The official results are here. The wheels came off at about mile 17 and the hills were very tough but I got it done. I did set a personal best by almost 15 minutes though so I’m very pleased.

All my training is complete and the marathon is less than 24 hours away! Earlier today I went down to the race expo to pick up my race packet, shirt, timing chip and bib number. The plan for the rest of the evening is to stay off my feet as much as possible, hydrate and carbo load (but not too much of either) and then try to get to bed as early as possible. The marathon start gun is at 8:15am tomorrow morning which means I’ll be setting my alarm for about 5:45 am or so. It’s a good think I’m a morning person!

Since this will be my last post before the marathon I thought it would be a good idea to write down my race goals.

• Goal #1: Under four hours – 3:59:59>
• Goal #2: Set a new PB – <4:25:13
• Goal #3: Stay mentally strong and finish the race

I really believe that if I have a good day I can break four hours. My race plan is to try and average a steady 9:09 min/mile. I’m fully prepared for my first mile to be slow. That’s fine because I probably won’t do too much of a pre-marathon warm-up. I need to save all the energy I’ve got for race. I also expect a few of the uphill miles to be slow but I’m going to resist the temptation to try and make-up for that in the first half and bank time. I figure if I can get through the half in 2:00-2:02 I’ll have a good shot at breaking four hours. The real fun will begin at around mile 20.5 when the hills hit. I know these hills well and I’m just going to have to grit it out and get it done.

The race day weather is still looking really good. In fact, it’s looking perfect!

Five days to go to the marathon! I’ve been feeling pretty sluggish on my runs lately which I hope means that the taper is working. At this point all the training is in the bank so I’m mostly just waiting for Sunday to roll around. I’m trying to be good about stretching, piriformis relaxation, hydrating and hand washing (this is not the time to pick up a cold). Carbo loading starts Friday.

OK now onto the great weather watch. Things are still looking good for marathon day! I’ll run in any weather but my preference would be for dry conditions.

Finally, in case you haven’t heard, the University of Washington women’s cross country team won the National Championship last Monday. Go Huskies!

The Seattle Marathon is one week from today. I still have a few runs to do next week to complete my taper but I’m confident that they’ll go fine. That’s why I’m ready to present the graphical summary of this training cycle. Running is just a big excuse for me to make graphs. I may or may not have spent the better part of a Saturday night at home alone making these graphs! First up is the training graph I make prior to all my major races.

The first feature that jumps out is the big drop in mileage during weeks 5 and 6. This was a planned break I took during my trip to Europe. My total training mileage was 443.3 miles (713.4 km) with the biggest week coming in at 41.3 miles (66.5 km) and a longest long run of 21.3 miles (34.3 km).

Next I thought it might be fun to compare this training cycle with my 2007 Ottawa marathon training cycle.

Not surprisingly they’re somewhat similar (except for the break for the vacation) since both plans were based on Smart Coach plans. This time around I started at a much higher base mileage since I was coming off my 30-on-30 training. I made a second version of this graph that shows the different types of runs. There’s a lot of colour going on though and I think it’s a bit much to take in. I did want to compare my training by run types though so I came up with the following graph.

This time around I did more long run mileage. I also did more recovery run mileage but I think that might because I was more inclined to call a run a recovery run this time around whereas I might have just called it an easy run in 2007. It’s so hard to get consistent data! I also made a second version of this graph where the x-axis is the proportion of miles instead of absolute mileage.

All of these graphs were made using Microsoft Excel 2008 for Mac.

Now that the graphs are done I can go back to obsessive weather checking.

The countdown is on. Ten days to the marathon! I had an awesome run this morning (4 tempo miles in 8:03/8:11/8:12/8:10 min/mile) in perfect conditions – about 7C and cloudy but dry. I even wore shorts. I couldn’t help but think that this would have been perfect marathon weather. The only catch was that half an hour after I got home the wind picked up and it started raining horizontally. Darn. Not so perfect after all.

I know it’s way too early to be paying attention to the long range forecast but that’s not going to stop me from checking in regularly over the next ten days. Here’s AccuWeather.com’s current prediction for November 30. It’s too good to be true.

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.

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!

I spent last weekend in Las Vegas with some of my grad school girlfriends. Under a traditional marathon training program I should have done my final 20 miler on Saturday or Sunday. There was no way that was going to happen. I was not running 20 miles in the desert when I could have hanging out with friends who had flown in from across the country. No, not a chance. So I came up with a brilliant plan to do my 20 miler on Tuesday Nov 11 because I had the day off work for Veteran’s day. This meant I had to rearrange my training program. I decided to shift my final three training weeks to run from Wednesday to Tuesday. I refer to this as my “Vegas Necessitated Phase Shift.”

