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I have three more weeks of marathon training under my belt and things got worse before they got better. Arthur Schopenhauer said, "To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence." I'm banking on that!
Week 12
Week 12 began with 4x1.5 mile strength workout. I was coming off of a cold/fever situation so I was pleased that while I didn't hit my goal pace of finishing these in 9:30, I was at most 8 seconds off. Then, I had a magical tempo run two days later where, again, I didn't hit my goal pace of 6:30/mile, but I did average 6:33/mile for nine miles. Woohoo!!! I was rebounding!
And then came Thursday night where I woke up at some point during the night and started vomiting which continued every 30-60 minutes until 9 AM. That took me out for two days. Week 12 should have been 55 miles, but AGAIN I logged significantly less miles - 36.2 for the week.
Week 13
Here I was approaching a big week with two weeks in a row of subpar mileage. I was not in a good place mentally, but thank goodness for some check-ins with my coach Eric and his wife. He recommended starting the week with running by time and if I was feeling ok, trying to log 90 minutes. I was feeling tired and a little out of sorts, but overall it did feel good to run and I managed 10.25 miles in 90 minutes in change to kick off the week. Things progressively improved as the week went on. I managed to hit paces on the 3x2 mile strength workout (6:14, 6:23, 6:21) and did ok with my tempo run (6:36 avg for 9 miles). My long run of 16 miles also went well as I was able to finish in 7:48 avg progressively getting faster with each mile and finishing with a 7:11 last mile. I logged 64.28 miles this week which is a lifetime weekly mileage PR for me!Week 14
I finished up week 14 this past weekend and it went ok. It was a cut-back week and spring break week for my kids which meant that I should have done more planning than I did to get running in. My 2 x 3 mi workout was dynamite - first three mile set was done with an avg of 6:21/mile and the second set was done with an avg of 6:15/mile. This workout is a standout in my mind because while I was doing the warm-up I was definitely thinking of postponing the workout because I felt tired and off. It was only because I absolutely had to take advantage of the fact that I paid for childcare on Monday for my kids that I followed through with the workout and when it was over, I was glad I did. You can run fast when you're tired!
My tempo run last week did not go as well. I was freaking out about the paces feeling too hard and had a lot of stops. I had a week of bad sleep last week which was also throwing me off. Thankfully after the tempo run workout, I just had lots of easy miles to log. I finished the week with 53 miles logged.
This training cycle, I was ahead of the cumulative miles logged total from last cycle until week 11 and I am not 12 miles UNDER the total miles I had logged by this time last cycle. I know, I know...I shouldn't be comparing. Different circumstances influence every training cycle!!
My march mileage total was 225.62, which while it wasn't the best month I ever had, it was the highest mileage March I ever had so that is something.
This week will be my highest mileage week left in the plan before slightly tapering down. Race day is in 26 more days!
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