I survived the weekend and now I think there is a possibility the race next Saturday might not be quite as ugly as previously thought. It still won't be pretty though.
Saturday morning I had a 15 mile run on the schedule. My group was only scheduled to do 10 (thankfully the route turned out to be 11 instead). I set out bright (well, not-so-bright) and early at 5:30 with a big 1 mile run before the group run at 5:45. That first mile hurt, a lot (everything hurt - no specific injury, just overall fatigue). I was a bit worried. No fear - miles 2-12 with the group hurt just as bad. It was beyond humid and hot (thanks Dolly), and no one seemed to be having a good day. I was still able to maintain around a 11:00 pace which isn't awful considering the conditions, but I hurt the entire time. When we finished the 11 mile route, I still had to run a loop of the park to get to 15. Someone was supposed to run those last 3 miles with me, but apparently decided I had taken too long and already had his shoes off by the time I got to him. I was greeted only by "where have you been? I've been waiting forever." Fine. I'd rather run by myself anyway! So I set off for miles 13, 14, and 15 for the day. I have never run the last three miles of any long run by myself. I was proud of myself for not bailing when my partner for the day bailed on me. I was also proud that those last 3 miles actually weren't all that bad. I figured I might end up walking most of it, but I managed to keep right at my 11:00 pace all the way until the end. Go me. As awful as the run was, I'm proud of myself for sticking with it. The fact that I didn't walk much at the end might have had something to do with the issue that by then it hurt more to walk than to run! Very sad. As ugly as that run was, I'm not that worried about my scheduled 18 mile run coming up week after next. Everyone had a bad day Saturday, and at least I got the miles in and set myself up to give a stab at 18 on the 9th.
As a side-note to those non-marathon trainers who might be reading this, most conventional running wisdom says that you should run your long runs 60-90 seconds per mile slower than your goal marathon race-pace. That is for normal conditions...factor in the beautiful Houston weather, and you might as well crawl through your long runs to survive. You get faster from your shorter training during the week - doing track workouts, hill repeats, and tempo runs. So a long run where I average anywhere under 11:30 minutes/mile is awesome for me in this weather, as my last marathon was at a 10:20 pace and my goal for the next go round is just a bit faster than that. This is also a big improvement compared to my runs last year at this time - they were almost all slower than 12:00 min/mile pace. Also, I have a short rant on this topic...most people, especially in my training groups, run their long runs WAY TOO FAST! People run their long runs at 9-9:30 pace, but certainly couldn't go out and run a marathon at 7:30-8:30 pace. Slow down people, or you better be doing some seriously fast work during the week. Ok, rant over. All that said, there is some merit to a new school of thought about doing fast-finish long runs, where you run a portion of the last half of your long run close to goal-marathon pace, but those are only to be done every once in a while, and less than half of your long run should be done at that increased pace...not the whole thing...not every single week.
Looks like I'm way off topic - oh well. Its my blog and I can rant if I want to, right?
Saturday after a nice relaxing ice bath Luke and I headed to the Y to swim. I swam 1800 yards and didn't die, so I guess that is good info heading into the 2000m swim that kicks off my race on Saturday. I'm not sure how far Luke swam, but it is safe to say it wasn't as far as I did and he only has to swim twice as far as me next week. Ha! I will try to swim one more time between now and then.
Sunday was the big "test" day - my first official "long bike ride" since May 10. Yes, it has been almost three months since I have ridden my bike more than 17 miles at once. A big group of us headed out to Brookshire for a ride nice and early Sunday morning. The weather was gross on the way out there - so much humidity and fog my windshield was wet. The wind was also blowing pretty hard - always a joy. The ride actually ended up going very well though. I was by myself the entire way and totally content. Once the fog burned off, it was actually a pretty nice morning. The humidity was lower than usual and the breeze was actually somewhat cooling. The route was very pretty and quiet. At one point I counted cars because there were so few. I think only 4 or 5 passed me in an hour. I was pleased to see that my body wasn't freaking out when I asked it to actually ride more than 17 miles. I ended up riding 44 miles and felt fine. My legs hurt like no other at the start, and that had me worried, but they calmed down early on and my butt was the only thing left hurting the rest of the ride, and that was to be expected. So, granted I rode 44 pretty flat miles and the race next Saturday will be 56 decently hilly miles, I think I'll live to see the finish line. We headed to Lupe's for some awesome beef fajitas on our way home and then I had a glorious 3+ hour nap in the afternoon.
I was 1/2 mile short on my scheduled 31 miles of running for the week, so I headed to the park last night to get that 1/2 mile with about 2.5 miles extra. I took it very slow and probably walked about a third of the way around, but it was very nice and relaxing and good to stretch my legs out a bit. A nice leisurely stroll may be my new Sunday evening ritual. It is a good way to end the weekend.
This week will be some sort of a rest/taper week as I try to rest up the best I can for the race on Saturday and also try to let my legs recover a bit from the last few weeks of pretty intense training. I better keep my feet up on Sunday after the race, because that will be the end of my "rest week" and I will be aiming for 34-35 miles of running the week after that.
