Marathon Training – Week 14 – Super Speedy
The taper continues. This week I did my last speedwork session and my last double-digit long run.
Saturday’s speedwork session was 4x1mi which is pretty much one of, if not the, toughest workouts on my schedule. Four weeks ago my splits were 8:26/7:58/8:04/8:02. This week they were 7:25/7:32/7:37/8:05! The workouts were done on different courses (Green Lake versus Dallas Road in Victoria) and at different times of the day (early morning vs late afternoon) but otherwise they were the same. I’m really not sure why I was suddenly so speedy. I’ll take it though and assume it’s a sign that my fitness is marathon ready! By the way, when I did this workout two weeks before the Ottawa Marathon in 2007 my splits were 8:03/8:19/8:16/8:13.
Today (Tuesday) I did a 12 miler in the morning before work. It was tough to fit in but I got it done. I woke up at 5am, ate a light breakfast and then went back to bed for 45 minutes. I was out the door before 6:30am. Of course it was dark and raining but that’s just par for the course right now. Eventually the sun came up and the rain blew over and the run went fine. It wasn’t great though because my legs and feet got pretty achey towards the end of the run. I think it might be time to retire the pair of shoes I was wearing. They’ve got 450 miles on them. For now I’m going to limit them to runs of less than five miles and see how they do. I like to get 500 miles out of my shoes (I like to get my money’s worth) but I’m not risking injury for it!
That’s about all that’s new around here running-wise. I’m down to twelve days and six training runs left before the marathon.
| 12/11 | - | Rest day |
| 13/11 | 6.0 miles | Easy run: avg 160 bpm, 10:48 min/mile |
| 14/11 | - | Rest day |
| 15/11 | 8.0 miles | Speedwork: 4x1mi in 7:25/7:32/7:37/8:05 min |
| 16/11 | 4.0 miles | Recovery run: avg 154 bpm, 11:00 min/mile |
| 17/11 | - | Rest day |
| 18/11 | 12.0 miles | Long run: avg 162 bpm, 10:46 min/mile |
| Total | 30.0 miles | YTD: 1124.1 miles |
PS – The University of Washington Women’s Cross Country team is ranked #1 in the country and is going for the national championship next Monday. They’ve been having an amazing season. Check out this collection of videos from this season. Go Dawgs!