Just one day after a made that previous post, the organizers of the Kentucky Derby Marathon announced that the race will not be held until the Fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It promptly made me bail on my Wednesday run. I took the whole week easy, doing only one run: a workout with Esther on Thursday.

So I do feel refreshed, and until better times, it is most appropriate to do some fitness training. Access to tracks is a bit of an issue, but at least I definitely won't have to dodge high school runners. I'll change to Jack Daniels' Gold Plan, which is a general fitness plan that one can repeat indefinitely. My understanding is that even though it is in phases, it only does this for better variety of training. It doesn't actually peak you for anything.

Phase I, for 4 weeks:
M: 75 min E (1 or 2 runs)
T: 20 min E + 10 x 400 R w/400 jg + 10 min E
W: 60 min E (1 or 2 runs) + 6 ST
T: Rest
F: 20 min E + 6 ST + 20 min T + 6 ST + 10 min E
S: 60 min E
S: 120 min L

Somehow I survived week -6.

The VO2 max workout on Wednesday (5 x 1200) was hard, but the hardest thing was that I had to do 15 miles the following day, then 10 miles, and after a one-day recovery, a 18-miler with 12 at marathon pace.

Surprisingly, I felt better than last week. And even though both the VO2 max workout and the marathon paced were marginal, I guess they were good enough.

Here are the splits for the 5 x 1200: 4:23, 4:30, 4:33 (delayed), 4:33, 4:31. Split #3 was delayed, because there was track practice on the high school track, and they forced me into lane eight for a lap. I'm guessing that cost me about 3 seconds, so with that, the average would have been 4:29, not too bad. (Goal was 4:30.)

Here are the splits for the 12 marathon paced miles: 6:44, 6:55, 6:56, 6:51, 6:54, 6:43, 7:04, 7:01, 7:06, 7:02, 7:02, 7:05. An average of 6:57. Not too bad, again (goal was 7:00), though it does show some serious slowdown. Nevertheless, one reason of that was terrain, and in the mile last from third: traffic (about 3-4 seconds).

I'm almost certain that the marathon will be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I'll train anyway, at least until I know it for sure.

Week -5:
M: Rest
T: 9 GA w/ 10 x 100
W: 15 MLR
T: 7 R
F: 12 w/ 7 @ LT
S: 6 R
S: 21 L

Friday seems impossible, and Sunday, of course is very long. We'll see. I'll try my best on Friday to run fast, but if I have to slow it down, so be it.

My "recovery" week turned out to be 62 miles. not 59. The book has an error. I'm not sure if the some of the days are wrong, or just incorrectly added up, but it's too late anyway. I did 62. It was not much a of break, but I did feel slightly less tired day-to-day. Also interesting that in the third edition, the arithmetic error is present, but the 7 miles GA on Friday is changed to 7 miles recovery.

As for the workouts themselves, they were OK. I struggled to maintain 6:30 pace during my lactate threshold workout (6:34, 6:33, 6:29, 6:34), and I got slightly dehydrated on my long run. We had 37 degrees and windy on Friday, 65 and sunny on Sunday, so I couldn't acclimate. All in all, the week went reasonably fine. I wish I was a bit faster, but we are where we are.

Now on for the brutal weeks.

Week -6:
M: Rest
T: 6R + 4R
W: 11 w/ 5 x 1200 @ VO2 max
T: 15 MLR
F: 10 GA
S: 6 R
S: 18 w/ 12 @ MP

Both Wednesday and Sunday are very hard, and it is 70 miles. We'll see how it goes. Less than 7 weeks to race day.

Week -8 went reasonably well, though it wasn't as good as the ones before. I probably hadn't realized just how hard it was. The rest day on Monday was not nearly enough to recover from the Sunday marathon paced run, and I followed that up with 13 miles on Tuesday, and 15 miles of Wednesday. Both days I started at 6pm, which meant that I finished well after dark. It was also pretty cold every day. Then one recovery day, and then the threshold run on Friday.

It was supposed to be a continuous 5-mile run, but my schedule and my stomach was messed up, and I had to stop for a bathroom break after the second fast mile. It was cold, windy, I was tired, bad stomach, bad traffic, and too much work the during the day - I was predisposed to run poorly.

So it was 6:47, 6:30, break, 6:30, 6:35, 6:29. The first mile doesn't look right: I'm pretty sure I was just as fast as in the others (and the partial mile splits looked right), so it must have been due to the traffic that held me up in an intersection. So I guess it's OK. Not terrific, because it was broken up, and that first mile is suspect, but not terrible either.

Then another recovery day, and my first 18-miler on Sunday. The difficulty of which is the tired legs from all week. 66 miles. Some records: largest volume, longest tempo, longest run in about a year (Boston training).

Next week is recovery, but not easy.

Week -7:

M: Rest
T: 8 GA w/ 10 x 100 ST
W: 15 MLR
T: 5 R
F: 10 w/ 4 @ LT (6:30)
S: 7 GA
S: 17 L

Total: 59 miles. (Edit: in fact it is 62. The book has an error.) Seems doable; there is nothing here I haven't done recently. Also, hopefully, the weather is getting better.

Then week -6 and -5 are two brutal 70 mile weeks, the two hardest weeks of the whole cycle.