training for a marathon, I feel it is imperative that your long run be more than just a basic 20 mile run. There needs to be variation in pace, as the long run is as close to marathon simulation as you can get. I began with an easy 10 miles at 6:30 pace on a rolling out and back road. From there, I went straight into a 10 mile fartlek alternating hard miles and moderate miles. I ran the hard miles in 5:13, 5:05, 4:50, 5:05, and 5:00 all on rolling hills. The moderate miles between were all comfortably done around 6:05 pace, and I felt more than ready to go at the end of my recovery each time. Overall, I hit the last 10 miles of my run in 56:00. I have done this workout several times in the past, and this was by far the best I have felt doing it.
At this point, I am now under a month to go until I begin to enter my taper the last two weeks leading up to the race. At this point, all I can really do is keep doing the work and stay healthy. The majority of the work for this race has already been done over the past nine weeks. All I can do now is fine tune things and complete a couple more big workouts.
Here is a full summary of my training last week:
Monday - 12 miles easy - 1:18:00 (6:30 pace)
Tuesday - 12.5 miles total - 3 mile warmup, 5 x 2k (6:14, 6:14, 6:13, 6:09, 6:05 on 2:00 recovery),
2 mile cooldown
Wednesday - AM run - 5 miles, PM run - 12 miles easy - 1:15:55 (6:19 pace)
Thursday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 11 miles moderate effort - 1:06:24 (6:02 pace), also did a
half mile of strides post run
Friday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 11 miles total - 3 mile warmup, 6 mile progressive tempo (5:17, 5:08, 5:09, 5:05, 5:03, 4:55), 2 mile cooldown
Saturday - 12 miles - 1:13:48 (6:09 pace)
Sunday - 20 miles - 10 easy (1:05:40), 10 mile fartlek (5:13, 5:05, 4:50, 5:05, 5:00 for hard miles, 56:00 total)
Week Total - 105 miles
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