Weekly Summary – 143 miles in 14 runs. A great last high-volume week with a huge workout on Saturday. All the hardest work is done now. Time to focus on getting to the start line as healthy and fresh as possible. Less than 3 weeks to CIM!

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Lunes, 6 de Noviembre, 2017 – 8am: Woke up earlier today (well, about the same time but earlier thanks to the end of daylight savings). Ran with Mariana first 5km nice and slow ~25’ and then solo. A bit tired today still but felt much better on the way back. 16km out/back in 39’/36’ and then 2km on the fields in 8’10. Stopped and did 6x strides which felt good and then easy home. Total run 20km in 1h32.

XT: Back/hips.

3pm: Easy shakeout to turf and 6km there 4’30->4’10. A bit tired but better by the end. Stopped and did 5x strides and then easy home. Total run 10km in 44’.

Martes, 7 de Noviembre, 2017 – 15km in 47’49 (3’11.3 avg) w/ 8x[4’ @ 3’17.7, 2’ @ 2’59.1]. + 5x 200m @ 32->28.9

9am: Moderate workout today with a big one this past Saturday and one last big one coming up this weekend. Goal was to do some fartlek running to practice surging and recovering at speeds relatively close to marathon pace, i.e. to simulate what an actual uneven race might feel like as most of my MP work has been very steady and even.

The workout was to be 15km total with sets of 4’ at ~3’15-20/km and 2’ at 3’00-05/km. If we did our math write and stuck in these ranges, that should end up averaging out right around goal MP for the 15K total. Watch made this one super easy as you can set it to auto-lap as a workout with 4’ interval, 2’ “rest” and it records the pace and HR of each segment.

The day was quite cool, in the low 40s, with some mist but no rain when I headed out. I warmed up longer due to the weather and the fact that my legs were still a bit muscularly fatigued and stiff from Saturday’s big effort and I wanted to make sure I was fully warmed up. Ran to the bike path and did 5km, right into drills, strides, and then 200m in 35, all in quick succession so as to not freeze. Ran in hupanas.

Workout started off feeling pretty bad actually. That first 4’00 segment felt pretty bad. Maybe I was just expecting it to feel really easy (like the start of the 40K run did at 3’20 pace), but man, I almost called off the workout like 2’ in. I’m glad I stuck with it though because after the first pickup (3’03 pace) and settling back in, I actually felt pretty good. I was able to really relax into the 4’ section pace and the pickups felt very focused but in no way terminal. My opinion of the session totally turned around within the first 2-3 reps.

I decided I would run #s 4 and 8 a bit harder, mostly just to see what would happen as I was feeling quite controlled and was curious what a significantly harder surge would do to HR. So, on #4 I went out and pushed quite hard and averaged 2’55.5. This felt quite hard but I was still able to settle back into the pace at like 3’20 and felt pretty comfy breathing/HR wise after about a minute.

The next 3 surges were all a bit quicker ~ 3’00/km pace which felt a bit more focused than the first half of the workout but still very in control. The rest Ks stayed around 3’17-19 while the HR rose gradually but the effort stayed about the same. The last rest K I started pushing a bit closer to the end of that segment since I could see I was going to finish before my full 2’00 “on” interval was up, so that one was quicker (3’13). Last (#8) rep I pushed well from the start and covered a bit over 600m at 2’52.1/km to come to 15K in 47’49 (3’11/km avg).

Jogged back easy to 23rd St and did 5x200m as always. Ugly headwind and cold, so a bit slower (32.x), but on #4 (which I always try to run the quickest) I swear the wind stopped or turned around felt great and ran 28.9 which might be the fastest I’ve run there this whole block! Very good.

Right as I was starting #5, the rain really started to pick up, so I finished and then ran to the gym and cooled down easy 2K on the treadmill because I’m a huge baby.

Decided to cut out the lift as I really wanted to keep this day on the lighter orange side and the workout had felt appropriate so far.

This was a great session and definitely accomplished the goal of getting in some good pace-change work and figuring out both mentally and physically how to deal with that. It’s always a good reminder to be patient and sometimes running a bit quicker can actually make you feel better!

More work tomorrow.

