I finished the first week of Daniels' Blue Plan, Phase II. Here is the data:

Total is only 36.5 miles. But that's what I've been doing for 6 weeks. I hope consistency will pay off. Plus I do workouts.

Tuesday I've done a morning workout at the track due to an ongoing heat wave. This was 4 x (200 + 200 + 400) with equal jogs at R pace. It was already hot and humid in the morning, but it shouldn't really matter for these short intervals.

200's: 47, 49, 43, 45, 45, 44, 47, 45.

400's: 1:30, 1:32, 1:33, 1:30

The average is 1:31 for 400 meters, which is slightly faster than intended (1:34), and suggests a 46 VDOT. The workout was no cakewalk but I had to slow myself down, not speed myself up. No real paincave.

I ran a threshold run on Saturday. Ideal weather, but for whatever reason, I felt like crap. I couldn't breath, I felt heavy, and I was just happy it was over. Only 20 minutes at T pace with an average of 7:14/mile, again a VDOT 46.

I think I have enough evidence to change the paces to VDOT 46. Otherwise the week should be the same as last week.

E/L: 8:31-9:34, T: 7:17, R: 46, 92

 A year rolled around with no racing, and an extra 18 lbs of weight. I didn't completely stop running though. This December/January I started to get myself back to the grove. Surprisingly, I didn't lose much weight, but I did get a bit faster, and feel lighter somehow. There is still an obvious bulge where my 6-pack is supposed to be, and currently I'm 165 lbs. I used to be 150, and later, after my firefighting days, 155-ish.

I struggled with just plain mileage increase, so I cut back a bit to start to workouts. The last 4 weeks were 36 miles each with one speed workout and one VO2 max. I'm nowhere where I used to be. The circumstances were never ideal (no track, nor treadmill, all on the street with GPS), but they are still obviously much slower than I used do these. Averages from the last 4 weeks:

R paced 1/4 miles: 1:37, 1:37, 1:36, 1:36. Amazingly consistent, suggesting a roughly 44 VDOT.

I paced 4-minute runs (in min/mile): 7:07, 6:52, 6:56, 6:45. This one is getting a bit better, so optimistically suggesting a 45 VDOT.

The crazy thing is that I still do my easy/long runs at around 8 min/mile, and 8:30 usually feels really easy, when, according to the VDOT table, should never be faster than 8:40. It seems like I do my easy runs at my M pace.

This may also be the reason I struggled with base building you can't do that at your M pace!

So let's try some training based of 45 VDOT. Slow down the easy runs. I'm going over Daniel's Blue plan, starting Phase II, Week 5 tomorrow.

M: 60 min E (can be two runs)

T: 15 min E + 4 x (200 R + 200 jg + 200 R + 200 jg + 400 R + 400 jg) + 15 min E

W: Rest, or repeat Mon

T: 30-45 min E + 8 ST

F: 15 min E + 20 min T + 4 ST + 15 E

S: Rest, or repeat Thu

S: 60-90 min L

Paces: E/L: 8:40-9:44, T: 7:25, R 200: 47 sec, R 400: 94 sec.

I finished recovery week 4 with no problem. The last long run was hard, because stupidly, I went out midday, not realizing how hot the weather has become. I got severely dehydrated, but I finished the run without slowing too much. It didn't help that I had a good amount of wine the night before, and that I'm having a cold.

In fact I had no lung issues before that run, but after that I started to produce mucus and cough quite a bit. So I might need to take a bit of a break. I'll see how I feel on Monday. If I feel good, here is the plan.

Last week for recovery is week 5:

Mon: 7 GA

Tue: 5 R

Wed: Rest

Thu: 8 GA w/ 8x100

Fri: 4 R

Sat: 11 MLR

Total: 35 miles.

Recovery week #3 was largely fine. I had to skip the runs on Monday and Tuesday, but I rode my motorcycle to Chicago those days. Not running, but some kind of endurance is required. The rest of the week was fine, and I feel pretty strong. In fact, I was supposed to have a rest day on Wednesday, but since I skipped both Monday and Tuesday, and I had some pretty severe withdrawal symptoms, I wanted to run. So I did a progression run on Wednesday, with splits of 7:11, 7:44, 7:37, 7:26, 6:31. I didn't set out to do that, but I just had to run fast. I finished the week with a 9-miler that I ran at 7:37 average, and it didn't feel hard. Total of only 21 miles, but I take it.

Recovery week 4:

Mon: 7 GA

Tue: 5 R

Wed: Rest

Thu: 8 GA w/ 8x100

Fri: Rest

Sat: 10 GA

Total: 30 miles

First two weeks recovery went well. I skipped a run in the second week, because I was sick after the second shot of COVID vaccine, so I only ran 18 miles.

It is weird to have runs so short after the marathon training. Legs feel recovered now by the end of the second recovery week. The next few are still called recovery, but I might as well call them buildup.