Saturday morning I had a 15 mile run on the schedule. My group was only scheduled to do 10 (thankfully the route turned out to be 11 instead). I set out bright (well, not-so-bright) and early at 5:30 with a big 1 mile run before the group run at 5:45. That first mile hurt, a lot (everything hurt - no specific injury, just overall fatigue). I was a bit worried. No fear - miles 2-12 with the group hurt just as bad. It was beyond humid and hot (thanks Dolly), and no one seemed to be having a good day. I was still able to maintain around a 11:00 pace which isn't awful considering the conditions, but I hurt the entire time. When we finished the 11 mile route, I still had to run a loop of the park to get to 15. Someone was supposed to run those last 3 miles with me, but apparently decided I had taken too long and already had his shoes off by the time I got to him. I was greeted only by "where have you been? I've been waiting forever." Fine. I'd rather run by myself anyway! So I set off for miles 13, 14, and 15 for the day. I have never run the last three miles of any long run by myself. I was proud of myself for not bailing when my partner for the day bailed on me. I was also proud that those last 3 miles actually weren't all that bad. I figured I might end up walking most of it, but I managed to keep right at my 11:00 pace all the way until the end. Go me. As awful as the run was, I'm proud of myself for sticking with it. The fact that I didn't walk much at the end might have had something to do with the issue that by then it hurt more to walk than to run! Very sad. As ugly as that run was, I'm not that worried about my scheduled 18 mile run coming up week after next. Everyone had a bad day Saturday, and at least I got the miles in and set myself up to give a stab at 18 on the 9th.
As a side-note to those non-marathon trainers who might be reading this, most conventional running wisdom says that you should run your long runs 60-90 seconds per mile slower than your goal marathon race-pace. That is for normal conditions...factor in the beautiful Houston weather, and you might as well crawl through your long runs to survive. You get faster from your shorter training during the week - doing track workouts, hill repeats, and tempo runs. So a long run where I average anywhere under 11:30 minutes/mile is awesome for me in this weather, as my last marathon was at a 10:20 pace and my goal for the next go round is just a bit faster than that. This is also a big improvement compared to my runs last year at this time - they were almost all slower than 12:00 min/mile pace. Also, I have a short rant on this topic...most people, especially in my training groups, run their long runs WAY TOO FAST! People run their long runs at 9-9:30 pace, but certainly couldn't go out and run a marathon at 7:30-8:30 pace. Slow down people, or you better be doing some seriously fast work during the week. Ok, rant over. All that said, there is some merit to a new school of thought about doing fast-finish long runs, where you run a portion of the last half of your long run close to goal-marathon pace, but those are only to be done every once in a while, and less than half of your long run should be done at that increased pace...not the whole thing...not every single week.
Looks like I'm way off topic - oh well. Its my blog and I can rant if I want to, right?
Saturday after a nice relaxing ice bath Luke and I headed to the Y to swim. I swam 1800 yards and didn't die, so I guess that is good info heading into the 2000m swim that kicks off my race on Saturday. I'm not sure how far Luke swam, but it is safe to say it wasn't as far as I did and he only has to swim twice as far as me next week. Ha! I will try to swim one more time between now and then.
Sunday was the big "test" day - my first official "long bike ride" since May 10. Yes, it has been almost three months since I have ridden my bike more than 17 miles at once. A big group of us headed out to Brookshire for a ride nice and early Sunday morning. The weather was gross on the way out there - so much humidity and fog my windshield was wet. The wind was also blowing pretty hard - always a joy. The ride actually ended up going very well though. I was by myself the entire way and totally content. Once the fog burned off, it was actually a pretty nice morning. The humidity was lower than usual and the breeze was actually somewhat cooling. The route was very pretty and quiet. At one point I counted cars because there were so few. I think only 4 or 5 passed me in an hour. I was pleased to see that my body wasn't freaking out when I asked it to actually ride more than 17 miles. I ended up riding 44 miles and felt fine. My legs hurt like no other at the start, and that had me worried, but they calmed down early on and my butt was the only thing left hurting the rest of the ride, and that was to be expected. So, granted I rode 44 pretty flat miles and the race next Saturday will be 56 decently hilly miles, I think I'll live to see the finish line. We headed to Lupe's for some awesome beef fajitas on our way home and then I had a glorious 3+ hour nap in the afternoon.
I was 1/2 mile short on my scheduled 31 miles of running for the week, so I headed to the park last night to get that 1/2 mile with about 2.5 miles extra. I took it very slow and probably walked about a third of the way around, but it was very nice and relaxing and good to stretch my legs out a bit. A nice leisurely stroll may be my new Sunday evening ritual. It is a good way to end the weekend.
This week will be some sort of a rest/taper week as I try to rest up the best I can for the race on Saturday and also try to let my legs recover a bit from the last few weeks of pretty intense training. I better keep my feet up on Sunday after the race, because that will be the end of my "rest week" and I will be aiming for 34-35 miles of running the week after that.
Comments
Good luck on your race this weekend.