Time Split HR
1.22 km 4’00.0 4’00.0 (3’17.4) 162
1.87 km 6’00.0 2’00.0 (3’02.9) 169
3.08 km 10’00.0 4’00.0 (3’18.5) 171
3.74 km 12’00.0 2’00.0 (3’01.0) 174
4.95 km 16’00.0 4’00.0 (3’19.5) 173 16’10.3 @ 5K
5.61 km 18’00.0 2’00.0 (3’01.2) 175
6.82 km 22’00.0 4’00.0 (3’17.5) 172
7.51 km 24’00.0 2’00.0 (2’55.5) 177
8.72 km 28’00.0 4’00.0 (3’18.2) 174
9.39 km 30’00.0 2’00.0 (3’00.1) 177
10.60 km 34’00.0 4’00.0 (3’18.4) 175 32’05.4 @ 10k (15’55.1)
11.26 km 36’00.0 2’00.0 (2’59.5) 178
12.47 km 40’00.0 4’00.0 (3’19.1) 175
13.13 km 42’00.0 2’00.0 (3’00.4) 179
14.38 km 46’00.0 4’00.0 (3’13.1) 176
15.00 km 47’49.0 1’49.0 (2’52.1) 184 47’49.0 @ 15K (15’43.6)

3:30pm: Ran solo before going to vote! Day is even more miserable than this morning with steady rain and 42F. Yikes. Time to head south. Felt okay and ran nice and easy 2 laps of HAR (19’30, 19’00) and then over to home block back stretch to do strides (4x) on pavement since everything was soaked. Finished at the polling place at crystal plaza to vote and then walked home for stretching, etc. Total run 10km++ in 46’.

Miercoles, 8 de Noviembre, 2017 – 9am: Colder this morning, only about 40F. Seems like late fall/winter arrived pretty suddenly here! Windy from the north. Ran Matt’s loop. Felt a bit tired to start and so kept pace very relaxed. 38’ out at 8K into the wind and then quicker on the way back ~4’20s and then over to the fields to tack on a bit. Finished with 6x strides and then home. Total run 20km in 1h32.

XT: Back/hips.

4pm: Ran later with 5p appointment at Georgetown Sports Massage w/ Terrel. Windy and cool again with a nice stiff headwind for basically the whole run as I was heading north. Ran to Georgetown and then a little out/back on the C&O. A bit sloppy there as it’s rained so much in the last few days. Great session with Terrel after with very good work loosening up the hips and ITBs. Jogged to the metro and home after. Total run 16km- in 74’.

Jueves, 9 de Noviembre, 2017 – Sparknotes: 10km easy (39’) + 12x short hills + 2.2km (track) in 6’23 (3’02->2’45) (2’54 avg)

9am: Speed day today! Another gloomy one, though. 40s and drizzle.

Ran to the fields and felt pretty good out the door with an extra hour or so of awake time and some extra caffeine. Stopped and changed into tracers and then over to the short hill by the track for 10km total in 39’.

Did drills and strides on sidewalk since grass was soaked and then over to the hill. Felt really good on the hills today. I’ve got a lot of volume and quality in my legs right now and the first couple felt like it. But after that, I actually felt great and really could feel my form moving well. It’s hard to describe but those last few seconds of each rep are usually where the body starts to rig and the form falls apart and this is the first workout where I’ve gotten to that point and my legs have really started to burn but I’ve felt my form stay really strong and I can like feel every individual muscle in my legs and hips firing. It’s a very cool feeling. I’m hoping this is yet another sign that all the muscular strength work I’ve been doing this season has paid off. I just feel really strong.

Anyway, got through 11x and then ran #12 all the way to the hydrant which was 37.1.

Caught my breath and then ran very easily to the track for a short pickup. Wanted to keep today really light so decided to do a short track blowout – i.e. trying to run each lap quicker than the last. I had thought about just doing 5 laps (2km) but decided to do 2.2K for obvious reasons!

Haven’t been on the track in a while and felt so fast! Thought I was going to run like a 76-77 first lap and ran 36/37 for 74 and felt like I was jogging. Tried to pick it up each of the next two laps gradually and ran 72/71 and then really pushed the pace after those 3 with 67.3 for lap #4 and then very hard from 1600m (4’45) onward. I didn’t split my watch until the finish but ran the last 600m in 1’38.0 which is 65.3/400m and I would guess it was fairly even. The total was 2.2K in 6’23 (2’54.0 avg), w/ the first K in 3’02.0 and the last K in 2’45.3. Very good running on relatively tired legs. Good to practice really hurting for those last 6-7 minutes.

Jogged very easy 2km back to gym for light leg session.

Total run 23km in 1h34.

Blowout splits:
0.40 km 1’14.2 (1’14.2) 162
0.80 km 2’26.5 (1’12.3) 171
1.20 km 3’37.5 (1’11.0) 172 (3’02.0)
1.60 km 4’44.8 (1’07.3) 177
2.20 km 6’22.8 (1’38.0) 188 (2’45.3)

XT: Legs at the gym. Only 1 set today of [step ups 6x (40lb), 6x overhead lunge (35lb), 6x dynamic lunge (40 lb), 6x squat (90 lb)]

3:30pm: Easy run down to turf. Much nicer than this AM, warmer and clearing – almost sunny! Legs felt very good. Running 4’20 out the door and 4’00s on the fields. Finished with 4x strides, jumps, and easy home. Total run 12km in 50’.