Recovery week 3:

Mon: 5 R

Tue: 5 R

Wed: Rest

Thu: 7 GA w/ 8x100

Fri: Rest

Sun: 9 GA

Total: 26 miles

I'm going to Chicago on Monday/Tuesday, so I may skip a run or two. The only plausible way to do my Monday run is in the hotel in the evening, or in the afternoon in Chicago. No on-the-road running on a motorcycle trip.

Actually, the Monday evening/Tuesday morning in Chicago combination is attractive.

Recovery week 2:

Mon: 5 R

Tue: 5 R

Wed: Rest

Thu: 6 R

Fri: Rest

Sat: 7 R

Total: 23 miles

Recovery week 1:

Tue: 4 R

Wed: Rest

Thu: 4 R

Fri: Rest

Sat: 5 R

Sun: Rest

Total: 13 miles

Kentucky Derby Marathon Race Report

Goal: 3:10. Secondary goal: 3:20.

This training cycle didn't go well. Only 12 weeks, only 55 peak mileage, workouts goals regularly missed. So I wasn't sure what to expect, but I decided to go out at 7:10/mile pace, and we would see what happens. This one time I decided I wouldn't mind crashing.

The race was as lame as it gets. Staggered start, so you don;t know who you are racing against, and self service water stations, where you had to stop and fill your own water bottles. No sports drinks, just water. You start whenever you want (basically). I was assigned a 9am start time, but I made it to the starting area by 8:15, and they told me I could start whenever I was ready. Since the weather forecast was predicting rain, I decided to go early. I crossed the start line at 8:28.

I had two small bottles of Gatorade with me on my belt. I thought I would drink those first, and then pick up water on the way. This plan was fine, except for the added weight and inconvenience of running with a hydration belt, which is probably negligible.

I left the start line, and turned toward the first park turnaround. All excited, and helped with the downhill, I started a bit fast, but I expected it.

Mile 1: 6:49

I turned around in the park, and I moderated my pace, to ease my breathing. Everything felt OK, except that by mile 2, I somehow was 0.2 mile ahead of the mile markers according to my GPS. This discrepancy stayed for the whole race. This is not a huge difference, but it is very suspicious that it happened basically in the first mile. I think there was a misunderstanding between course marking and measurements. I feel like we really run a long course this time. Perhaps they measured the distance of River Rd, and marked the course on the Louisville Loop. The difference would be about right. All the splits below will be GPS splits, and my total distance will be 26.4 miles.

Mile 2: 7:11

Mile 3: 7:09

We went up the bridge, and I made sure I didn't push hard. But you don;t want to slow way down, either.

Mile 4: 7:23

Down the bridge, turn on the street by the river and just continue. Trying to remind myself that this must feel easy.

Mile 5: 6:46

Mile 6: 7:16

This was the first time that we ran on a bike path with all the half-marathoners and this sucked. In normal races, even if you run in a crowd, after the first few miles, you run with people with similar pace. Not here. I had to zig-zag around slower runners, even walkers.

Mile 7: 7:17

Not sure what happened here - maybe straight roads, or less crowds, but somehow I sped up a bit.

Mile 8: 7:06

Mile 9: 7:09

I felt good, my breathing was easy, but for the first time, I had to stop for water. I picked up a bottle from a table. I tried to unscrew the cap, and drink from it - I did manage, but it's not a substitute for a paper cup. Finally I had to stop briefly to load the water to my belt bottle. I must have been pretty fast otherwise, because even with this, my next mile split was

Mile 10: 7:21

Mile 11: 7:08

We were getting close to the far out point of the course. Some mild tingling of tiredness started to get to me. Bad sign.

Mile 12: 7:11

We reached the far out turnaround point here. When I turned, I decided that I must take the miles between here and mile 20 quite easy. I knew that my starting tiredness is very early, and it would bite me bad at the end. But I couldn't avert the disaster.

Mile 13: 7:19

Mile 14: 7:20

I still fell strong, and these miles felt easy. It was just my experience that told me that the trouble was coming.

I stopped for water again, and I wasted about 30 seconds here. I had trouble removing the cap from the bottle, then fumbled around the with my belt bottle and the water bottle. Of course, the people who this mattered was a tiny minority of all runners - for the half-marathon, you can easily carry enough water (or you don't even have to drink very much), and the majority of the marathon runners run-walk, or just run the race casually.

Mile 15:7:41

I focused on easy breathing and thinks were OK, but it was surreal to image that more than 10 miles were left. I felt like I could do 2-3 more, but 10 seemed a lot. I started to compute how fast I would need to run the rest for my B-goal, and that still seemed easy at this point.

Mile 16: 7:11

The next mile was slightly uphill, with bad traffic and some mild headwind.

Mile 17: 7:33

I still reminded myself that I must take it easy until mile 20. I started to feel that regardless, it will be the end for me anyway.

Mile 18: 7:28

Things started to unravel quickly. This was a well predicted wall that I was hitting hard.

