Races Like a Girl

Well, I’m in the thick of training now. This week was designed to be a little easier than last, although when you factor in the heat wave’s effects, I probably worked about as hard as last week. I just felt much worse doing it!

We’ve had temps in the 90s and dewpoints above 70, which means heat indices in the 100F range. Yoiks, that makes for some lame paces.

I did just over 96 miles with three hard workouts: hills on Wednesday, an easy run on Friday and a 22 miler today. The muscle soreness reported last week has eased off, although I did wake up at 3AM last night with it again, but not as severe as last week. I’m hoping this means it’s going to repeat last season’s pattern as something that shows up early in the training cycle, then disappears as my legs get used to the load.

No Billat surges on the Friday run since I wanted to preserve my legs for today. I still had trouble, mostly owing to the weather.

A look back at the week:

• Monday: 6.1 miles recovery pace (AM); 6 miles recovery pace (PM)
• Tuesday: 6.2 miles recovery pace (AM); 6.1 miles recovery pace (PM)
• Wednesday: 11.8 mile easy run with 6×1 hill repeats
• Thursday: 6.4 miles recovery pace (AM); 5.6 miles recovery pace (PM)
• Friday: 9.9 miles easy pace (AM); 4.8 miles recovery pace (PM)
• Saturday: 6.1 miles recovery pace (AM); 5.2 miles recovery pace (PM)
• Sunday: 22 mile long run with 3 miles at 105% of marathon pace

Total mileage: 96.1 miles

Paces this week:

• Recovery: 10:00 – 11:03
• Easy: 8:31
• Long: 7:45 – 10:00

I managed to get in the hill run before the worst of the heat wave took hold. I did them a bit slower this time around, with the net effect being that not only did I not have to walk during any of them, but my rest periods were slower and the repeat times completely consistent. In other words, my performance didn’t dramatically crater for the fifth and sixth repeat. That has to be good for something.

The long run today was a real bitch. I’d originally wanted to do 12 miles at easy pace followed by 10 at 105% x marathon pace. That plan quickly fell apart after mile 15. Oddly enough, my heart rate was in a very reasonable range, but my legs felt dead and I was out of breath (might have something to do with the heat, humidity and bad air quality). And this was inside on the treadmill. I can’t fathom how Jonathan managed to run 22 miles outside this morning.

I eased back on most of the remaining miles, running around 8:30 pace with the final two at a 9:40 crawl. At least I ran the whole 22, despite several attempts to talk myself out of it.

In other news, I registered for the first of two NYRR training runs in Central Park. I’ll be doing some marathon pace running on this one (if I go; at $7, I won’t feel too bad if I decide to bag the idea for one reason or another come August 2). It’s a good deal: race-like support and a crowd to pull me along. I do wonder how I’ll hack getting into town by the 7:00AM start. If I get DOMS again, maybe I’ll be up anyway!

Coming up in Fall Training Week 10: A much appreciated recovery week. Ahhh.

Filed under: basebuilding, central park, training |