Marathon Training Week 2: Getting in my own way

This week was a little unbalanced as I had two days where I only ran 8 km which I almost never do. I vaguely recall reading that Christy Turlington once said that she wouldn't get out of bed for less than 10K/day. Well PiccolaPineCone does not normally get out of bed for less 15 k. Yes Christy's figure is in dollars whereas mine is in kilometers. My rationale is that if I am not going to log at least 15 km then I would rather get more sleep and pile the mileage on another day. My criticisms of my training this week are that I screwed up my long run a little and did not get enough marathon pace work in. Week in review:

Monday: off.

Tuesday: 8 km in 37:20 (too fast)

Wednesday: 6 km warm-up. 3 X 3 km w 1st km @ marathon pace, 2nd @ 1/2 marathon pace, 3rd @ 10 km pace, 500 m jog btwn. Those paces were the intention anyway but I wound up running 1é2 marathon pace, 10 km pace, 5 km pace instead which then caused me to have to take unscheduled rest breaks and the last 3 km was disaster. 3 km cool-down.

Thursday: 8.2 km in 41 minutes.

Friday: 7.5 km warm-up. 7.7 km @ 1/2 marathon pace (3:56 per km) 1.8 km cool-down.

Saturday: 14.6 km in 1 hour 14 minutes.

Sunday: Long Run. Goal was to do 30 km in 2 hours 30 minutes i.e. 5 min/km. I did the first part of the run on a route I don't know so I ran at what I thought was 5 min/km. I got to my stashed powerade bottle after 1 hr 40 min by which time I felt woozy and very thirsty. I don't think I even drank it, I think it was drawn into my parched pores directly by osmosis. Regardless I consumed it in about 10 seconds flat and felt fabulous after. At that point on I was running where I normally run which is on a road that is marked every kilometer. I kept the same pace I had been running earlier and realized I was running 4:35-4:40 per km. I deliberately tried to put on the brakes but had a really hard time doing so; I was just so pace-locked at that point it felt nearly impossible to switch gears. The good news is I never really crashed. I always felt reasonably good except for briefly puking at about 29 km. Anyway the upshot is that I did run 2 hours 30 minutes but actually covered 32.3 km in that time (gmapped it when I got home) so an average of 4:38. The moral of the story for me is that I need to start my long runs on a measured course so I start off at the right pace. On the other hand I felt good immediately following my run and still feel good now, several hours later so it doesn't seem like it was too taxing.

Total = 100 km.
Total Quality = 16.7 km

I have my training plan now (thanks coach! - i would link to your blog but a) don`t know if you want more people bugging you for training plans and b) I think most people who read this found me through you or SLG in the first place) and am psyched about it. It is a plan I really believe in, it makes sense and I can see myself actually executing (today's lack of adherence to it notwithstanding). So if I can stop getting in my own way by running too hard when I don`t have to then I think I can lay down the training for a pretty decent fall marathon.