Mile 19: 7:48

We went up the bridge again. This wasn't unexpected, and though I wasn't fast, I could still run. In fact I was expecting here a Boston style meltdown, which didn't come.

Mile 20: 8:36

Down the bridge, I felt downright fine.

Mile 21: 7:27

The next part just got to me. It was under the interstate, a really ugly part of the city. All concrete, homeless people and trash all around. Only marathoners did this last loop, and the majority of them were walking. I just focused on keeping running.

Mile 22: 8:02

Mile 23: 8:08

Things started to turn really ugly here. I didn't have enough willpower to get over it. My legs felt jelly, I had trouble breathing, everything is in pain. Full blown bonk set in.

Mile 24: 8:35

Mile 25: 8:51

We had a few small hills for the end. I was so finished. I kept calculating what my time would be if I walked from here. But I didn't.

Mile 26: 9:20

To add insult to injury, I knew I had 0.4 miles left, not 0.2. I summoned my last piece of energy to jog to the finish line.

Last 0.4: 8:21 pace

Total time: 3:20:21.

It seems like this is 19th overall out of the 460 weak field, and 3rd in my age group. I do not deserve any of that.

This was somewhat expected after the weak preparation. It is disappointing that I started out my training with hopes of 3:05, and I couldn't even run 3:10 (or 3:20). Also, my last 3 marathons ended very similarly: crashing and running a 10-minute positive split (actually Boston was even worse).

This gives me strength to continue. Recover and start training for the fall. Let's regain the lost glory. Let's run a strong marathon for a change.

Week -1 may have been the crown jewel of this crappy training cycle. I had to skip my Monday run, because I had a COVID shot and I just felt quite crappy all day. Even Tuesday morning I was not 100%, but I decided I should be good for my track workout.

It didn't go well. I had 4 x 1200 for the day, and I thought maybe I should be strong and recovered enough to run them at my VO2 max, which I though was around 4:32/1200 m. I ran the first in 4:30, and I felt perfectly fine. The second was OK for two laps, and then something hit me. I finished it in 4:33,but I knew I was in trouble. The third and fourth were 4:41, 4:47, and those were the best I could manage. Who knows why. My legs felt jelly, my stomach was about the erupt, and I couldn't breathe.

I'll get my exercise induced asthma checked out after the race. Maybe I just couldn't get enough oxygen into my body. Something changed after my early summer illness. But it is also possible that it's just age, and gradually worsening systems.

With the skipped run on Monday, I only ended up running three times. The second was a recovery with strides, and the last one was a 12-miler today. At least this one felt very easy. I almost felt refreshed at the end.

The hay is in the barn. Marathon week follows now.

Mon: 6 R

Tue: Dress rehearsal: 7 w/ 2 MP

Wed: R

Thu: 5 R w/ 6x100

Fri: 4 R

Sat: Race

I have finished week -2, but I'm not getting any faster. The two workouts this week was a 5x600 (2:12, 2:15, 2:15, 2:16, 2:13). No real paincave, except for the last lap. This is not bad, especially two days after a 20-miler. ~53 VDOT.

But that's not my actual fitness for sure. My 5-mile LT run kind of sucked. Splits were 6:32, 6:39, 6:55, 6:41, 6:35, but the last bit was way too hard. This is lower than 52 VDOT. Granted, the terrain had some rolling hills, there was some wind, and over 70 degrees, but these are week excuses. In reality, the neighborhood course is not hilly, the wind was not strong at all, and 70 degrees with the sun setting is not hot for just a 5-mile effort. I didn't feel great during the day (almost passed out a few times when standing up quickly, so I may have had some blood pressure or hydration issues), and I didn't feel great during the run either.

For my long run, I checked out the marathon course. I got lost 3 weeks ago on my 20-miler, but this time, I've found the trail. I do like it, but it's not flat. I picked up 325 ft elevation in 16 miles. I felt tired, but not exhausted by the end, despite this being less than 24 hours after the LT run (which was also a total of 9 miles). So this was, by design, on tired legs.

Next week taper starts, but some hard workouts remain to be done.

Mon: 7 R w/ 8 x 100

Tue: 8 w/ 4x1200. Let's try to run the 1200's at real VO2 max: 4:32. This will be hard.

Wed: Rest

Thu: 5 R w/ 6 x 100

Fri: Rest

Sat: 12 MLR

Total: 32 miles

After the slower 4 x 1200 (see last post), things got a bit better. I felt fairly fresh all week, and I ran a fine 20-miler on Saturday. Average pace was 7:48, and I felt fairly strong all the way to end, except maybe the last mile.

BTW, hydration is a huge problem with most water fountains and bathrooms still closed and you can't just walk into businesses any more for water like we used to. On my Saturday run the only water fountain I had was at mile 5, and the same one coming back at mile 15. The only reason I survived is that it was pretty cool (55-60 degrees). Unlike last week.

Training gets gradually easier from here, but there are still some hard workouts.

