Marathon Training – Week 12 – 4 weeks to go!

This past week was a nice easy step back week. I did a couple of easy 8 milers during the week and then on Saturday I ran the Tom Wales Memorial 5K. I’ve already posted my race report. I ran a 24:59 which I’m quite pleased with. I plugged this time into a few online race prediction calculators. I’ll spare you the details but they all predicted times between about 3:55 and 4:15 for the marathon. I think that is overly optimistic. Under ideal conditions I think 4:20 would be great. Really I just want to finish.

I got an email update from the Ottawa Marathon last week. I was excited to learn that our names will be printed on our race bibs. We had this in Vancouver and I thought it was great because the crowd was able to cheer for runners by name. Also there will be live results with splits at 10 km, 21.1 km and 30 km available online. This won’t be very helpful to my fans on the race route but it does mean that friends and family out of town can track my progress on race morning. With less than four weeks to go this is all starting to get very real. I generally alternate between feelings of excitement and dread!

This week coming up promises to be a monster week of in all aspects of my life. I have a midweek 10 miler and a weekend 20 miler on the schedule. School-wise on Wednesday I have a survival analysis midterm, a meeting with my advisor and a softball game. On Thursday my advisor’s former PhD advisor (my “academic grandfather”) will be visiting our department so I’m meeting with him and then going out to a group dinner with him that evening. Plus I’ve got work and research to squeeze in around all the other stuff. I am going to be so ready for the taper!

Marathon Training – Week 11 – Mental math

This past week went much better than the one before. Taking both Sunday and Monday off really helped my legs recover from the 20 miler. On Tuesday I had a tempo run on the schedule. After the way my 20 miler went I decided I needed to do this run conservatively. Instead of monitoring my pace I just told myself to run the tempo miles “comfortably hard.” In the end this worked out to an average of 11 seconds per mile slower than the pace my training program would have dictated. I was quite relieved to finish the workout and discover that my legs were not permanently destroyed!

I did a 16 mile long run on Saturday on a fairly flat course. My legs held up pretty well. I certainly felt them towards the end of the run but it was sort of a steady state discomfort that didn’t really affect my pace too much. The real challenge of this run was mental math. I started by running x miles down to a local trail. I then followed the trail west to it’s end and turned around and ran back to where I’d originally joined the trail. By this time I’d run a total of y miles. At that point I had to figure out how many z miles to run out and back so that I’d finish at home with a total distance of 16 miles. In other words I had to calculate z = (16 – x – y )/2, keep running and then turn around when my Garmin read y+z/2 and head home. It took me a full quarter mile to do that calculation! In my defence, none of x, y, z were integers.

There are now 5 weeks until the marathon. I am starting to think seriously about race day logistics and wardrobe. This past week I was obsessed with footwear. I currently have two pairs of running shoes that I use in rotation: a pair of Asics Gel-Kayano XII with 230 miles on them and a pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS6 with 214 miles on them. I’ve had the Asics since the fall and they’re OK but I don’t love them. I do love my Brooks though and I use them for all my long runs. This is actually my second pair of GTS6s, I wore the first pair during my half marathon last fall and then retired them in January with probably about 400 miles on them. I don’t feel I should use my current pair for the marathon though because by the time I toe the line they could have nearly 300 miles on them. So last week I ordered another pair and I’ll be spending the next few weeks gradually breaking them in. I wore them today for the first time on an easy 3 mile recovery run. They felt great. I’m just not sure how many miles I want to have in them before the marathon. I’m thinking about 40-50 miles would be ideal.

Marathon Training – Week 10 – Oh my aching legs!

This was the hardest week of training I’ve done so far. It all started on Tuesday morning with speedwork at the track. I did 4 x 1600m and man was it tough. My splits were fine but the workout took a lot out of me. It especially took a lot out of my legs. I could feel my legs were tight the next morning when I was on the elliptical machine. On Wednesday evening I had an intramural softball game. I was stupid and didn’t really warm up before the game. So I went to bed on Wednesday with tight legs and a tight back (I assume from swinging through while batting) and decided that my run on Thursday morning would be a game time decision. When I woke up, I felt OK so I decided to do the 7 miles on the schedule. During the run my legs felt tired and I think this is why my pace was slightly slower than usual for that distance.

