rest days and revised goals

10 days left.

Took another day off today. I'm taking a very, very relaxed approach to this tapering thing. All of the literature I'm reading warns me against working too hard during the last few weeks, saying that I'll be tempted to run too much and too fast. I suppose if I hadn't read the advice, I would not have begun to slow down so early. But, knowing that it's supposed to be good for me, I've really got no problem running fewer miles. The slow thing does bother me a little bit, but not as much as these coaches I've been reading tell me.

Actually, when I finished the final 20 mile run almost two weeks ago now, I was a little worried because of how difficult it was. I ran it at 7:50/mile pace, a little bit slower than my previous long runs, and it just felt harder. I still went and played soccer at the rec center the next day and that felt all right. But the day after that, I was totally exhausted. In the days leading up to the 20 mile run I had not slacked off at all, and I'd run 5 miles the Saturday before. For my other 20 mile runs I'd always taken the Saturday off. But the exhaustion I felt on Tuesday seemed too extreme to me. I didn't run Tuesday, or Wednesday. This was supposed to be the first week of tapering, but according to the official advice you're only supposed to cut down a little bit that first week. I was cutting down quite a bit. By Thursday I thought maybe I was feeling better, so I went out to run 7 at a good pace. after a few miles, I had to slow down because my legs felt like dead weight. I took another day off on Friday, and then Saturday I ran 5 slowly. Those 5 weren't quite so difficult, but my legs were STILL feeling pretty tired. That made me worried, because I'd taken 3 days completely off that week and I was still not rested. I had been planning to run 12 on Sunday, but I changed the plan and took Sunday off, then Monday as well. That means I had only run two days out of the last 7. My first week 'taper', supposed to be a slight reduction in mileage, was really more of a complete halt to running.

Wednesday I went back out and ran 5 more easy, and that felt better. Finally. Thursday I went out for the pace run which I wrote about yesterday. That went well and got my hopes back up for the marathon. I'd been pretty worried there for a while with how tired I was. I still don't know how it will all come together on November 30th, but the plan is still to go out on that day at 7:00 - 7:10 pace and just see what happens. If I just feel like I did on Thursday, I'm pretty sure I can at least go more than 10 miles at that pace. In my mind, that's respectable. When I tried to do that 7 miles at a decent clip and had to give up after 3, these horrible thoughts started going through my mind. Wouldn't it be bad if I started the race at my pace and hit the wall by mile 5? That's just embarrassing. I feel that as a first time marathoner who claims to have little experience and to have followed no conventional training schedule, I have some leeway this time around. I can suck and I will not be too hard on myself. I can hit the wall at 20 miles, or miss my time by 20 minutes. But, I don't want to suck THAT much. I'm ok with a Jamaican-bobsled-team level performance. I'm not ok with a 2008-WSU-football-team level performance.

A book on running I picked up at a used bookstore recently recommends having 3 goal times for your first marathon. One is your ultimate time that would make you ecstatic to achieve. The second is a good time that you would be happy with. The third is an acceptable time that at least would not be disappointing. I decided this was a good idea, since I set an ambitious time for myself and there's a good chance I won't make it. It's good to have that ambitious time, but I can see where he's coming from that it does set me up to feel diappointed if I don't get it, even though it was a long shot in the first place. So, here are my modified goal times.

Acceptable time: 3 hours 25 minutes, a pace of 7 minutes 50 seconds per mile. This is the pace I ran my final 20 mile run at. I know 26.2 and 20 are a lot different, but I went into that 20 mile run tired and I'll be fresh for the race in a week and 3 days. I would be disappointed if I did not at least match my last long run pace.

Good time: 3 hours 17 minutes. Seems like an odd time to choose, but this is the time that I was marked for by the McMillan running calculator. I think I've explained it in an earlier post, but the calculator lets you input a previous race time, in my case for the 10 kilometer distance, and it makes predictions for your race times - with proper training - at other distances. I haven't exactly had full marathon training, but I'm hoping it's close enough. I would be pretty happy if I beat this time.

Ultimate time: 3 hours 10 minutes, or 7 minutes 15 seconds per mile. I adjust this to 7 minutes 10 seconds per mile since the last 6 miles have a lot of uphill and I know I'll lose time there. This is the Boston Marathon qualifying time for my age group, and a good bit ahead of what the McMillan Running calculator predicted I could run. In a training run almost 2 months ago, I ran 17 miles at this pace. Why not 26.2?

I believe I can run a marathon in 3 hours 10 minutes. Ability is like the prize that comes in only select boxes of I Believe cereal. I am excited for next Sunday.

pace day

Well it turns out that with school getting crazy I've been a crappy blogger. So be it, but I did have an encouraging run today. I'm in the middle of the so called taper, the gradual reduction of intensity before the race. For a marathon it's supposed to be a gradual three week reduction. I kind of screwed the gradual part up, but I'll talk more about that if I have time for another post. Today, I went on a run where I went slow (all runs are supposed to be slow in the taper) for a mile or so, then got to the track to do some pace work. It's been a while since I was on the track so I wanted to do a couple of miles there at my planned race pace to feel what that's like and get it into muscle memory. Planned race pace is 7:15 min/mile overall, but I'm shooting for 7:05 or so for the first 10-15 miles because the last 6 are uphill and I know I'll be a bit slower for those. Sure enough, I hit the track and cranked out the first lap right on pace for 7:10. Score! Plus it felt really good. I've been having some worries lately about my ability to achieve that pace, stemming from the way my last 20 miler felt and the extreme exhaustion that set in after that last hard week. Again, more about that later if there's time, but for now school and social obligations call. Today was a good running day!

hills fartlek

Well, the rest of the week has been busy but not with running. I made it out for a hills workout on Thursday, an easy 40 minute fartlek where the base pace was slow and I sped up a little every time I came to an uphill. For anyone that is wondering: yes, 'fartlek' IS the most hilarious word in the running vernacular and I use it as often as possible. Aside from that, it apparently comes from the Swedish for "speed play". Personally, I think that someone with a sense of humor must have checked the word for "speed play" in several languages before choosing the best one.

When you do a fartlek, you choose some pace that's not too fast and then do short bursts of effort throughout the run. A fartlek can be easy or hard, depending on how often and intense you work during the bursts of energy. I did the bursts on hills because I'm trying to avoid "bonking" on that hill at mile 22 in Seattle ('bonk': the second most hilarious running word; to hit empty at the end of a long run). But, they were light bursts so the run was easy overall.

Friday was Halloween, an excellent time but that's another story. I did manage to get to the rec center for about an hour and sqeezed in a few soccer games, but nothing like the usual Friday endurance soccer session where we show up at 6 and stay until our legs stop moving or 10 o'clock, whichever comes first.

Tomorrow is a step back in mileage for the long run, 11-12 miles. I'm planning to include the hilliest area I know of, 5 miles or so of dirt farm road through the wheat fields. Next week is the last week when the workouts will give me any benefit during the marathon; after that, if I do anything too hard I'll just be making myself tired. So I'll try to really go strong for this next week and then gradually ease up and cruise the last three until November 30.