Another Week of Training (9/23 to 9/29)

Closer to marathon time means long, difficult workouts.  It also means I take lots and lots of recovery between each workout, so I usually only get in two per week.  This week's two workouts were:

• 24 mile progressive run
• 20x1 minute fast, 1 minute medium + 10x30 seconds fast, 30 seconds medium

The first one was done on Sunday, and it kicked my butt.  I went into it planning to run about 6:20-6:30 pace for the first 10 miles, gradually pick it up, and maybe knock out the last 7-8 miles at sub 6 pace.  Instead, as usual, I started out much faster than planned and decided slowing down would be wimpy. 

So I ran 6:08 pace for the first 5 miles.  Then sub 6 pace for the next 9 miles. Then 5:55 pace for the next 5. Then 5:50 pace for the last 5, for a total of 24 miles at an average pace of 5:56 per mile.  It wasn't the hardest workout I've ever done, but I made it harder on myself by doing it in heavy trainers (Asics Nimbus for the win!) and starting later than I should have so it was good and toasty by the last ten miles.  But after lazing around the house the rest of the day (and annoying Emily by constantly complaining about my poor achy legs) I was mostly better.

After three easy days, I did the fartlek on Thursday afternoon.  I had worked a little late the previous night, and needed to go in to the office early that morning, so I decided to risk the weather and do an afternoon workout.  In the end I lucked out and it was relatively cool and overcast.  Heck I even got rained on a little bit.  I ran the whole thing around the main road loop of McAllister Park, which is 1.83 miles.  Although I cut the run a little short (it was originally supposed to be an hour total, not 50 minutes), I still got in a solid 5 loops in 50 minutes, which comes out to 5:28 per mile for the whole thing.  There isn't really any way to tell exactly how that pace breaks down, but I felt like I was pushing hard on the fast parts.  If nothing else, as I write this my calves are extremely sore, which is a sure sign I've done some faster running.  Also, public service announcement, 30 seconds on / 30 seconds off is deceptively hard.  Avoid if possible.  

So that's my week.  I'll wrap it up to somewhere around 120 miles with some easy running today and tomorrow, then do the whole song and dance again next week.  As of today, 44 days until the race!