Week -2:

Mon: 8 w/ 5x600

Tue: 6 R

Wed: Rest

Thu: 4 R w/ 6x100

Fri: Tune up race, but I'll just do another 5 mile tempo, or maybe 6, if I feel really good (unlikely). Total of 9-10 miles.

Sat: 16 L

Total: 43-44 miles

I guess the main feature of this week is the lack of a medium long run midweek. That would hopefully make me fresh for Friday. We'll see if I can do something reasonable. I might just try this on the track.

Well, training could hardly be any worse than it is. I have to risk this is my worst cycle so far, except for the once that injured me. I had to play catch up all week.

5 x 600 m on Monday: 2:16, 2:13, 2:16, 2:18, 2:16. This is reasonable for VDOT 52, but my legs were still dead from the 20-miler two days before, so it was still pretty hard.

The other workout was supposed to be a tune-up race, but I just did 5-mile LT: 6:27, 6:42, 6:48, 6:46, 6:41. Not terrible, except if we realize that my LT pace is probably 6:40, and not getting any better.

This also trashed my legs, and the following day I bonked on my 17-miler. Probably not due to the tempo run, but messed up hydration. I got very dehydrated. I stopped at 13.5 and walked home. Not the end of the world, but a missed opportunity at some good training.

I already started week -3, and it's not going great. But first the plan:

Week -3:

Mon: 7 R w/ 6x100 ST

Tue: 10 w/ 4 x 1200m

Wed: Rest

Thu: 11 MLR

Fri: 4 R

Sat: 20 L

I felt great on my recovery and I got my hopes up, but today, before my track workout, I felt very tired. I ran my 1200 a bit slower (deliberately) at 4:40, 4:39, 4:42, 4:41, and even this felt pretty hard. This really is only 50 VDOT, which would put me over 3:10 for the marathon. The more I train, the slower I get.

I used to 5 x 1200 in 4:21 each in the good old days.

I survived the monster week, and "survived" sounds like the appropriate word. I felt fine for the 12-miler mid-week, and then the hard part came on Thursday and Saturday.

My Thursday LT run was a bit of a failure. We had serious winds outside, which meant that I had streets where I seriously had to push against strong headwind. You never get that back downwind - almost like elevation changes. I ran 6.6 miles (one neighborhood lap) at a perceived LT pace. I'm not sure how much the splits mean: 6:34, 6:54, 7:02, 7:13, 7:03, 6:47, and the fractional last part in 4:01 at a pace of 6:36. So altogether 45:34 for 6.6 miles, roughly 6:54 pace. That's almost as slow as marathon pace. If 6:54 is my threshold, then Daniels says my marathon is ~3:14. I hope that's not true. I really want to run a 3:!0.

In Saturday, I ran my first 20-miler. This was tough. It was warm outside, and my legs still felt the Thursday run. Also, this run is 3 miles longer than the longest so far. I pushed though the pain and tiredness, and finished the run decently. I tried to check out the course of the marathon, but I missed a turn in the trail, and I got hopelessly lost. So I ended up exploring some other trails. One more tough thing in this run was that I had to carry all my water, which meant that I carried a liter bottle for a while; I stashed it, and picked it up coming back.

It is getting a bit easier from here, though the next 3 weeks is still pretty hard.

Week -4:

Mon: 8 w/ 5x600

Tue: 11 MLR

Wed: Rest

Thu: 4 R w/ 6x100

Fri: 8K-15K race, but I'll probably do 6 miles LT instead with 2/2 wu/cd.

Sat: 17 L

Total: 50 miles

Week -6 is done. I've had too hard workouts this week: 5 x 1000m and 15 mile long run with 12 miles at marathon pace.

My goal splits for the 1000s were 3:48 (far cry from the 3:37 I used to train at), at this was OK. Splits were 3:45, 3:47, 3:49, 3:50, 3:48, and no serious pain until the last one. A fairly crowded track, but pretty polite runners. Total mileage was 10. It was brutal to run a 12-miler the day after on tired legs, but I know it is by design.

Then after two easy days (one rest, one recovery), I ran the marathon paced run. My legs didn't feel good, even during warmup. The fast splits were 6:54, 7:06, 7:12, 7:05, 6:56, 6:56, 7:08, 7:11, 7:06, 7:03, 7:14, 6:55. Average of 7:04, which was my exact goal. But it was hard. So I'm definitely no better shape than this. 3:05-ish marathon. Said this way, it doesn't seem far from 3 hours, but considering it is some 15 seconds per mile slower, the difference is astonishing.

No question, there are no miracles in running. Training too little last summer/fall, you can't just start to run long and fast in the spring. It will be my fall cycle, where I can do something hopefully better. Definitely need more miles, stronger base, and longer training cycle is necessary.

Crazy to remember that we have only 6 weeks left.

Week -5:

Mon: 6 R w/ 6 x 100 ST

Tue: 12 MLR

Wed: Rest

Thu: 12 w/ 7 @ LT (6:40)

Fri: 5 R

Sat: 20 L

Total: 55 miles.

