So... Monumental Marathon training started last week... sorta...
Last week was Week 1 of 18. I am doing my own thing this time, winging it on my own. I'm basing the training program off of Hal Higdon's Intermediate 2 program that I've used for my last 2 marathons but I'm ramping it up a bit since, my problem has been, I crash in the last 8 miles or so. I'm sticking with the concept of doing a hard pace run that is about half the distance of your long run the day before the long run and doing another run the same distance as the pace run but not as hard, but I'm playing around with the distances.
That being said, Week 1 was pretty much not a training week...
Sunday - 20 miles. Not exactly running as it was Western States, but I did cover 20 miles of terrain
after being up for, oh, 44 hours...
Monday - Took all day to fly home.
Tuesday - Got caught up at home and got a massage.
Wednesday - Worked all day then ran kids around all evening.
Thursday - Worked all day then was too trashed to do anything else.
Friday - Got up at 6 am to run a 5K.
Sparkler Sprint 5K
Mile 1 - 7:25
Mile 2 - 8:29
Mile 3 - 8:21
last 0.1 - 1:06
Official time - 25:21 (8:09 pace)
So this ends up being the third 5K I've done recently with pretty much no running in between. I've kept my times pretty consistent (25:49, 25:32, 25:21) so I guess I can't complain. This time around, the morning was perfect! Nice and cool. My legs felt good. I blasted through my first mile... then my body decided it was done for the morning. Plus, the turn around wasn't marked. I went down the path that everyone was coming back on only to find them yelling at me to turn around. Most of us, me included, ended up running more than 3.1 miles. After that incident, I was really done. I wanted to just jog it in. I did do a 2 mile cool down so 5 miles total for the day.
Saturday - Slept in, then worked til midnight so no running.
Week 1 Total Miles: 25
So now it's Week 2.
Sunday - Got up at 5 am to meet my friend Bob at Morgan Monroe Forest for a 10 mile trail run. He's training for a 50 mile ultra so he stayed and ran 10 more. I went home and went back to bed until noon since I am NOT a morning person!
Monday - G is doing a dance intensive up in Carmel all week so I arranged my schedule to be off all week to drive her. Dropped her off at 9 am and hit the Monon Trail. I love running on this "trail" (it's actually paved.) It was threatening rain when I started, then started raining 2 miles in but it wasn't a hard rain so it actually felt good. Plan was to do 6 pace miles but my legs wouldn't cooperate after my trail run the day before so I ended up averaging 9:36 pace for 6 miles.
Today - Thunder, lightening, and a monsoon woke me up at 5 am. It stopped for awhile, but by the time I got up to Carmel it was a monsoon again. I had 12 on the schedule for today so I decided I'd hamster track it at the fitness center in Greenwood. I started driving back when the sun came out. It was blue skies and dry pavement by the time I got home so I ran my 12 on the county road instead. It was freakin' hot!!
So, 28 miles in 3 days. I have 4 planned for tomorrow, then another 5K with 2 mile cool down for Friday. That should put me at 37 miles for the week. Hal Higdon's Intermediate 2 plan doesn't hit that kind of mileage until Week 7 so I'm being more aggressive on the mileage. I also know I'm breaking all the rules about ramping up your mileage but I've run this mileage before... but yes, I'm also praying I don't blow my legs out.
So this is what I've decided to do differently this training cycle...
1. Wear a watch on more of my runs so I push the pace a little more
2. Do longer long runs - I have three 20's, a 24, and a 26 on the schedule
3. Pay more attention to my nutrition
4. Do more strength training
I am going to continue racing the 5K's to get some forced speed sessions on the schedule in addition to my pace runs. I've found that they are a pretty good indicator of my fitness level. Since I haven't been on a training program since April, my 5K times are almost two and a half minutes slower than what I was running in the Spring. Hopefully those times will drop again once my training cycle ramps up.
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