XT: Jumps: 15x squat jumps, 30x one-leg side hop, 15x lunge jump, 15x box jump

Viernes,10 de Noviembre, 2017 – 9am: Easy run solo out/back on MVN. Brutally windy ~20mph from the north. Nice on the way back though! Probably 20s/km faster with the same effort. Kept it very easy today with big one tomorrow. Stopped at turf on the way home, 4x strides and then home. Total run 20km in 1h27

XT: Back/hips (1x only)

3:30pm: Easy run on HAR (1 lap in 19’15). Kept pace very easy today again. Quite cool and still very windy. Short! Total run 5km++ in 23’.

Sabado, 11 de Noviembre, 2017 – Sparknotes: SPECIAL BLOCK: 10am: 10k @ 3’28, 10k @ 3’09.9 (20K in 66’17). 2pm: 10k @ 3’30, 12k @ 3’11.6 (22K in 1’13’19).

9am: Last really big session today! This one and last weekend’s run were – on paper – the pinnacle/peak sessions of this whole build-up and I knew they were both going to be real bears. Last week’s session was great but definitely the hardest yet of the buildup and I knew this one would be similar.

The goal was a marathon-specific-block, a workout that I’ve done exactly as written at least once before (in my Lake Biwa buildup): the first session is 10km moderate (~90% of MP) + 10km at goal MP. Minimal refueling and about 2.5 hours rest and then 10km moderate + 10-12km at goal MP. None of these segments is supremely challenging in itself but the whole is much greater than the sum of parts and specifically the last 10-12K at MP with 30km of work in the legs is the best way I’ve found to simulate the end of a marathon in training without actually racing an all-out marathon. I knew that this last 30-40 minutes would really be the focus today and would be good mental and physical practice for what that post-30K territory might feel like.

Session 1, on paper, looked pretty easy. I’ve done up to 28K at 3’10 pace this block, so running 20K with only the second 10K should be quite straight forward. That said, it was very cold this morning – only 29F when I started the window – so I was a bit nervous about how that would affect me.

I warmed up the normal – only 2km to the bike path out/back, stashed backpack, bottles, etc. Did drills and then 2 strides and 200m in about 36. Did the workout in Hupanas.

The first 10K felt quite comfortable. Being so well warmed up and then running so slow in the 3’20s felt quite moderate. I was very surprised in retrospect to see that my HR had been so high (166 avg or the 2nd 5K). Mostly, nothing to say here.

The gear shift into the MP stuff didn’t feel quite as comfy as I expected. I was out a bit harder like 3’07 and like 7’50 at the 2.5K turnaround (15’40/3’08 pace) and that was probably a bit too aggressive for this first session. I actively slowed down a bit after that but HR was still quite elevated (in retrospect) at 179 for that first 5K which is more like what it should be after 20+km at MP. Really odd to see it this high after < 50 minutes of running with 35’ being quite slow.

So, 5K in 15’47 and then just tried to maintain but that second 5K really felt much tougher than I expected. At some point maybe at like 6K I did check my HR and saw it was like 182 and was very surprised and maybe backed off a bit more. I was somewhat pleased that the HR lined up with the perceived effort, but still weirded out by why it was so high/hard in the first place.

That last 4km or so was much more controlled and was able to relax and just hang on to the pace very consistently. Came in at 15’52 for 31’39 for that 10K (66’17 for 20K).

Grabbed my stuff quickly and ran 1K home as I was quite cold stil.

Not sure what was going on here. Maybe the much colder weather (though very little wind) made it harder to warm up efficiently? I was wearing more clothing, but not enough that I’d think it would make a difference.

I did notice a small twinge in my left foot (like around my middle metatarsal) – more on this in the PM session – so, I wonder if that was already affecting my gate a bit and just made me a bit less efficient at pace.

Either way, got home and got warm and stretched.

2pm: 2.5 hours of rest between end of session 1 and beginning of session 2. Took a lot of nuun (no sugar), 1 NV bar (190 kCal) w/ PB and a handful of pretzels only. Had about half a cup of black coffee in the hour before heading out.

Warmed up 2km easy again, stashed bottles at 1K loop as I wanted more feedback on pacing and the option to bail early. Definitely felt more tired/stiff on this one but as always tried to just focus on the now and not think about either the morning’s session or what was to come.

Same warmup w/ strides, drills, 200m in ~36.