This is the most brutal week of this cycle. 7 miles LT is already crazy hard, then a 20-miler long run (3 miles longer than the longest so far) will make me feel like the last miles of a marathon. I will have to keep everything else on the slow side.

To be fair, the 18/70 plan has much harder weeks, and more very hard workouts, but of course, you are more prepared for those.

I have developed this system to (half jokingly) give medal prizes to workouts: the most brutal ones are the "gold medal workouts". There are three of them in Pfitzinger's plans: 7-mile tempo, 5 x 1200 m VO2 max, and long run with 14 miles at marathon pace. The 18/70 plan has all three. My current one only has one.

Week -7 was supposed to be recovery, but it didn't feel like that... Every single run felt hard. OK, maybe that medium long 12 miler wasn't too bad, though I was counting down the last 2-3 miles.

The threshold run was hard as always: the fast miles were at 6:37, 6:39, 6:40, 6:44. I did run it at a pace that subjectively felt like my lactate threshold. I don't think I was 100% recovered from the 12 miler, but that should be normal, and this Germantown course have some rolling hills. But I think that considering 6:40/mile as my current lactate threshold is spot on.

I have started from lower VDOT before, but not 7 weeks from the marathon and not at low mileage like this. On the other hand, I never expected this to be an ideal cycle.

The long run of 16 miles should have felt easy, I guess, but it wasn't. Granted, I ran it at Turkey Run Park, which is as hilly as it gets around here. I also messed up hydration a little, but I fortunately didn't hit the wall.

Week 6 is coming up. I can't believe I'm almost halfway. I'm hitting peak mileage soon.

Week -6:

Mon: 5 R

Tue: 10 w/ 5x1000 (3:48/rep, 91s/lap)

Wed: 12 MLR

Thu: Rest

Fri: 6 R w/ 6x100 ST

Sat: 15 w/ 12M (7:04)

Total: 48 miles.

Week -8 is over. It went OK, but it became clear that I'm not as strong as I hoped I was.

I ran a 5-mile LT run on Tuesday, and it was quite a bit slower than I wanted it to be. Mile splits were 6:25, 6:45, 6:40, 6:56, 6:41. The 6:56 mile was a slight uphill, and I had to stop for cars, I think, twice. The last mile was slightly downhill. Altogether 71ft of climbing in 5 miles.

So this is like 6:41-6:42 average, but let's call it 6:40. That puts me below 52 VDOT, or a 3:05-3:06 marathon. Not terrible, just a little weaker than expected. The moral of the story is not to train harder than 52 VDOT.

Training paces (max): 7:42-8:41 easy; 7:02 M; 6:38 T; 91, 3:48, 4:32 for 400m, 1000m, 1200m intervals.

My long run of 17 miles was pretty hard, but I ran it at 7:48 pace, which is pretty much as fast as I can expect it to be. Besides, this was my longest run for almost a year.

Week -7 (recovery):

M: Rest

T: 12 MLR

W: Rest

T: 9 w/ 4@LT

F: 5 R

S: 16 L

Total: 42 miles

Week -9 was less than ideal due to weather. On Monday, we got enough snow that every gym in town closed down, and it was not possible to run outside. So my run was out. After that, the freeze didn't let out until basically today (a whole week). On top of that, we got more snow on Wednesday, and temperature dipped into single digits occasionally.

But at least the gyms opened every day (sometimes with a bit shortened hours, but I made it work). An extra bit of complication is that in Kentucky, you must wear a mask on the treadmill, so any halfway serious run is impossible. I did try one easy 5-miler with a mask on, but it sucked so much, that for all other workouts, I went over the bridge to Indiana.

So I ended up with only 4 runs, instead of the planned 5. I added a mile to my Tuesday recovery (due to the skipped run on Monday), so I ended up 7 miles short of the original goal. I finished the week with only 36 miles. But at least that included a 11-mile medium long run and a 16-mile long run, of which the last 10 was at marathon pace.

Doing this on the treadmill is mentally taxing, but physically, it was entirely doable. I ran the fast portion at 7:00/mile, and this does feel like my correct marathon pace at the moment. The run was never painful, not even in the last few miles, but I *was* quite tired by the end. This is all expected, and the way it should be.

Now let's plan week -8:

Mon: 5 R

Tue: 10 w/ 5@LT (6:35?)

Wed: 11 MLR

Thu: R

Fri: 5 R

Sat: 17 L

 Total: 48 miles.

This look genuinely hard. MLR following a hard LT run, and a 17-miler at the end of the week. The total mileage is also going to be my highest since November (and that one had no workouts). Fortunately the cold snap is over and week -7 is supposed to be recovery.

So last week was largely a success, and we even escaped the weather. We aren't so lucky this week. We expect 7 inches of snow tonight.

So this next week plan is highly tentative. I don't mind paying for gym, but they may close, too, and I will need to get there somehow.

