Madison Marathon Training: Week 13 Recap

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I began this week staring at the intended weekly mileage number.  62 miles.  That is how many miles I had to cover in six days of running.  Last Sunday was a bit of a zoo - I had had very little sleep the Saturday night before and then got up to spectate at the Lakefront Marathon, quick zoomed home to change for a baby shower and then I just could NOT will myself out the door to go running.  So I started off a high mileage week with an unplanned rest day.  Not exactly the best start.

Except that it was.  Starting my week with a rest day was exactly what I needed.  I had a decent week and I logged 62.14 miles, a new weekly mileage PR.  I got all the workouts done and even CRUSHED my tempo run, which is mentally the most challenging workout for me.

My long run, the second 16-miler of the 3 prescribed over the course of 18 weeks, was actually my worst run.  I am attributing a lot of it to the weather.  I had to wake up EARLY on Saturday morning to get it done if it was going to get it done and it was dark for half of this and also freezing.  As in the temperatures were in the 20s.  I know as winter progresses, temps in the 20s will feel heavenly, but Saturday was not that day, especially when temps at the beginning of the week were in the 80s. For real!

All in all, I know not to rest on any one workout, good or bad, and the accumulation of miles is really my goal for this training plan to put myself in a good position to chase an OTQ in 2019.  I am doing well with this - a few stats:

• This October, I have already surpassed my monthly mileage from one year ago.  I logged 105.65 miles in October 2017 and today, 10/15/18, my monthly mileage is already at 116.41 and I have 16 days to go!

• I have already put on 114.55 MORE miles in this marathon buildup at this stage than in my previous marathon buildup.  After 13 weeks of training for Grandma's Marathon (my current PR and first sub-3), I had logged 504.23 miles.  This cycle, after training for 13 weeks, I have logged 618.78 miles and I am feeling good.  I mean, I am definitely tired, but I don't have any weird pains, niggles or anything.  Project Pile-On-The-Miles-And-Get-To-The-Start-Line-Healthy is going well so far!

Generally speaking, I was terrified of the Advanced Plan, but it isn't too different than the Beginner Plan in these last weeks.  I thought the beginning weeks of the Advanced Plan were more difficult for me because the mileage ramped up so fast as compared to the Beginner.

Well, enough blabbing.  Here was my week last week:

Sunday Oct 7

Plan says:  Off

What I did:  The plan didn't really say "off" - I was supposed to do 8 easy miles - but as I already mentioned, I took my rest day a day early.  The gamble paid off.

Monday Oct 8

Plan says:  8 easy miles

What I did:  Here again Monday should have been my rest day, but having taken it already, I had 8 miles to do.  Ok. Done.

8.3 miles, 1:11:21 (8:36 avg pace)

Tuesday Oct 9

Plan says: 1.5 mile warm up, 3 x 2 miles with 0.5 mile recovery in between each set, 1.5 mile cool down

What I did:  I felt a little off on this and did not do a good job pacing it - as you will see, I got slower with each rep.  Part of this was that the temps were unusually high.  It was sunny and already mid-70s when I did this. On the positive side, at least all 3 reps were under/at my goal pace of 6:37/mile and the second mile for each set was faster than the first.

1.5 mile warm up, 12:34 (8:23 avg pace)

1 - 2 miles, 12:38 (6:19 avg pace) / 0.5 miles 4:37 (9:14 avg pace)
2 - 2 miles, 13:00 (6:30 avg pace) / 0.5 miles 5:00 (10:00 avg pace)
3 - 2 miles, 13:14 (6:37 avg pace) / 0.5 miles 4:43 (9:26 avg pace)

1.5 mile cool down, 12:56 (8:37 avg pace)

Wednesday Oct 10

Plan says:  easy 7 miles

What I did:  A tired, slog of 7 miles

7.01 miles, 1:02:00 (8:51 avg pace)

Thursday Oct 11

Plan says: 1.5 mile warm up, 9 miles tempo, 1.5 miles cool down

What I did:  I am sensing a theme of oversleeping on tempo run day.  ARGH.  I left work early to get this done before my kids came home and really it was a perfect run.  I felt a little creaky to start but all of a sudden, it was on.  I played it safe and did a shorter warm up in case I had to bail.  I didn't have to bail and made my cool down longer to accommodate.

1.01 mile, 8:03 (8:00 avg pace)
9 miles, 1:00:38 (6:44 avg pace)
2.01 miles, 16:59 (8:28 avg pace)

Friday Oct 12

Plan says:  easy 8 miles

What I did:  I felt really good, unexpectedly, for this and probably ran it too fast which came back to bite me on my long run.

8.2 miles, 1:06:59 (8:10 avg pace)

Saturday Oct 13

Plan says:  long 16 miles

What I did:  As I said - it was mentally so challenging to even get out the door for this.  I had to pull out the winter running clothes.  It was dark.  It was so so cold.  I was still tired because I went to bed late.  Mental victory here!  But wow, physically this was difficult and never got easier.  Mental victory here for not giving up!  I JUST squeaked by in the pace department for this one.  My "long" runs should be in the 7:17-8:47 range and my avg pace for this was 8:38. 

16.1 miles, 2:19:07 (8:38 avg pace)

Plan Total: 62 miles

What I did: 62.14 miles *New weekly mileage PR