Weekly Summary – 146 miles in 14 runs. A great week with solid mileage and two fantastic workouts, including a hard 36km (22 mile) long run at 5’11/M (3’13/km). Less than a month until Lake Biwa Marathon!

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Lunes, 30 de Enero, 2017 – 9:30am: Easy run after a good night’s sleep. Big effort yesterday so kept it very relaxed. 38’ first 8km and then a bit quicker but not much, maybe 4’20s/km. Ran Matt’s loop and finished with 6x strides very relaxed just to open the legs up and then home. Total run 20km, 12M++ in 1h32.

XT: Back/hips

4pm: Easy run out/back on MVN. Felt good but chilly with a brisk wind. Hands got cold! Finished on the turf, 1km in about 4’00 and then 5x strides which felt very good. Jogged home. Total run ~8.5M, 14km, in 57’. 21M for the day.

XT: p90x.

Martes, 31 de Enero, 2017 – 9am: Easy run out/back on MVS past alexandria. Felt very tired for some reason, hungry this morning. Out in 38’ and back in about 34’ to the turf. Did 1km on the turf in about 4’10 and then stopped and did 8x strides. Felt better on these. Ran back after. Total 12M+ in 1h27.

XT: Back/hips

4pm: Ran down to the turf and then 6km on the turf in 24’10. Felt much better than this morning. Stopped and did strides (6x) which felt very good. After, jogged 1M or so to 1km loop and did 3km ~ MP (3’12, 3’09, 3’07) for 9’28. HR very controlled. Good! Jogged home. Total run 8M+ in 51’.

XT: Hips.

Miercoles, 1 Febrero, 2017 – Sparknotes: 13km fartlek in 41’16 (3’10.5/km avg, 5’06/M) w/ 4km @ 12’36, 3km @ 9’07, 2km @ 6’01, 1km @ 2’52.7 w/ 1km between @ 3’33 (avg) + 5x200m @ 31.

10am: Moderate workout today sandwiched between two very red efforts (previous Sunday and upcoming Saturday). Goal was just to get in a bit of faster running without taxing the legs too much before a big effort Sunday.

Workout was a fartlek with 4km, 3km, 2km, 1km (1km between each one). I’ve done this workout before as 5-4-3-2-1km (a pretty hard session), so I figured eliminating the first rep and 25% of the volume would make it a good effort for today.

Beautiful day – temps in the upper 40s and no wind (been very windy these past few days).

Warmed up about 15’ and then over to 1km loop. Did the whole workout in cliftons. Strides, drills, 200m in about 36.

Workout went very well. I tried to start off right around MP and then accelerate in the last km of each rep. So, the first one was very even 9’30 at 3km and then 3’04 last km. The rec was by feel and all around 3’30-35. The 3km was 3’05, 3’05, 2’57, which again felt good. 2km was basically the same as the last 2km of the 3km (3’04/2’57), just felt a bit too tired to attack any earlier. Last rep, I pushed pretty hard and ran probably like 1’28/1’24 for 2’52.

Quite out of breath from the fast last 500m, but felt pretty good within a few minutes. Did 5x 200m (still on the 1km loop) but not super fast, all 31.x, last one relaxed for 35.x.

Finally, jogged about 2M back and then to the gym for leg circuit. Very solid morning!

Total run 14M+.

XT: Legs circuit. 3 sets of [step up (15x each leg), overhead lunge (24x), dynamic lunge (24x), squat (12x)]. 10 pounds on everything, bar on squat.

Splits:
Time Split HR Rep
1 km 3’12.1 (3’12.1) 147
2 km 6’22.2 (3’10.1) 166
3 km 9’30.8 (3’08.6) 170
4 km 12’35.7 (3’04.9) 172 (12’35.7)
5 km 16’03.9 (3’28.2) 167
6 km 19’09.0 (3’05.1) 171
7 km 22’13.3 (3’04.3) 173
8 km 25’10.6 (2’57.3) 175 (9’06.7)
9 km 28’46.9 (3’36.3) 168
10 km 31’50.9 (3’04.0) 174
11 km 34’48.7 (2’57.8) 177 (6’01.8)
12 km 38’23.8 (3’35.1) 167
13 km 41’16.5 (2’52.7) 179 (2’52.7)

4:30pm: Ran later with the whole day skewed a bit later. Felt remarkably good – legs felt very smooth, light, bouncy – very good post workout, especially right out the door and only about 30 minutes post-nap. Ran to the turf and did 6km in 23’50ish. Jogged home via CVS. Total run 6M+, 10km in 42’.

XT: Off

Jueves, 2 de Febrero, 2017 – 9:30am: Easy run on Matt’s loop and tacked on around the turf. Felt quite good this morning. Through 8km in 35’xx and then 4’0x for the remainder, last 2km on the turf around 3’50. Stopped and did 8x strides which felt very good then around the turf and home. Windy again! Total run 14M+ in 1h35.

XT: Back/hips

4pm: Another good PM run down to the turf, 6km around in 23’55, 5x strides, jog to the 1km loop, 2km in 6’21 (3’14, 3’06, with faster last 500m), jog home. HR was very low on pickup, only 150s, up to 161 MAX during last 500m ~3’00/km pace. Very good! Total run 7M++ in 45’.

XT: p90x.

Viernes, 3 de Febrero, 2017 – 10am: Slept very late – almost 9am, wow! Ran easy out/back on MVN and finished at turf, 1km on turf and then strides (6x). Kept it very easy today with a big one tomorrow! Jogged home after. Total run 13M+, in 1h35’.

XT: Back/hips (1x weight, 1x unweighted)
4pm: Easy, short run down to turn and short around, stopped for strides (4x) and then 1km quicker around 3’14. All good – ready for a good one tomorrow! Cooler today, in the 30s and windy. Total run 4M in 27’.

XT: Hips.

Sabado, 4 de Febrero, 2017 – Sparknotes: 36km in 1’56’01 (3’13.4/km, 5’11/M avg) w/ 30km steady @ 3’15/km, 6km hard @ 3’06.5/km.

11am: Started this workout later in the day to get used to that (LB starts at noon). Goal today was similar to a big workout I did in the fall (right before Albany and about a month out from Worlds. Goal was to do 30km at a tick slower than MP (maybe 50K race pace?) and then 5-6km faster afterward for a total of 36km. In the fall, this run was a pretty good indicator of my marathon fitness (the first 30km was a bit slower than my MP and my overall MP was a bit faster than the total average). The same pattern held true about a year earlier w/r/t Hartford Marathon.

Tried to mimic race start as much as possible, so very short warm up, 2km or so, then drills and just a few light accelerations and then 200m at about race pace. I did the first 5km on the 1km loop because Jon wanted me to practice running a bit aggressively at the start, so I wanted immediate pace feedback. After that, I ran to the bike path and did from 5-30km on the bike path, then finished with the last 6km on the 1km loop. Weather was cool around 34F, but not windy.

The first 5km felt very good. I went out quite aggressively in the first 500m, running about 1’30, but then settled into a very steady rhythm of about 3’10/km. At 3km (9’26), I relaxed a lot and felt like I was jogging for a while as I sunk into the “meat” of the workout at around 3’15-16/km.

The next 25km were mostly just about getting it done. There were times where it felt quite comfortable – almost boring – as if finishing the workout were simply a matter of letting the second tick by, and then there were a few moments where I lost my focus and really notice the effort. In all, though, I had no real doubt that I’d get to that 30km mark after about the 15km point; I just didn’t know how I’d feel accelerating beyond that. (Note, I did have to stop for a bio break, probably less than 60sec, around maybe 26km, but otherwise good).

The last 6km were quite hard, but I just tried to take it one lap at a time, one milestone at a time. I probably could have been better about working into the pace instead of making a big jump from like 3’16->3’06 in like 3 strides, but oh well.

The last 3km were markedly harder than the first 3km. Amazing how easy that very first km of the workout felt in 3’05 and how hard km 34 felt at 3’05! I really thought I was toast after km 35 was 5 sec slower, but I rallied a tiny bit on the last lap to finish in 3’04. HR got quite high on this (see the jump after 33km, which matches well with the increase in effort).

Finished in 1’56’01 for 36km which is 3’13.4/km, 2’15’58 marathon pace. That last 6km was 18’39 (3’06.5/km avg). This compares very favorably with previous iterations of this workout.

Cooled down very short home.

Total run 25M+.

Time Split HR
1 km 3’05.2 (3’05.2) 148
2 km 6’16.0 (3’10.8) 167
3 km 9’25.9 (3’09.9) 170
4 km 12’42.4 (3’16.5) 169
5 km 15’56.7 (3’14.3) 167
10 km 32’14.0 (16’17.3) 165
15 km 48’32.1 (16’18.1) 169
20 km 1’04’51.6 (16’19.5) 169
25 km 1’21’07.6 (16’16.0) 171
30 km 1’37’21.6 (16’14.0) 171
31 km 1’40’28.0 (3’06.4) 174
32 km 1’43’34.5 (3’06.5) 174
33 km 1’46’42.4 (3’07.9) 174
34 km 1’49’47.4 (3’05.0) 178
35 km 1’52’56.6 (3’09.2) 179
36 km 1’56’00.8 (3’04.2) 184 (18’39 last 6km, 3’06.5/km)

6pm: Easy shakeout on Crystal Drive out/back. Quite sore but good to shake out the legs! Total run 2M+ in 15’.

Domingo, 5 de Febrero, 2017 – 10am: Ran later after a lazy morning. Easy run out/back on MVS. Nice day, sunny and warming up a lot! 5km in about 23’ which is a lot quicker than I expected. No strides this morning after yesterday, just ran back for ethio, etc. Total run 14M+ in 1h43’.

XT: Back/hips

4pm: Easy run down to the turf and then on the fields. Legs felt MUCH better than this morning. From 5’00/km->4’00/km. Finished with 5x strides which felt fine. Jogged back. Total run 10km, in 42’.