Training Log Archive: Ari-o

Off to the Blue Hills for a nice run on the White and Yellow trails. I like this loop: 10 miles exactly, nice hills, but all runnable. And I didn't drop below a 9m mile the whole way.

10th place on the yellow route (PR by a few seconds) felt pretty good the whole way, pushing the ups and even some downs. No sprained ankles, and got to run some trails.

10 miler around Fresh Pond, twice. Nice day out there, nice colors.

15 days to NYC and weather looks cool-ish so far.

Another jogaroo. One fast mile at pace.

After a day off (yay, taper), jogaroo. Fast over the new footbridge but not my fastest. 8/13000 or so.

Jog over to track, and cool down after (walked/biked home).

Track today I decided would be a first taper track: 800s, and only 5 of them hard (and maybe a sixth, depending on splits). Cool and nice at the track, a bit of a breeze, and a hawk which landed on the fence for a while and which a break was taken for photographs (v cool). A little right calf niggles, will need to roll that religiously.

Anyway, didn't feel super fast but in control but the times were good:

2:51
2:56
2:53
2:55
2:47

After that last one, which felt good, I ran a 3:20 starting at a jog and accelerating a bit to finish out.

I think if I'd done 10 for the Yasso whatever workout I would have had no trouble maintaining 2:55s, which means I can run a 2:55 marathon, if you believe that.

Rest, recovery and hawk photography. I took one picture, went back, put my phone away, and then the sun crested the horizon so I had to go back and take another. Got some laughs from the crowd gathered when I went back fuming "goddamn hawk is ruining my workout!"

But not really.

Last big week of training before taper is past, and things seem to be going well. Legs are tired after 34m this weekend, but no injury pain. Looking forward to a few fewer hours, and some rollerskiing (double poling?) in the next couple of weeks. Only weird thing is that I still can't coax more than 8 hours of sleep out of myself, even going to bed dead tired at 10 I've been waking up before any alarms/sun. But haven't been tired during the day, so maybe my body is getting what it needs.

Managed a 67m week this past week, at least 7h of training every week since late August. I think this is my most consistent 26.2 training, especially since in the past I've had marathons either not long after ski season or with training peaks in basically summer.

To review (figures in miles):

2014: Decided I wanted to run a BQ on 4w notice. Did. 3:01. Probably still the best marathon weather I've run.

10 weeks before race week: 10, 4, 13, 13, 20, 22, 38, 48, 44, 28

2015: Boston. Lots of snow = lots of skiing, less running. 3:00, rain and headwind.

2, 1, 12, 34, 48, 31, 31, 35, 34, 13.

2016: Boston. 3:03. No other major issues. Didn't die.

4, 5, 37, 21, 23, 44, 50, 29, 19, 15

2017: Sugarloaf. 2:58. Warm at end but pretty good.

13, 4, 16, 29, 37, 51, 61, 51, 33, 40

2017: Chicago. 3:02. Warm, but really didn't die. (Big weeks on trails)

59, 14, 96, 55, 17, 29, 48, 20, 38, 30

2018: Boston. 3:02. Fucking cold and rainy.

11, 13, 3, 40, 24, 45, 56, 40, 23, 17

2019: Sugarloaf. 3:02. Cold, rainy and thesisy. Undertrained.

1, 19, 17, 48, 50, 40, 39, 38, 28, 17

2019: NYC. ?? Hopefully cool weather.

42, 41, 38, 48, 33, 53, 51, 68 -- --

That's not bad. In the past the only time I've ever had three 50+ mile weeks was 2017 Sugarloaf, and I ran a PR. This year I've peaked higher, done more specific training, and come in with a steady base to put miles on the legs (as opposed to ski season. The only week <40 this year is the week recovering after Pisgah.

C • Good training 2

Well I managed to figure out how to get my legs to feel pain: this past weekend!

Not acute injury pain, just some light DOMS. Needed to pick up discounted Rudy helmets from Brookline, so took a jog over there, the Hubway home, with new helmets: one on the noggin and one in the basket.