Week -9:

Mon: 8 GA w/ 6 x 10 HS, 8 x 100 ST

Tue: 4 R

Wed: 11 MLR

Thu: Rest

Fri: 4 R

Sat: 16 w/ 10@MP (7:00 min/mile)

Total: 43 miles.

Finally up to 5 day weeks. The only hard run is Saturday, by which time the weather will be OK, but the snow may not melt out. I will do my best to get to the gym for every run I can't get done outside (which may be all of them).

Still on the quest of trying to find my VDOT. I figured that if my marathon pace is 7:00/mile, then my VDOT (per RunSmartProject calculator) is 52.3, and my LT is 6:36. So last night, I decided to try that for the middle 4 miles of an 8-mile run.

Slight complication was a serious ice storm in Louisville, so I had to find a gym to run. Planet Fitness closed due to inclement weather, so I ended up in LA Fitness. I'm thinking about getting a membership, because weather is not getting better for at least the next 10 days.

I set the treadmill to 6:35/mile, and it felt quite easy for the first mile. I was fine for 3-miles (I did 2-2 breathing until mile 2.9), but then the wheels started to fall off. The last quarter mile was pure struggle. I seriously needed willpower even to just do the last 0.1.

This result is slightly strange, but I think it most likely indicates lack of fitness (VO2 max). I've seen this before. My VO2 max is too close to my LT, so it is hard to maintain my LT for more than 20 minutes. The good news is that VO2 max is the fastest to train up.

I think the rest of the week will be fine, but I do probably need a gym membership.

Outstanding first week of training. Frankly, it felt relatively easy, resting every other day. I feared the last day's marathon paced run, but it turned out better than I expected.

So I finished the week with 35 miles, as planned. The crux of the week was the last run: 13 miles w/ 8 @ marathon pace. I wasn't sure what to aim for, so I mostly ran it by feel, though I think I carried away a bit, and pushed just a bit too hard. The fast miles were 6:48, 6:59, 6:57, 6:53, 6:57, 6:43, 7:07, 6:46 for an average of 6:54.

Based on this, I'm thinking that I should train like I'm trying to run a 7 min/mile pace marathon, which is 3:04-3:05. Though in actuality, the lack of high mileage, and the presence of hills will probably make it more like the original 3:10.

Next week we will have some brutal cold, but as of today, we will have at least 20 F at some point on every day. That means, training is possible. Workouts are harder in low 20s, but possible.

Week -10: 39 miles.

Sun: Rest

Mon: 11 MLR

Tue: Rest

Wed: 8 w/ 4 @ LT

Thu: Rest

Fri: 5 R

Sat: 15 MLR

I will keep this schedule, but everything from Wednesday is in jeopardy. Maybe I'll try to run in the gym with a mask on.

Everything went pretty well, and finished the base building today. The only problem I experience is that my exercise induced asthma is worse than ever. I'm having serious breathing difficulty this winter that just doesn't want to go away. I'm almost tempted to go to a doctor...

For now, let's start marathon training at some old guy pace. I plan to be on a Sunday - Saturday schedule.

S: Rest

M: 8 w/ 6 x 10 s HS + 8 x 100 ST

T: Rest (Very generous, it's been a long time that I had two rest days in a week.)

W: 9 GA

T: Rest (What? Three a week?? This will truly feel like a cutback week.)

F: 5 R

S: 13 w/ 8 at M pace

Marathon pace will be for sub 3:10, so let's keep it at 7:14/mile. That Saturday run looks hard, but maybe I'll be well rested.

I started to plan my marathon today, and I realized that I miscounted the weeks, so there is one more week for base building. Let me put the (hopefully) correct schedule here now.

January 24: 7 miles per day, 14 mile long run, total of 49 miles. Based on weather forecast, Tuesday seems right for long run, and Thursday for rest.

January 31: Week 11.

February 7: Week 10.

February 14: Week 9.

February 21: Week 8.

February 28: Week 7.

March 7: Week 6.

March 14: Week 5.

March 21: Week 4.

March 28: Week 3.

April 4: Week 2.

April 11: Week 1.

April 18: Race week.

Race day: April 24.

 So far so good. Finished the 42-mile week and I feel pretty good. Unfortunately it is cold every day (none of my runs had temperature over 40 F), and my exercise-induced asthma is often pretty bad. I'm still resisting taking medication for it though.

 Well, it happened again. I felt burnt out in the summer, so I took a bit of a break, and I never could quite come back from it. It was hard to get motivated, when there was no race on the horizon.

The real wake up call came a few weeks ago, when I had to claim my place for the spring Kentucky Derby Marathon. It will be a stupid staggered start race, but it will provide an official time, and that's nice. Except that I'm in a shit form with low MPW, so I better start training!

I've done two weeks of regular running now. MPW is still low: 31.5 for last week. But it isn't outrageous, if I'm OK with Pfitzinger's lower mileage plan. I could potentially start that plan after this week.

Race day: April 24.

April 18: Race week.

April 11: Week 1.

