Week of October 23 – October 29
Monday: 6.4 miles easy (82° w/ dew point of 64°) + 30 minutes of strength
Tuesday: 8 miles easy (61° w/ dew point of 51°)
Wednesday: 6 miles easy (60° w/ dew point of 53°)
Thursday: 12.2 miles w/ quality (treadmill)
Friday: 7 miles easy (62° w/ dew point of 60°)
Saturday: 7 miles easy (80° w/ dew point of 64°) + 2.5 mile stroller walk
Sunday: 20 miles w/ quality (70° w/ dew point of 57°)
Thursday’s workout was originally written as a two mile warm up, 15 X 2:00 at critical velocity effort with 1:30 jogging recoveries and a two mile cool down. I was out of town for work and decided that the treadmill was likely my best option, so we adjusted the workout portion to 6 X 4:00 + 3 X 2:00. The total volume of work remained the same, but I didn’t have to adjust the speed up and down nearly as much. This ended up being a good thing too because you had to manually adjust the speed with the up and down arrows (as opposed to some treadmills that have actual preset speeds). I averaged 5:46 for the 6 X 4:00 portion and 5:23 for the 3 X 2:00 portion. I will say, however, that these paces are not entirely accurate (given the nature of treadmill running). I would say add 10-15 seconds or so, not that it really matters. I felt AMAZING during this run! It was one of my best workouts of the training cycle!
Sunday’s workout was a doozy! It was a three mile warm up, 2 X 6 miles at marathon pace with two miles between sets and a three mile cool down. The workouts itself was a big one, but it was made MUCH more difficult by the terrain (partially on dirt roads and rolling hills the entire way!). You know how when a race course is described as rolling that they basically mean it is hilly as heck? Yeah. That’s the way this was too. I climbed 1,100 feet throughout this run! During the workout portion, I averaged 6:46 for the first six miles and 7:00 for the second six miles. I didn’t go back and calculate this until just now, but the grade adjusted paces were 6:40 for the first set and 6:50 for the second set. On paper this one doesn’t really appear to be anything stellar, but it was actually a massive effort and a really good training stimulus! My coach was VERY pleased!
Total – 66.7 miles running + 2.5 miles walking + 30 minutes strength training
Week of October 30 – November 5
Monday: 6.5 miles easy (81° w/ dew point of 71°) + 30 minutes of strength
Tuesday: 8 miles easy (51° w/ dew point of 44°)
Wednesday: 7 miles easy (54° w/ dew point of 22°)
Thursday: 12.3 miles w/ quality (treadmill) + 30 minutes of strength + 30 minutes of Pilates
Friday: 6 miles easy (51° w/ dew point of 41°) + 3 mile stroller walk
Saturday: 6.5 miles easy (59° w/ dew point of 50°) + 3 mile stroller walk
Sunday: 21 miles w/ quality (66° w/ dew point of 52°)
Thursday’s workout was originally written as a two mile warm up, 12 X 1k with 1:00 standing recoveries and a two mile cool down. We woke up to temperatures in the low thirties and I took the easy way out by running on the treadmill. Running in below freezing temperatures seemed like more of a risk than I was willing to take. I feel like the trickiest part of the next month is going to be trying to stay well! I tweaked the workout slightly to 7 X 1 mile with 2:00 jogging recoveries. Again, I did this just so that I didn’t have to adjust the speed up and down quite as much. I averaged 5:56 for the seven mile repeats. And again, I will say that the paces are not entirely accurate, as I ran between 9.8 and 9.9 mph on the treadmill. Either way, I was really happy with this one! If nothing else the workouts on the treadmill give me a lot of confidence. While I definitely don’t want to be overly confident, I don’t think that a little bit of a confidence boost ever really hurts anyone!
Sunday’s workout was a three mile warm up, six miles at a moderate pace, six miles at the upper end of my marathon pace range, four miles at the lower end of the my marathon pace range and a two mile cool down. Whew. I *think* this is my last 20+ mile long run before CIM, as I’m doing races the next two weekends (WOO X TWO!). I didn’t shy away from the hills on my route (total climbing was about 850 feet). I’ve heard that while CIM is a net downhill, it’s basically rolling the entire way and I think a lot of people neglect to train on hills. I’m doing my best to make all of my long run routes decently hilly. This is something I have never really done in the past … even when training for NYC in 2015 and when training for that ultra I did in Colorado in 2017 (as it turns out the “easiest” 50k in Colorado is still FAIRLY challenging when you don’t train on trails or hills)). I averaged 6:49 for the 10 marathon pace miles (6:58 for six the upper end of MP miles and 6:35 for the four lower end of MP miles). I’m hoping to run a bit faster than this on race day, but we shall see. One thing I definitely know for certain is that I will absolutely not be going out with the OTQ pack. I honestly don’t think people are quite comprehending how fast a 2:37 marathon really is. Running under 6 minute pace for an entire marathon is INTENSE!
Total – 67.4 miles running + 6 miles walking + 60 minutes strength training + 30 minutes of Pilates