A Turning Point: Week 14 Training Recap: Jan 07 - 14

The theme this week was distance. After 8 weeks of training at 40 miles per week, this one was a real breakout - 57 miles, nearly matching my personal record of 59 miles in one week last year.

Before the week started I looked ahead at the rest of my training plan and was actually surprised. The long run workouts were all familiar to me, having followed this plan adopted and refined by my training partner Joe Loureiro. But what I didn't realize is that some of those workouts were in fact (ideally) meant to be doubles (i.e., repeated in the AM and the PM in the same day). We're talking about 24 miles and even (in one case) 31 miles of running in a single day! We did not do that last year! Frightening on one level, but on another it represents an opportunity to pile on training volume and find a way to tackle my biggest marathon foe - The Wall. Something has to be done...

The other, major highlight of the week was a chance to run with Gary Allen on his Maine to DC Run supporting the American Cancer Society, Wounded Warrior Project, and the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy. It was a real honor to be able to run a few miles with him as he traveled through my region.

M: 6.1mi easy, stopping periodically to mix in some XT while Joe completed a separate intervals workout

• 2x {25 body weight squats, 20 push ups}
• 2x {25 squats, 20 sit ups}

T: 8.9mi: 2mi warmup, then 16x 400m with 200m jog in sets of four at half marathon, 10K, 5K and 3K race pace, cooldown
W: 10mi, steady around 7:20/mi for the whole thing
T: 6.6mi, with 6 x 150m strides after run
F: Off
S: 7.5mi super easy. Ran with Gary Allen for a brief portion of his 700 mile run from Maine to Washington DC!
S: 18mi: 60 min run, followed by 10 sets of {1 min @ 10K race pace, 1 min jog recovery}, cooldown run to get to 13.75mi. Then another 4.4mi at about 7:10/mi pace to wrap up the workout

NECN television coverage of Gary Allen's run:

Summary after 9 weeks of training for Boston: