The theme of the week was bone chilling cold! Even worse is that as the temperature dropped, my training mileage increased, making it even more challenging. I routinely have problems with my handheld plastic water bottle that freezes on these cold days, making drinking on the run difficult (unscrewing the top, slowing/stopping to take sips of water - rather slush - vs. maintaining a steady pace and simply squeezing the bottle). This was a real challenge on my long run that I chose to run as two 10 mile loops. By mile 3-4 of each loop the freezing action kicked in. Luckily I split my GU brew drink into 2 half water bottles, the second of which was waiting nice and warm for me inside my house to use in lap 2. I am considering buying a wearable hydration pack that I hope can work better if it is kept warmer by my own body heat.
It seems like almost every workout was a highlight and added some real value to my overall goal to race my best marathon in Boston.
M: 5 miles easy with Matt Story. Second easy day in a row after an easy 4 on sunday
T: 7mi tot, again with Matt. After 1.15 mi easy running, ran 22x 200m intervals at 5K race pace with 45sec jog recovery. We ran on the roads of a local cemetery where each straight stretch measured just about 200m - basically "weaving" our way through the grounds. I managed many of these intervals in the 5:30-5:40/mi pace range.
W: 10 miles, many of them steady in the 7:15-7:25/mi pace range. Pushed my training partner Joe Loureiro a bit on this run that he said afterward he appreciated (I think I believe him!). I am gaining a reputation for pushing the training paces and hope someday it will translate into a very successful marathon race! So far I've been pretty good at running challenging workouts but found "the wall" at the end of the longest training runs and on race day.
T: 6 miles with Joe; Progression run, then 6 x 150m strides after run
F: Off
S: 3.6mi tot: 0.5mi warmup, then ran the aptly named Fudgcicle 5K race that is organized by my running club the Greater Lowell Road Runners. This was a very fun race with a 4th place overall finish in 18:55, my fastest 5K in about 20 years! My mile splits and a writeup of the race can be found here.
S: 20 miles, and my first marathon specific workout of the season! Started out with training partners Joe and Will but just for the first two miles. Joe was running a different workout with a longer run before getting into faster paced intervals, so I split from the group at mile 2:
2 mile warmup,
4 miles at marathon goal pace (mp) (6:50/mi target, ran 6:49),
4 miles rest at (7:31/mi target that is 90%+ of mp, ran 7:23),
4 miles at mp (6:44/mi),
4 miles rest (7:16/mi),
1 mile all out (6:17) - it's what I had left in me after 18 miles of running :-)
1 mile cooldown (7:37)
 |
| It's all done! |
Summary after 11 weeks of training for Boston, and with 11 weeks to go:
No comments:
Post a Comment