April 4: Week 2.

March 28: Week 3.

March 21: Week 4.

March 14: Week 5.

March 7: Week 6.

February 28: Week 7.

February 21: Week 8.

February 14: Week 9.

February 7: Week 10.

January 31: Week 11.

January 24: Week 12.

Obviously, there is not enough time to do 18 week plan, so the 12 week must do.

It is probably best to just do mileage until then. I can do 35 miles this week, and then

January 3 - 9: 38.5 (5.5 per day)

January 10 - 16: 42 (6 per day)

January 17 - 23: 46.5 (6.5 per day)

The goal can be decided later, but for now, it seem like a 3:10 has a good chance to be a BQ for an old fart like me. That's a 7:15 pace, which looks entirely doable. I can probably even train a bit faster. We will reevaluate this in January, when race training starts.

First week of Phase III is done. This went quite well. I did the VO2max workout in the gym. (90 degrees outside.) Good choice. I managed to do it and it felt OK. Hard, but fine. It was 5 x 4 minutes (3 min jogs), and I ran the fast intervals at 10 mph (6 min/mile), while the recoveries were at 6 mph (10 min/mile).

I ran the threshold run at the track, even though it was still hot. 5 x 1600 m with 1 min rests. I was aiming for 6:30 splits, but managed a bit better: 6:26, 6:28, 6:30, 6:26, 6:23. This was also reasonable.

It seems like I'm getting pretty close to 3-hour shape. In fact these training paces are spot on for a 3-hour marathon according to Jack Daniel's on-line calculator. According to that, a 3-hour marathon corresponds to 53.5 VDOT, which is 5:58 min/mile interval pace, and 6:29/mile (~6:27/1600 m) threshold.

Of course hills are extra hard, but maybe there is hope now for a 3-hour marathon in the fall.

Last week of Phase II was OK. I ran the VO2max workout (5 x 3 min w/ 2 min jog) around the block, and it wasn't fast... Paces were 6:13, 6:14, 6:13, 6:11, 6:11, for an average of 6:12. This shows I'm getting slower in these: 6:07 to 6:10 to 6:12. Who knows why. The weather was getting warmer, the last one was run on a day when I didn't have much sleep, I was nervous, and on my feet all day long (roofing of our house). All-in-all these correspond to VDOT about 51, quite a bit worse than what was suggested by the LT workouts in Phase I.

Also, this means that my 200's on Thursday should have been 42 seconds. Granted, I only set my GPS to 0.12 miles (193 meters) but it is still weird that I manage 38, 39, 39, 37, 39, 40, 39, 40, and 38, 39, 38, 38, 40, 39, 39, 39 without much difficulty.

The last obstacle, the long run went quite well. I drank a lot, but managed a good pace and a very strong finish on over 15 miles.

Now onto Phase III:

M: 75 min E (1 or 2 runs)
T: 20 min E + 5 x 4 min H w/ 3 min jog + 20 min E
W: 75 min E (1 or 2 runs)
T: Rest
F: 20 min E + 5 x 1 mile T w/ 1 min rest + 10 min E
S: 60 min E (1 or 2 runs)
S: 120 min L

I think I'll try to do my workouts in the gym. I took a rest day yesterday (Tuesday), because we had a family program, so I'll do my VO2max workout today. It's very hot outside, and gyms opened up on June 1.

I finished the second week of Phase II more or less successfully. My 2 x 8 x 200 went fine, though I *was* ready to be done after the 16th rep. Rep times were 43, 38, 42, 37, 39, 39, 38, 39, (jog), 38, 40, 38, 40, 40, 40, 38, 36 (all GPS measured, some hills, 0.12 mile). As usual, all ran by feel. I didn't know any of the splits until until I downloaded the data.

The long run was quite bad. I went early in the morning without enough sleep. I started at 7am. This was after lots of rain on the day before and during the night, so humidity was truly 100%. It was raining under the trees. The temperature was between 70 and 80 degrees, increasing, but higher temps actually felt better, because humidity was falling.

I started a bit too fast, and didn't drink enough. I was completely saturated with sweat after the first hour (like, running down on my legs). I had a bout of trots (fortunately I was in my neighborhood). The last bit was a real struggle, but I managed to finish it at an average pace of 7:54/mile. I was badly dehydrated. Hopefully I can recover by tomorrow for my next VO2 max workout. I'd love to ace that at least once out of three.

So, as suggested, next week is the last Phase II week. Phase III will up the VO2 max training to do 5 x 4 min, and swaps out the 200's for threshold miles. I wish I could test myself in a race.

I ran a second 5 x 3 minute workout yesterday. This is, 20 minutes warmup, 5 x 3 minutes interval at VO2 max pace with 2 minutes of jogging in between for recovery, and 20 minutes of cooldown. I do it entirely by feel, except when my pace goes out of the 5:40-6:20 interval, my watch warns me.

