start of "Weekly Training" posts

I've decided to post my weekly training summary in compact format. Its largely for my use but will also be open for anyone else to check out. I enjoy the occasional scan of other runners weekly training summaries to see how they are training. And its a lot easier to get a quick review than going through daily reports. LRC has a nice marathon training thread that is full of these with discussion, which I've found useful.

M Boston Marathon - logged as long run, fast-easy pace  3:16:19  26.42 mi
T planned rest
W unplanned rest (it was cold and rainy and I was lazy)
T Back Cove easy 55:13 7.2 mi flat
F Jungle Run easy 1:18:38 8.6 mi hilly
S Pineland easy 1:22:12 9.4 mi mod hilly
S Back Cove/E Prom easy 54:09 7.2 mi few short, steep hills


Totals
Time 7:46:24
Distance 58.8 mi


My goal for Boston was to not let it interfere with my training and all data to date point to "Mission Accomplished". Legs were fresh for all four post-marathon runs. Today (post run) is the first day that they feel tired, but its been 7 months since I've run more than 50 miles in a week.


A little picture of the new trails at the east end, portland

Cheers

Photo courtesy of Steve Wolfe

Notes: My goal going in was to run even 7:50s with an occasional faster mile just to add some fun.

Distance Cumlative Split
5k 0:22:56 0:22:56
10k 0:46:54 0:23:58
15k 1:10:28 0:23:34
20k 1:33:51 0:23:23
25k 1:57:07 0:23:16
30k 2:20:49 0:23:42
35k 2:44:01 0:23:12
40k 3:06:38 0:22:37
Half 1:38:48 1:38:48
Finish 3:16:16 1:37:28

5K - Everyone is flying by me as I'm trying to apply the brakes. I'm hitting 7:20s with the brakes to the floor.
10K - Everyone continues to pass me. Mile 5 was 7:52 but I averaged about 7:40 over this split. By the end of this split, I decide that 7:30s is a pretty easy pace.
15K - Still being passed by most everyone. Jamie caught me just shy of mile 8 and I ran about 1K with him at 7:08ish pace. He looked awesome and continued on while I returned to my 7:30s.
20K - I'm finally not being passed. The Wellesley rush pushed me to around 7:20 for 2 miles.
25K - meh. My feet are sorish but I'm not at all tired. A little bored.
30K - Newton hills - Now I'm passing lots of people. The hills give me some energy.
35K - With about 12K to go I entered the zone. 7:20s are feeling good and I'm passing even more people. The heartbreaks are everywhere. From Boston College in is an absolute rush - the crowd just slings you along.
40K - With 5K to go I thought I might put the hammer down and go for 3:15. Mile 23 was 6:59. Yeh, I don't need that. Slow back down to 7:20s. Still passing lots of people.

Felt very easy until my tempo mile at 23. Left foot had about five very short bouts of cramping over last 4 miles that I thought was going to end my race but these never fully blossomed. The first 15 minutes after the finish absolutely sucked. My legs were thrashed. I wanted one of those wheel chairs. Surprisingly my quads were not sore, in fact my quads were never really sore during or after. But my legs slowly recovered and then it was mostly my feet for about an hour. But these recovered too and I now feel pretty good. I'm pretty sure I'm retired from marathoning for a while.

It was great to see Jamie before and after and missed him at our celebratory pizza and brew at Picco with Cacky and Joe. Jamie had a great PR. Chuck and Katie both had awesome runs. And Joe's triumph was simply running after bad achilles tendonopathy only 3 weeks ago.

Morning Report update - absolutely no soreness. Not getting out of bed, not when pushing a finger into my muscles. This is stunning considering that I could barely walk for about 15-20 minutes post finish.

Reverse Taper

You won't find this in a marathon training schedule:

My ramp-up for Pineland training has transmogrified into a reverse taper for Boston. After today I've now got long runs of 16, 11, and 10 miles since October 1st! While everyone else is tapering, I'm just trying to get back into some kind of running fitness (which seems to be working well enough). My focus has been on hills including a short, fast hill climb up Hatchet Mountain in Hope ME:

10 hill repeats up the Skillins Tree Farm off Blackstrap Rd:

And 8 hill repeats up the first bitch (same ridge as above but about 1/2 mile south of Skillins):

Now I'm ready to just cruise this week with about 35-40 miles of easy runs. I don't know my Boston Strategy other than not race it. My original plan was to run it in 3:30 but since the M45-49 qualifying time is now 3:25 I think that will be my goal. Probably run every 5th mile (starting with the first) in 7:30 and everything else around 8 min/mile. But talk is cheap...even for a training run.

Merrimack River 10 mile trail race 2011 report

Absolutely. Perfect. Weather.

Trail Monsters Four, Andy, Ian, Emma, Chuck, Don, and I crossed state lines for the season opening Merrimack River 10 mile trail race. This race really is a must do every year because the field is top notch and the race is old school cool. Don and I did a 2 -2.5 mile warm up and I noticed several overgrown sections of the trail with skin-piercing brush. I stopped to break the eye-gouging branches (to those less vertically challenged than I) off a dead tree that was precariously leaning over the trail.

Andy and I lined up about 3 rows back - this is a fast crowd and quickly came to a dead stop as the course narrowed to singletrack after only 10 feet of pavement. I chose to skip the first bridge and run through the mud which allowed me to pass about 5-6 runners. My goal was to go out at about last years pace and hope that I'm in better fitness and thus avoid bonking on the return half. The first 3 miles was about 5-10s/mile faster than last year and I had to constantly check my speed. This allowed Andy, Steve Wolfe and Chris Dunn to pass me. I hung on to Dunn and stayed within eyesight of Wolfe. Andy was gone. I got a little impatient when we hit the hills so I passed Dunn and the other runners in that group and felt great as we neared the turnaround. Andy was rocking the course and quite far ahead but Wolfe was reachable. I picked up the pace (slowly) and effectively caught (maybe 10s back?) Wolfe on the hills. When we returned back to the flat finish (3 miles left) I thought my only chance of beating Wolfe was picking it up here, passing him, and seeing if he would follow. I did pick up the pace but so did Wolfe but I hung on until the last little climb and descent. I passed Scott Spence on this small climb and hoped to catch Wolfe but he kicked in the turbo engines and took off downhill. Back on the flat river trail, with about 1.5 miles left, he just slowly drifted into the horizon. I had put some distance on Spence but could still hear him within striking distance. Indeed, Spence started to gain on me and with about 1 mile left he was in my wake and biding his time. I had nothing left to drop him and he passed me under I-93 with about 1/4 mile left (or less). I just didn't have the 2nd tank to race him. I did manage to negative split and finish in about 1:09:21 (18th overall, 5th old dude), which is almost a 4 minute PR from last year when I died.

I recognize that *everyone* is racing through their training but I'm pretty thrilled with this race given that I'm still on my ramp up phase from ski season and did an 8 X Bitch hill repeat Wednesday, a tempo run Thursday, and an easy 5 miler at RIT yesterday. I was also running on 4 1/2 hours sleep after driving 17 hours over the previous two days. All the trail monsters had strong races with Andy leading the charge in 1:07:xx and Emma taking 2nd overall! I'll get a medium-long run in tomorrow and then coast in to Boston next week for an "assisted training run".