Week 2 Inspiration and Training Recap: Apr 02 - 08

Well this journey got started in week 22 and here we are with only two weeks left! It's about to start getting real. This is the first of two taper weeks, decreasing our mileage and letting our bodies absorb the previous weeks of hard training.

Inspiration

Also this week Team Red Cross participated in a very special event featuring speakers Brian Boyle (who will run the marathon as part of the team) and two time Boston Marathon champion and gold medal winner Joan Benoit Samulelson. We got our fill of inspiration, and a reminder how our fundraising for the American Red Cross of Eastern Massachusetts is saving lives and providing urgently needed assistance to disaster victims in the region.

At the above link you can learn a little bit about Brian's incredible story of survival, perseverance, triumph and giving. He is a survivor of a terrible auto accident, beneficiary of blood services, Ironman Triathlon finisher, and spokesperson for the American Red Cross. He authored the book Iron Heart that chronicles his experiences. Brian recounted for us one of the ways he managed to work his way back from this horrific setback to achieving success in one of the world's toughest sporting events (Ironman) - by telling himself "every breath is a gift and every step is an achievement". It's a real honor to be running along side him for Team Red Cross in this Boston Marathon.

I also very much enjoyed the perspective offered by Joan Benoit Samuelson, who told us among other attributes, to be successful you've got to have passion and be prepared to run your race. It was also a great pleasure to take my young daughter who herself is a budding runner to this event and to get a chance to learn from and meet Joan. For most kids I know a speaking program is not the most exciting thing - but who knows what highlights and memories she will carry with her?

Training Update

As for the running, 38 miles in total this week:

M: 3.3mi easy pace in 24:15

T: 5.9mi tot: 1.5mi warmup, then 4x {400m with 200m recovery}, 1mi tempo run, and 1.7mi cooldown. Intervals were 1:38, 1:34, 1:29, 1:21 and 6:17 for the mile tempo

W: 9.1mi in 1:06:52 with lots of those miles solidly in the 7:10s/mi pace

T: 6.3mi tot: 5.8mi workout, then 10x 20sec uphill sprints, .4mi run to the finish line

F: off

S: 10mi tot in 1:09. 2mi warmup, then 6mi at marathon pace, 2mi cooldown. The splits for the 6 mile tempo run were 6:48, 6:45, 6:36, 6:36, 6:46, 6:46. These are faster than goal marathon pace, testament to the difficulty in not going out too fast (a big challenge on race day)!

S: 3.3mi in ~23 min relatively easy Easter Sunday run