Saturday was my first ever 20 mile run. I did an out and back course with a few moderate hills. Twenty miles is the farthest I’ll go in training (I’ll do it again 3 weeks before the marathon) so obviously it’s a good test of marathon preparedness. Of course I’ll have to go 6.2 miles farther during the marathon but I’ll be starting with fresh legs coming off the taper. On Saturday I felt fine for the first 8 miles or so. Then I started to feel my legs. It is obvious to me that my leg strength/endurance is more of a limiting factor to me at this time than my cardiovascular fitness. I was able to muscle through the run in 3:38:08 but my legs were shot by the time I got home. I’ll be honest, this run hurt. I really had to focus on short-term goals (run to the next turn) during the last few miles and do my best to ignore my aching legs.

In pervious long runs I’ve made it much farther that 8 miles before feeling my legs. There are several reasons why things might have gone not quite as well on Saturday. I think it’s very possible that my legs never fully recovered from Tuesday’s speedwork. I also think it’s possible that the hills on Saturday’s run were just too much for me. I also think I might just have had a fluke of a bad day.

There are six weeks until the Ottawa marathon. I don’t want to be overly dramatic but I am a little concerned about my legs. First off I’ve decided to take today (Sunday) and tomorrow (Monday) completely off of running. I’m hoping that this will deal with my current soreness. Then I’m just going to focus on keeping my legs healthy. It’s really too late to start weight training to build strength so I’m just going to hope that continuing with my training program will be enough. There will be lots of stretching and possibly an ice bath or too (if I have the nerve) and we’ll see how it goes.

Marathon Training – Week 9 – Not a wimp

“Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, ‘Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?’” – Peter Maher, Irish-Canadian Olympian and Sub-2:12 marathoner

That little quote was a huge source of motivation for me during week 9. In fact, I think it’s amazing that I got all my training runs in last week. I was, as my Dad would say, “slammed” with work last week. I ended up having to be out the door before 6am on Monday and Wednesday to get my runs in. I am a morning person and I love to train in the mornings but getting up at 5:40am is a bit too early for me.

On Thursday I flew to Toronto and when the plane landed the snow was blowing horizontally and it was frigid outside. It was a major shock to my system. In Seattle, we’re almost through the cherry blossoms and daffodils and most of the trees have started to grow their leaves. I had packed a variety of running clothing but I wasn’t really prepared to run in sub-freezing temperatures. It just didn’t occur to me that it might be that cold in April. I didn’t even have a toque with me!

When I set out on my 16 mile long run on Friday (after raiding Matt’s closet for extra layers) the temperature was -7C with a windchill of -14C. There was snow on the ground and light snow falling but the sidewalks and roads were clear. From a training perspective the run went quite well – I felt strong and kept the pace moderate. From a personal perspective the cold made the run more than a little uncomfortable at times. I also got a tiny bit lost a few miles into the run. Basically I made a wrong turn after a twisty section of road and ended up running north when I thought I was going west. Thankfully my basic knowledge of Toronto was sufficient so that once I hit the next major road I had a good idea of what I’d done wrong. I then checked a map at the next bus stop and figured out how to get back to my originally planned route. All was well after that.

So all in all another good week of training is in the bank. I’m just going to keep rolling through this training program and hope for the best. Next weekend I’ll do my first of two 20 mile runs…

Marathon Training – Week 8 – Half way there

As of Sunday I am officially half way through my marathon training program. Eight weeks down, eight weeks to go.

Week 8 was a step back week filled with three 7 milers and lots of rest. Saturday’s run was quite fun. I was in Vancouver with my parents visiting my sister. My route took me on a big loop around the UBC campus and Endowment Lands and included about a mile when I was practically running on the beach. I had quite the head wind but the view was fantastic. Later on in the run the sun came out and I could see shadows! You don’t see a lot of shadows during the winter here because even if it’s not raining it’s usually cloudy. This makes me think I should look into my sun screen supply and make sure I’m all set for the spring.

I want to share this photo of my all time favourite road sign. It’s located at the Peace Arch border crossing just after you cross into Canada from the US. It always makes me smile as I return to Canada. I have to admit that it feels a little wrong that my running is totally based on miles instead of kilometers. When I run the marathon I’m going to have to “think metric” because the course will be marked by kilometers not miles. Of course, I don’t actually have a time goal so monitoring my pace won’t be all that important.