I felt pretty tired by the last one, and I had to speed up multiple times to keep myself in the correct speed range. My paces were 6:07, 6:02, 6:09, 6:16, 6:18. Of course averaging paces is probably not the best way to measure performance, but due to the low precision of distance for these intervals, it is probably the best we can do: 6:10. This is worse than last week's 6:07, but maybe not statistically significantly worse. These correspond to VDOTs 51.8, 51.3 respectively. The corresponding 200 rep time would be 43 seconds!

It is important to note though that these are not run on a track! There are some hills, wind, etc. So track times would definitely be better.

Clearly there is a mismatch in aspects of my training. My endurance and speed are fine, my threshold is OK, my VO2 max is bad. This is OK. This is what training is for.

I successfully finished week 1 of Phase II.

It has two workouts: a VO2 max with 3 minute hard bursts, and one with 200 m reps.

The 200's are not hard, but there are 16 of them (with 5 minutes of jogging halfway). Still, I somehow managed to crank them out fast: 38, 41, 39, 39, 39, 39, 35, 39; 39, 36, 39, 37, 38, 37, 38. One split is missing, because I messed up and I actually ran it during the 5 minute jog (and then I skipped the first fast interval of the second block). This was, of course, run on the road, so there may be GPS error.

On the other hand, the 3 minute intervals were not that great. The mile paces were 5:55, 6:03, 6:13, 6:09, 6:17. This does show that I lack fitness. I have strength and endurance, just not fitness. It's OK. I can fix this. And maybe it was just not a good day.

The VO2max run was on Tuesday, the 200's on Friday, and I did feel that my legs were trashed for my long run on Sunday. I also got a bit dehydrated... stupid Parklands are trying to kill people by keeping water fountains closed. But my endurance is actually fine. I had no trouble keeping my pace despite the issues.

Two more weeks of this. I'm getting into shape for nothing...

Phase I of Daniels's Gold plan is almost done! Two days left, and no more workouts, just an easy and a long run.

The most important signals are the threshold runs: 20 minutes each week. I decided to run them by feel, just 20 minutes, no splits, and this worked well. The averages were 6:29/mile in week 1, 6:35/mile in week 2, and 6:24/mile in week 3. Week 2 was relatively warm (73 degrees); this shouldn't matter much, but I had no water on me, and I didn't drink after the warmup, so who knows. I'm afraid I may have pushed week 3 a bit too hard (beyond threshold), though it felt like I could do at least 5 more minutes, so maybe not. It was around our house block, so it also wasn't the easiest psychologically.

All this points to 53-54 VDOT, which is not bad at all; it is definitely good sign for a strong fall marathon, if one is held. But until then, let's just continue the standard fitness training; so VDOT doesn't matter all that much. I'll run everything by feel.

Phase II:
M: 75 min E
T: 20 min E + 5 x 3 min H w/ 2 min jg + 20 min E
W: 1 or 2 E runs, 30-40 min each
T: Rest
F: 20 min E + 8 x 200 R w/ 200 jg + 5 min E + 8 x 200 R w/ 200 jg + 5 min E
S: 60 min E (1 or 2 runs)
S: 120 min L

I dropped the strides. I just hate them, they don't make me any faster IMO, there is not a good way to do them, so this is it.

I wish I found a track where I don't have to hop the fence and worry about trespassing charges.

After that suspension of marathon training, I lost a few days due to business and lack of motivation. It is much harder to get yourself out the door in the dark, or in bad weather, when you don't have a race to train for.

Then somehow I injured my right knee. I'm not sure if I kneeled or squatted the wrong way, but I woke up one morning, and my knee was hurting bad. I had to skip a few days, and that added to the low-motivation non-running days turned into a 10-day break.

So following Jack Daniels, I staged a careful comeback. My first full-load day was April 18, when I ran a 15-miler. It felt great.

Now I'm back on Daniel's Gold plan. It doesn't seem like I lost much fitness. I ran a 20-minute threshold run yesterday entirely by feel, and I ran a pretty consistent 6:30 pace. It didn't feel harder than a threshold run should. This was two days after I ran a 10 x 1/4 mile workout, which was also fine. (No treadmill running for a while though - we are under pandemic lockdown.)

Now I'm planning to run the Louisville Marathon in the fall. I used to think I cold possibly run 3 hours there, but that sounds hard, especially if there is an Epsilon Camp, in which case no real training can be expected for the second half of July. Let's just make no time goal plans right now. And let's hope the race will actually be held.

An 18-week plan would start on July 12 (Sunday), which is a good milestone anyway, because Epsilon Camp would start around then. So it is a sensible plan to do Daniels' Gold Plan until then. That gives me 12 weeks on that plan including the one I'm finishing now. So the schedule looks like this:

Phase I: April 20 - May 10
Phase II: May 11 - May 31
Phase III: June 1 - June 21
Phase IV: June 22 - July 12

For Phase I, the training plan is in my previous post. Not sure about all those strides though. I'll do them, if I feel like it, which probably means, mostly I won't do them. :)