First 10K was a bit slower but tried to really run by effort here. I ran the first K in like 3’35 and figured whatever if I run the first 10K in 36’ it wouldn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of the workout as the point is just to have some moderate volume in the legs before getting to the last 10-12K. I did naturally warm up a bit and was running again around 3’25-30s for the most part and came through 10K right at 35’00.

Since I was on the 1K loop, I actively checked my pace on the first gear-change lap and made sure I wasn’t going out too hard. This was perfect and I hit the first 2K in 3’12/6’24. I actually felt really good at this point – the work was very, very focused and in the moment, but I was pretty sure I’d be able to hang on at this intensity for another 30 minutes. I was actually hoping to try to speed up after 4-6K and practice accelerating in the last 20 minutes a la Shalane/Galen.

But, again, I found that there was a precipitous change in perceived effort somewhere around 5-6K in where I suddenly went from feeling like things were manageable to feeling like I wasn’t sure if I’d finish that lap.

I decided to take a last gel at that point which necessitated a quick stop as I hadn’t carried an extra, so stopped the watch for probably 30-45 seconds right around 6K to grab a gel out of my backpack.

Got back into it as quickly as I could and took the gel and then very much just tried to live in each little loop. I was running slower but between the quick stop and the gel, I found myself again feeling like I could maintain this pace (maybe 3’12-14s at this point).

It’s hard to overstate the mental and physical needs of this last 12K and this last 6K in particular. I was a bit bummed that I didn’t seem to have the energy to accelerate, and was actually slowing a bit, but at the same time, I knew the importance of practicing hanging on after what was a quicker start and – for whatever reason – not a perfect day. I actually think I did a really great job of just letting go of all this in these last 6K and just running in the moment.

HR and perceived effort were both extremely high (over 183 avg for the last 8K!) but thi seemed manageable. Once I got to 10K I knew I’d finish and, after a slower penultimate lap (3’14) was able to push in and accelerate to run the last 1K in 3’07.

This was then 38’19 (3’11.6 avg) for the last 12K (22km total in 1’13’19, 3’20 avg). This is 42km of work in 2’19’36 over the course of about 5 hours with very little refueling.

After the run, I definitely noticed a more significant bother coming from my left foot which, it seemed, had also caused some uneven straining in my left inner quad/groin area. I also noticed there was some uneven scuffing of my inner left knee which (I think) implies that my left knee was bowing inward a bit and getting clipped by my right shoe sometimes. This would make sense with what I was feeling afterward which was some discomfort on the roll-through phase of the footstrike from the outer fore-foot inward, which I think would cause my knee to bow in a bit.

So, my post-mortem hypothesis is that some tightness or mild strain in the left foot made me a little be less efficient today and that caused these paces to feel a bit harder than usual which at this level can be the difference between manageable and not. Despite this, I still think I handled the workout great. The times are spookily similar to the workout I did before Lake Biwa (31’39 vs 31’42 and 38’19 vs 38’18), which is a great sign on a day when I wasn’t 100%.

This is also another in a string of fantastic work really over the last 5 weeks. This is exactly 35 days of running since Mohawk Hudson in which I’ve averaged 33km/day (144 MPW), even with a recovery block in there, and really haven’t had a single bad session and have had some truly spectacular runs. This is by far the best and best timed marathon build-up I’ve put together, so now I just need to make sure I’m 100% recovered and healthy as this was definitely a monster effort today.

That’s all. More work tomorrow.

AM:

Time Split HR
5 km 17’22.0 (17’22.0) 162
10 km 34’38.0 (17’16.0) 166 (34’38.0 – 3’27.8) (Gel at 9K)
15 km 50’25.0 (15’47.0) 179
20 km 1’06’17.0 (15’52.0) 181 (31’39.0 – 3’09.9)

PM
5 km 17’38.0 (17’38.0) 165
10 km 35’00.0 (17’22.0) 170 (35’00.0 – 3’30.0)
12 km 41’23.6 (6’23.6) 179
14 km 47’46.5 (6’22.9) 181
16 km 54’07.7 (6’21.2) 183
18 km 1’00’34.3 (6’26.6) 182
20 km 1’06’58.5 (6’24.2) 183
21 km 1’10’12.3 (3’13.8) 185
22 km 1’13’19.2 (3’06.9) 185 (38’19.2 – 3’11.6)

Domingo, 12 de Noviembre, 2017 – 10am: Very slow shakeout this morning after a huge session yesterday. Turf was crowded so out/back on MVN still mostly on grass. No strides. Total run 12km in 62’.

XT: OFF

3pm: Easy run around CC. Turf still occupado so ran around the outside of the complex and then over to the 1K loop for a bit and home. Legs and foot feeling much better than the AM. Running 4’30ish by the end. Total run 7km in 33’.