Monday, December 18, 2017

December 11 - December 17 Training

Monday: 5 miles (9:26).  Working through the marathon soreness.
Tuesday: 4 miles (9:40).  Easy treadmill miles.
Wednesday: 4 miles (9:31).  Another day on the treadmill.  Legs feel recovered from the marathon.
Thursday: 3 miles (9:31).
Friday: 3 miles (9:31).
Saturday: 3 miles (9:31).
Sunday: 3 miles (9:31).

Total Miles: 25 miles.  This was basically a rest week to recover from the Rocket City Marathon and take a rest after 5-6 months of marathon training.

Should get a fresh start after the 1st of the year.

Monday, December 11, 2017

December 4 - December 10 Training

Monday: 4 miles (9:31).  Easy 4 miles with pickups. Taper week for Rocket City.
Tuesday: 4 miles (9:05), 1 mile (9:37).  2 mile warmup, then 2 miles of 0:30 strides + 2:30 at 8:40-8:50.  1 mile cooldown.  Felt good to get a couple fast miles in.  All easy running now until Rocket City Marathon on Saturday.
Wednesday: 5 miles (9:23).  Nice and easy.  Everything feels fine, so it is all systems GO for Saturday.
Thursday: 3 miles (9:25).  Keeping it easy.
Friday: 2 miles (9:49).  Easy miles in Huntsville.
Saturday: 26.51 miles (9:13).  Rocket City Marathon.  It was pretty cold at the start, just over 25 degrees.  I ran well the first 15 miles, almost hitting 8:42 on every mile.  But then the wheels started to fall off on mile 16.  And then I started taking some walk breaks beginning with mile 20 before running the last couple miles in to finish at 4:04:16.  Wasn't what I was hoping for, but I made a couple mistakes during the last month of training.  I got all excited about running a couple half marathons in 1:49 and 1:55, however, I cut short the two 20 mile long runs that were planned for November 19 and 26.  Those runs were more important than the 10 mile workouts that had a warmup/cooldown to reach a half marathon.  So the focus for this next training cycle is to make sure I get in those long runs when they are planned.  And I really need to do them at the crack of dawn.  When it sit around the house until 10 or 11 AM, the odds of getting in a 20 mile long run diminishes.  So I know where to put my focus in 2018.
Sunday: 1 miles (10:20).  Flew to Charlotte Saturday night for the Vikings game and did one mile on the treadmill in the morning to extend the running streak to 1060 days.


Total Miles: 46.5 miles.


Monday, December 4, 2017

November 27 - December 3 Training

Monday: 3 miles (9:40), 2 miles (9:30).  Treadmill run at lunch time.  Short Brixx run in the evening.  Feel a little sore from yesterday, but not too bad.
Tuesday: 7 miles (8:35).  7 miles with 7x20s pickups.  After an 8:48 mile warm-up, my body wanted to go to the 8:25-8:35 pace, which is feeling pretty good these days.  I think the pickups make me want to keep running at a good pace even after the 20 seconds of fast running.
Wednesday: 13.1 miles (8:21).  Plan was 2 mile warm-up, 10 x (1/2 @ 8:35 + 1/2 @ 8:20), 1 @ Cooldown.  I got rolling pretty good after the warm-up and was running faster than the original plan and added an extra 1/10th mile on the cooldown to make it a 1:49:28 half marathon.  This was one continuous non-stop run.   No stopping after the warm-up or before the cooldown.  No water, so I guess I don't need water stops on half marathons unless it is warmer than it was today, which was low 60's.  10 days to Rocket City!
Thursday: 6 miles (9:18).  Legs felt a little stiff after yesterday's half marathon, but not too bad.  I've been using the Normatec Leg Compression regularly and it helps on the recovery.
Friday: 6 miles (9:05).  Legs feel pretty good today, a nice recovery from a half marathon race effort just 48 hours ago.
Saturday: 13.1 miles (8:51).   Plan was 4 mile warmup, 3 @ 8:45, 1 @ easy, 3 @ 8:45, Cooldown.  I made the cooldown 1.1 miles to make it a half marathon.  Time was 1:55:49.  That made it two half marathons in 72 hours with times of 1:49, 1:55.
Sunday: 3 miles (9:50).  Short treadmill run from the Atlanta Residence Inn before heading to the Vikings - Falcons game.

Total Miles:  53.2.  Not a big week with a marathon this next Saturday.  Here is my plan for Rocket City this coming Saturday:

Miles 1-13 : Run around 8:40-8:45 pace.
Miles 14-20 : Work down to 8:30 pace.
Last 10K: Open it up and see if I can't get towards a pace of 8:10.

If all goes well, I should be able to finish between 3:45 and 3:48, which would be my 3rd fastest marathon ever.  We will see how it goes.

You can see how my average pace has suddenly got quicker the last couple weeks.