Monday: 6 miles. I needed an easy run to recover from the "racy rainbow run" the day before, and being sans Garmin, I opted for a strategy I used to use before I even had a Garmin: Run 3 songs, walk a song. Kind of fun to kick it old school. :)
Tuesday: 0 miles. Rest day. Props to Garmin for getting me a replacement watch here so quickly, and before Wednesday's workout, when I really needed it!
Wednesday: 12 miles. Yasso 800s! The theory is that if you do 10 x 800m repeats (with 400m recovery jog in between), your average time (m:ss) = your marathon time (h:mm). My time = 3:45! This is much faster than any of the calculators based on times for other race distances have predicted for me so far, but a friend who is an experienced marathoner said Yasso 800s tend to predict accurately +/- 10 minutes (3:35 - 3:55). If that's the case, I'm definitely in sub-4 territory...with 10 weeks left to train and cooler temps ahead. I started with 4 repeats @ 4:00 a couple of months ago, adding 2 every other week and then running this set of 10 as fast as I could. The plan is to keep doing Yasso's every other week but drop back down to 4 and shoot for a faster time of 3:40 (only 1 of the 10 faster than that in this attempt) and keep adding 2 every other week until I get back to 10. I'll run those as fast as I can about 2.5 weeks before the marathon, which should give me a way to measure my progress over the next 8 weeks--and a good idea of where I stand going into MCM.
Thursday: 12 miles. Originally slated as a trail run, but with the rain, I opted to stay on the roads. I picked a hilly route and did a 4:1 run/walk to give myself a bit of a break since I knew I had 32 miles for Wed-Thurs-Fri plus a long run on Sunday. Even walking every 5th minute, my pace was a bit faster than previous runs on the same route. Progess.
Friday: 8 miles. Different coaches have different definitions of exactly what constitutes a "tempo" run, but the general consensus is that is at or slightly faster than goal pace. My goal was to run 6 miles @ 9:00, with 1 mile each for warmup and cool down. I debated whether to get up at 5 and do this in the dark, wait until the afternoon and battle the heat, or do it on the treadmill that night, since I'd be at the gym for strength training anyway. I hate treadmill running and know how the heat jacks up my HR, so I opted to go early, not realizing until I stepped out the door that it was beginning to rain. Even with my headlamp, running in the dark and rain dulled my senses and the cumulative fatigue of 24 miles in the past 2 days made this run more challenging than I expected it to be with the cooler weather. But I reasoned these 6 miles were kind of like the last 6 of marathon--when you're already tired. I was just a few seconds over 9:00 for the first 2 miles but averaged 8:57 across the total 6, so I'm good with that.
Saturday: 0 miles. Rest day.
Sunday: 22 miles. Crazy as it may sound to some, I've been looking forward to this one. After several 20-mile runs, this was my first time going beyond that distance, and I wanted to try out a new strategy: run 2 miles, then take a :30 walk break, simulating walking through aid stations @ MCM. Running in 65-degree weather at the start felt like a dream. As is often the case, it took me a few miles to get going. (How do people race 5Ks? It takes me that long just to get warmed up!) But by mile 4, I was cruising, easily running < 10:00 and trying to hold myself back so I could save something for later. Nearing mile 5, I had a narrow brush with several dogs that live there. Got my pepper spray ready just in case but was able to dart past without incident. Mile 5.5 and I was rocking again, impressed by how great I felt a quarter of the way through.
My fueling strategy was to pop an energy gel at miles 4, 8, 12, 16, & 20 and to enjoy a Nutter Butter every 2 miles in between. At mile 6, I got my snacks out and (since I was running without music) thought I might have heard something hit the ground. I looked back to see if I had dropped something, failed to see a lip in the asphalt ahead of me, and took a little spill...
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Thank God I fell straight forward and didn't twist or break anything. I scraped both hands, a knee, and an elbow, but nothing too serious. I rinsed as best I could with the water from my fuel belt. Thankfully, I carry band-aids in case of blisters, so I applied one as best I could to my wet hand and carried on.
I was planning to stop at the hospital a few miles down the road anyway, as it's a great place to refill my bottles. I cleaned myself up as best I could in the ladies' room and asked the folks in the ER if I could get a fresh band-aid and some neosporin. DENIED. "Legalities." "Like if the band-aid was infected with something." Um, excuse me, I get that you want to charge me $500 for $.25 worth of medical supplies I'm willing to self-administer, but why are you putting potentially infected band-aids on your paying customers??? Ridiculous. Makes me think of something my dad used to say before he moved back to a small town: I miss Mayberry. I made a note to check the Texas Health mission statement when I sit down to write a letter to whoever's in charge of that place.
I kept going, stopping to refill water again 3 times along my new route, which thankfully I'd had the presence of mind to preview using Map My Run. (Learned my lesson after that last one in Trophy Club that turned out to be about 4 miles further than I expected!) Some hills between miles 15-18, but I managed them and still felt strong at mile 19. I did feel slightly fatigued the last 2 miles, but Garmin tells a different story--just faster than average pace down the home stretch. Even though the temperature had climbed up to 82, and I was at the end of my 60-mile week. Yay.
Total time for today's run (not counting pauses for water/medical aid stops) = 3:47:16 (10:20 pace). I checked my time at the 20-mile mark: 3:27, 11 minutes faster than when I last ran a straight 20 (no walk breaks) a month ago and 16 minutes faster than when I Gallowalked it at the end of June. Some of the improvement is training progress and cooler temps to start, but I'm also encouraged that the 2-mile/:30 strategy seemed to work well, yielding my best time yet.
I was walking to cool down, basking in my accomplishment, letting it sink in that I had just run TWENTY-TWO MILES. And then...I realized I had lost my house key!!! I usually keep it attached to a clip with a ponytail holder (not likely to break like a rubber band). Perhaps it came off the clip when I took the pepper spray off. Maybe that was what I thought heard drop just before my fall. Either way, I was still locked out! I made a call and left a message on the after-hours voice mail, praying someone would come to my rescue. I stretched and decided I'd give them a half hour to respond before heading to Waffle House around the corner to refuel before deciding my next move. I thought there was a chance that if I walked back to mile 5 or 6, I'd find my key there...though after 22 miles, a locksmith might be worth the money. :) Thankfully, I didn't have to choose. My maintenance guy showed up 15-20 minutes later, and I don't know the last time I have been so happy to see someone! He let me in, where chocolate milk, my foam roller, and an ice bath were waiting...
So that's my week. Plus 5 core workouts. (With my hand jacked up, I think I might be planking on my elbows for the next few days!) Three upper body workouts and two leg workouts, one at home and one at the gym. And on target with my eating goals. Feeling like a rock star, knowing that whatever happens at MCM, I will have done everything in my power to have my best race.
This coming week, that means REST. Looking forward to massage tomorrow and cutting mileage in half this week to taper for Hottest Half.
10 weeks and counting...
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