I know this is frequently returning theme of this blog, but seriously: fuck the fucking weather. When on March 25 the peak temperature of the day is 35 F and there is drizzling snow all day with cutting wind (feels like 25 F), I say enough is enough. And I ran twice today.

On March 16 I finished my largest week in my running history with 68 miles. Then the week after that I went to conference, worked really hard, weather sucked, and I got in 0 miles. That is correct. Zero. I'll try to jump back to training this week like nothing happened. This is according Pfitzinger's marathon training guideline: if you skip less than 10 days, you can try to get back where you were.

Week -5: Total of 70 miles.

Long runs: 15 and 12 miles. Take these easier, keeping them just under 8 minutes pace, unless I feel great.

VO2 max: 5 x 1200 meters at 2 sec/lap slower than 8K-10K goal pace. If I assume I only want to run 1:25 HM, then 8K goal pace would be 90.75 sec/lap. That is 4:32/interval, and I haven't even added the 2 sec/lap. Unless I really lost a lot of fitness this week, I should be able to do much better than that.

Non-long-run days should average 10.75 miles/day.

I'm tired of the cold, but chugging along. Today I had a great track workout at Iroquois High School. It was just over 40 degrees, which is very nice considering the freezing yesterday, but we got a few flurries again.

Anyway, I ran 1000s and 1200s with 600 meters recovery. Splits were the following:

1000 - 3:39.94
1200 - 4:23.93
1000 - 3:38.45
1200 - 4:26.52
1000 - 3:38.82

Very nice progress: these are all sub-6 minute paces. I used to run 1000s in 3:55-4:00. I think these times would predict sub-18:30 on 5K. I really have to go out and run one.

Week -7: 68 miles (oh my!)

Long runs: 15 and 11 miles.

VO2 max: Pfitzinger says 5 x 4:00 moderately steep uphill. But I've grown to like track training for VO2 max, especially because my goal race will be pancake flat. So this translates to something like 1000-1200-1000-1200-1000. McMillan lists 1000s at 3:32-3:42, 1200s at 4:18-4:30. I would probably be closer to the slower end. 600 recoveries would work well. Roughly 9 miles with a sizable cooldown.

Easy days: 11 miles each. Try two runs each, may be easier in spring break and warmer temperatures.

Finished the week with a tempo today of 5 miles. It was tough. I tried to run 6:20s, but at mile 2 or so, I had to realize it wasn't going to happen. So I settled to do 6:25s. Splits were 6:23, 6:21, 6:30, 6:30, 6:24, the whole last mile deep in the paincave. Average was 6:25.48, which barely qualifies as tempo according to McMillan, but at least it was 5 miles, and at least it wasn't like 6:30. I do have trouble with my stamina. The good news is that these very training runs are supposed to make it better. The other good news is that almost surely the 60-some mile weeks don't let me fully recover, so I will hopefully get better after some taper.

Addition: After I wrote this post I checked back to see what 5-mile tempo I've run in the past. So the good news is that the fastest before this was at 6:30 pace last fall, and I was very satisfied with it. This was probably a less hilly course though, but at least I didn't get slower.

I have finished my last week with the planned 66 miles. It was hard. It's a lot of running. I had one URD, so I just finished the week on Saturday, and today I'm about to run 16 miles for this week's long run. Tempo was far from perfect, but with this many miles, I'm fairly happy about the week. I'm in a constant state of physical exhaustion. I sleep 10 hours a day and I really need it.


Week -8:

Total: 62 miles.
Long runs: 16 and 11 miles.
LT: 5 mile tempo
Easy runs and tempo average 8.75 miles a day.