Here’s what I did on Monday and Tuesday. They’re really just an extension of last week’s easy week. I’m quite pleased with the heart rate on Monday’s run but I’m starting to suspect that the battery may be going on my monitor strap. The numbers have just been too good to be true lately.

Week 13 was my peak training week. I was aiming to hit 40 miles for the week which would be a new all time record. Previously I did 38.8 miles during week 13 of my Ottawa marathon training and 38.5 miles during the week I actually ran the marathon.

Friday and Saturday’s runs were a study in contrasts. I ran Friday morning in Seattle. It was windy, pouring rain and 12C. Saturday I was in Vegas and ran in hot (20C), dry, sunny conditions. I hope I got a winter’s worth of vitamin D because I don’t know the next time I’m going to get to run in the sun! I ran along the strip from the Luxor (where we were staying) up 2.5 miles to the Wynn and then back. There were actually a surprising number of runners out on the sidewalks. With all the hotels and other tourists on the strip I never ran out of interesting things to observe!

I tried to make this week’s 20 miler as race-specific as I could. I took the bus from my apartment to downtown and then across to the Mercer Island P&R. I started running at the P&R and after a mile I hit the I-90 bridge at approximately mile 6 of the marathon course. It was a little strange running across the bridge (I ran on the bike lanes) and I imagine in windy, wet conditions it could be pretty miserable. From there I headed down Lake Washington Blvd and around Seward Park. I continued on the marathon course to just past mile 23 at which point I turned off and headed home. So I covered 18 miles of the course. I did the run to the finish a few weeks ago but it’s really not possible to train the start of the course since it runs on the I-90 express lanes!

In the end I did 21.3 miles and felt pretty good doing it. Sure, my legs got tight and tired but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. I changed up my fueling a bit on this run. I took water at miles 2, 4, 8, 12 and 16, gatorade at miles 6, 10, 14 and 18, chocolate clif shot gels at miles 4 and 12 and margarita clif shot bloks at miles 8 and 16. The shot bloks are new for me. I wanted to try them because they contain extra sodium to prevent cramps. Not that I usually get cramps but I tend to drink a lot while I run and I really don’t want to get hyponatremia. I didn’t have any trouble stomaching them but they took longer to eat than a gel so that’s the only down side. I’m happy with my fueling routine though so I don’t think I’ll change anything else before race day.

The marathon is less than three weeks away so I guess I’m in taper mode now. I have one last hard speedwork session planed for Saturday and after that it really will be downhill. I’m feeling pretty good about my training. My plan for the next few weeks is to take really good care of myself. That means eating healthy, getting lots of sleep, extra stretching and trying my best not to get sick!

All I have to say is yay for step-back weeks. I took things pretty easy this week and I’m feeling very rested and ready to take on the final month of marathon training. After five weeks where my weekend long runs were 16, 18, 13.1 (tune-up race), 20 and 16 miles it was really nice to only have to do 10 this weekend. I was in Victoria so I did the first four with Matt and then the final six alone in Beacon Hill park. I threw in a few easy hills just to mix things up.

I should also mention that my October total training mileage was 143.5 miles (230.9 km). This is my highest monthly total ever!

I love running this time of year. The weather is cool and crisp and the trees are at the peak of their autumn colours. The set of trees in the photo above are along the Green Lake path where I do all of my weekday runs. Pretty nice!

I can’t recall the last time I had a training week where every run was a complete success. I really couldn’t have asked for anything more out of this week. Tuesday’s tempo run felt the way I imagine tempo runs are supposed to feel. Check out the splits in the table below. Can you guess when the sun came up? That’s right, just after I finished my second tempo mile. Sometime during the third mile I felt like I found a groove and I did my best to stay there. I was really happy with the final four tempo miles. There’s nothing like a good tempo run to boost your spirits.

On Saturday I had a 16 mile long run scheduled. Given that I did a 20 miler last week, 16 sounded relatively easy. I did the same 16 mile course that I used in weeks 7 and 2. I’m not getting any faster but I think the route felt a bit easier this time around. The climb up Stone Way at the end kills me every time though. I think I recovered better this time around too. My heart rate was shocking low on Sunday’s recovery run. That’s my lowest recorded average heart rate on any run in the past two years. I’m pretty sure this is OK. It was cold out and I was a bit sleep deprived so that might account for part of it. In any case I don’t think I’m overtrained so I’m not worrying about it.

Next week is a step back week and I am very excited about it! I’ve basically done 5 hard weeks in a row with the exception of a days or two of extra rest before and after the Victoria half marathon. Next week should give be a chance to recover, tend to any minor aches and pains and prepare for the final training peak before the marathon.