Races Like a Girl

The second week of a three week cycle of hard weeks, I ran just under 98 this past week. The only notable aspect to the week was the fact that I ran twice a day all seven days. I’m not compulsive enough to go back and review my training logs to see if I’ve ever done that before. All but three sessions were recovery pace, so I’m still standing on Monday morning.

A look back at the week:

• Monday: 6.1 miles recovery pace (AM); 4.9 miles recovery pace (PM)
• Tuesday: 11.5 easy run with 6×1 mile hill repeats (AM); 4 miles recovery pace (PM)
• Wednesday: 5.5 miles recovery pace (AM); 4.5 miles recovery pace (PM)
• Thursday: 15 mile long run (steady pace) (AM); 4 miles recovery pace (PM)
• Friday: 6.1 miles recovery pace (AM); 6.1 miles recovery pace (PM)
• Saturday: 10 miles with 4 at marathon pace (AM); 6.2 miles recovery pace (PM)
• Sunday: 10 miles recovery pace (AM); 6.2 miles recovery pace (PM)

Total mileage: 97.9 miles

Paces this week:

• Recovery: 9:29 – 11:15
• Easy: 8:00 – 8:15
• Marathon pace: 7:12 – 7:14
• Long: 8:05 – 9:15

The biggest difference between this past week and the week before it was the weather. For the first time since mid-June, I wasn’t running under a heavy gauze of humidity and high heat. Some mornings were almost pleasant, and you can see that reflected in my paces.

The hill run on Tuesday went well, but really wore me out, so I moved the midweek long run to Thursday. Nonetheless, I was still pretty tired and ended up cutting the run a mile short (yes, I was so beat that I couldn’t even run just one more mile).

By Saturday I was recovered enough to do a marathon pace run that went extremely well. I moved the training paces down last week from 3:13 to 3:10, so I approached the marathon pace run with some trepidation. But I was able to handle the pace, and in fact ran most of the miles a few seconds faster, despite an 8mph headwind in some spots.

My marathon pace right now is about the same as what my half marathon pace was three months ago. So I’m not surprised that I can handle it easily enough. I’ll train at a 7:15 pace for the new few weeks, and if that proves easy to sustain, then I’ll push it down again to 7:10 (~3:08 marathon equivalent).

Steamtown is just nine weeks away. I’m starting to feel that odd, alternating combination of excitement and dread. We’ll see which emotion wins out.

Coming up in Fall Training Week 13: Something new for a tempo run on Tuesday: 10K (25 laps) on the track, alternating 5K and marathon pace for each lap. Then a midweek longish run on Wednesday or Thursday. Sunday is a big 24 miler with 10 miles at marathon pace toward the end. I may do this one in Central Park, but I’m not sure yet.

Filed under: central park, training |