I got sick right after my previous post and I had to skip almost a full week of running. But I did come for the November 12 week at full force: 60 miles. Same for the week of November 19: Despite traveling to the coast and back, I managed to run 60 miles, the last bit of which I ran Sunday night at around midnight in cold rain, after I drove all day. "This is the training that wins races" I told myself, "not the ones on pretty, sunny days."

I was very busy on Monday, so I took a rest day, and in the morning rush on Tuesday, I messed up a bit and I thought that this week would be the early start of the marathon training (in fact it is December 3, or maybe even December 4, if I consider that the goal race is on a Monday). So I quickly looked at the plan, and it started with an LT run: 9 miles with 4 at LT pace. It was brutally cold outside, so I just picked up my gym clothes and I went to gym in the afternoon.

2 miles of warmup at 8:30-ish pace, and then I set the treadmill at 9.5 mph (6:18 pace). I was OK for about a mile. Then I realized that this wasn't going to happen: so I steadily slowed the TM down to 9.3 mph (6:27 pace) until I reached mile 3. I was already pretty exhausted, so I decided to slow even more - I computed that even with the slow start of the treadmill from 0 mph I would average 6:30 pace if I slowed the TM to 9.1 (6:36 pace), so I did that in two steps. I ended up finishing the 4 miles in 25:55 (6:29 average). I finished the workout with an excruciating 3 miles of cooldown.

From all of this I'm guessing that my LT pace may be around 6:30, or a bit slower: VDOT of 53. Better than a few weeks ago, but it's not enough for a 3 hour marathon. But that's fine, I guess. I have several months to go.

One issue is my weight. I still weigh about 155 pounds, which is about 10 pounds over my ideal racing weight.

Bottom line is that I'm not actually starting the hard training this week, so I'll just run easy 9's and and 15 in the weekend. Then I'll still have to make the decision if I should start on December 10 (or even 11) or December 3 (or 4).