Madison Marathon Training: Week 6 Recap

Disclaimer:  I am running the Madison Marathon in November as a BibRave Pro, which means my entry fee was covered for me. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador) and check out BibRave.com to review, find, and write race reviews!  Wanna run Madison with me?  Enter code MMRAVE18 at registration for 10% off!

Coming off of a half marathon, I was a little nervous about how week 6 would go.  During my last training cycle, it took me a while to recover from Ragnar; I specifically remember the training week AFTER Ragnar being pretty bad.  Well, surprise surprise, I ended up having a really good week last week which was a good confidence booster given that I have been riding the struggle bus more often than not with this cycle. I now have completed one-third of the Hanson Marathon Advanced Training Plan!

Reflecting on the first third of this training cycle, I realize that I have to give myself some grace this time around:

1.  Adding up mileage totals from the first 6 weeks of Hansons for the previous cycles, I realized that the advanced plan is not messing around.  The first 6 weeks of my marathon cycle in spring netted 179.83 miles.  Right now, I am up to 240.44 miles, a 60.61 mile difference. 

2. I am going through a bunch of changes in my career, that I haven't brought up in this space.  The short story is that starting this week, I will be part time at my "real" job and part time at a consulting business I have started.  I know that all of this change has taken a toll.  My goal with this marathon training cycle has been to get uncomfortable and I didn't take into account that I am also getting uncomfortable in my work space so thank God the family space is going well right now because all of this discomfort is definitely maxing out my reserves!

3. It is HUMID out.  So I know there are all of these charts where you can see to what degree high humidity affects your pace, etc.  I've shied away from them but I know that my slower paces during speed workouts are getting affected by the weather.

Every single run last week was a morning run. #GotMyAssOutOfBed  I was really proud of that.  Here are last week's details:

Sunday Aug 19
Plan says:  Rest

What I did:  0 miles.  I rearranged my rest day to come after my race.  We still did a bunch of walking around Madison this day, so it wasn't a complete rest day, but honestly, a true and complete rest day is just not in the cards for my lifestyle and family these days!

Monday Aug 20
Plan says:  6 easy miles

What I did:  6 miles, 53:11 (8:51 avg pace)

Tuesday Aug 21
Plan says: 4 x 1200m with 1.5 mile warm up and cool down and 400 m jog in between

What I did:  This felt ok.  My goal for these was 4:35 and I was right around there.  If anyone has any tips for getting the timing down on using workouts with Garmin, I am all ears.  It seems like there is a several second delay that I am screwing up. Even though my first repeat was slow, it is still in my speed workout pace range of 6:00 - 6:16.

1.5 mile warm up:  13:36 (9:04 avg pace)

1 - 0.75 mile 4:39 (6:14 avg pace) / 0.25 mile recovery 2:42 (10:53 avg pace)
2 - 0.75 mile 4:32 (6:05 avg pace) / 0.25 mile recovery 2:45 (11:06 avg pace)

3 - 0.75 mile 4:32 (6:05 avg pace) / 0.25 mile recovery 2:28 (9:56 avg pace)

4 - 0.75 mile 4:33 (6:06 avg pace) / 0.25 mile recovery 2:20 (9:25 avg pace)

1.5 mile cool down: 13:16 (8:51 avg pace)

Wednesday Aug 22
Plan says:  easy paced 6 miles

What I did: 6.3 miles, 54:28 (8:38 avg pace)

Thursday Aug 23
Plan says: 7 mile tempo run with 1.5 mile warm up and cool down

What I did:  I felt really good for this tempo and praised the Lord for it.  I started slower than goal pace and allowed myself to ease into it, which honestly is my preferred race strategy as well. 

1.5 mile warm up 13:18 (8:52 avg pace)
7 mile tempo, 47:22 (6:45 avg pace)
1.5 mile cool down 12:28 (8:18 avg pace)

Friday Aug 24
Plan says: easy paced 8 miles

What I did: 8.1 miles, 1:10:53 (8:45 avg pace)

Saturday Aug 25
Plan says: 10 mile long run

What I did:  I felt good for this so I let myself push the pace as the miles went on.  They are still in range for my goal "long run pace", which is 7:20-8:50 per the Hansen training pace calculator.

10 miles, 1:08:01 (7:42 avg pace)
Mile splits: 8:13 / 8:06 / 7:59 / 7:36 / 7:37 / 7:28 / 7:24 / 7:29 / 7:35 / 7:31

Plan Total: 47 miles
What I did: 47.41 miles!