I finished this week with a 17-miler after the race yesterday. My legs were a bit heavy, but cardio-wise it felt very easy. This is the end of the first taper week, which is still 56 miles and with a race; from next week on taper is in full effect.

Furthermore, I'll have to skip a day, because the goal race one day early. I kept schedule until now so that I can run some tune-up races (only one, as it turned out), and it fit better with real life. But now I have to switch back. So I'm skipping Tuesday's GA run. That will give me effectively two rest days next week: Monday and Sunday, and only 36 miles. It's been a long time that I had such little running in a given week.

This cycle has been probably the closest to perfect that I've ever done. My winter 5K/10K was close, until I had that stupid knee injury from the fall. But even in that one I skipped a few days around new years day, and maybe some others. This time, I think I skipped only two runs in the whole cycle (one was actually a tune-up race, which is important, but still).

I will also risk it that despite the dismal 10K performance yesterday, I am in the best shape of my life. An evidence for that is that In 2013, before my half marathon PR I had a 5x1200 workout similar to the one that I had a week and a half ago. My paces were slower and the run felt harder back then.

My endurance also seems to be there. When one can run 17 miles at 7:33 pace after a 10K race and it feels pretty easy, that is a good sign.

Wellbrooke Fall Classic 10K Race Report

Goal: 6:00-6:15 pace, depending feel and racing situation. Dream goal: PR (37:52).

This was a tune-up race for the marathon two weeks from today, but I originally I was hoping that maybe I can threaten my PR. However, it was warm (65-67 F) this morning with strong winds and very high humidity, so I knew a PR (on marathon training with no taper) was unlikely.

This turned out to be an extremely small race, which is not what I thought based on the website. The 10K had only 25 participants altogether. Another reason not to hope for a great time. But of course it had the advantage that a bathroom was available 5 minutes before the start.

The organization was excellent, and the only thing I didn't like about the race was that every participants received a medal. A total waste of money and natural resources. The course ran entirely on bike paths in a nice park; there was a 5K and a 10K, and the 10K ran two laps on the 5K course. Unfortunately as a consequence, we had curvy roads and many turns, which makes my GPS notoriously inaccurate (showing short). So I'll give some adjusted paces for each GPS mile, which, in reality, were probably a bit more than a mile each.

We started right on time with the firing of a cool cannon! We started on a slight downhill and strong tailwind. I started to get worried, because my pace dipped below 6 minutes/mile. Also, I quickly left the other runners behind, and I found myself leading alone by a big margin.

Mile 1: 6:01 (adjusted: 5:53)

After mile 1, I decided to slow my pace to LT effort. Nobody was around, and I wasn't going to push my body into the paincave for nothing. Also, even if victory comes easy, running is sport fought primarily for position. So if I'm winning, it is not smart to risk it.

Mile 2: 6:20 (6:12)

By this time, I was running a time trial. I couldn't see the second place runner any more when I glanced back. A (gas operated) golf cart was leading me ahead.

Mile 3: 6:14 (6:06)

I arrived to the finish, circled it, as instructed, and headed back to the course. The headwind was occasionally quite brutal.

Mile 4: 6:15 (6:07)

This was the back part of the course, and the volunteers left after the last 5K walker passed them. The golf cart didn't set out to the second lap, so I was totally, entirely alone. I could cut the course, take a nap, whatever I wanted. It was no different than a crappy morning LT run.

Mile 5: 6:20 (adj: 6:12)

I caught up with the back of the pack 5K walkers, so I had to dodge some of them. At the end of this mile, I turned into a headwind so strong that it stopped me in my track. The course was also a bit uphill here.

Mile 6: 6:26 (6:18)

I turned to the finish straight, and sprinted down to the finish line. I did a courtesy clinch, but I felt more like "meh..".

Final time: 38:12. First overall out of 25.

My 5K split was 18:52, so it seems like I faded quite a bit. Not so surprising though given the lack of  competition, and the worsening weather. The 5K winner was a 13 year old girl, who ran 21:16 (that's a pretty good time for her age and gender). I should be more careful selecting races. It was too much driving, too much money, and I really could have just run an LT run. Well, at least I got a trophy.

On the other hand, with all the issues, it's only 20 seconds off of my PR. Maybe I should try to spend another winter on 5K/10K preparation?

Training is finished for the week, except for a 10K tune-up race tomorrow. The weather won't be ideal: 65 temp/ 60 dp, 50% of rain. Race plan: go out at 6:00 to 6:15 pace depending on feeling, and race situation. I.e. I don't want to be alone, especially not in the lead (in case it's a very small race -  I have no idea), but if the lead pack is slower than 6:15, then I'll go. On the other hand, a sub-6 mile in the race would almost certainly result in an epic blow-up.

My PR pace is 6:06, and a PR would certainly be nice, and maybe I have the fitness for that, but I'm not peaking for this race, neither the weather will cooperate, so it seems unlikely.

Essentially perfect week finished today with my last 20-mile run. It didn't feel too hard. I managed to run the last few miles faster, accelerating close to marathon race pace for the last mile.

Now it's taper time. The hay is in the barn, as they say it.

The next workout was today: 5 x 1200 m at 5K pace. I determined that considering a 5:50 5K pace, I would have to run 1200's in 4:21. At then end my splits were 4:23, 4:15, 4:19, 4:19, 4:16 (rounded) for an average of 4:18.33. All this without ever feeling oxygen debt or pain.

As for discomfort, and a bit of burnout: yes. When I started my last interval, at around 300 m into the fast run (so 900 m left), I thought: "This is not fun. In fact I'm fed up. I really want to quit now." But of course I didn't.

So it does look like I'm in pretty good shape. I'm wondering if I could break my shorter distance PRs. Also, it is very temping to attempt ton go out faster than 3-hour pace. (Which I will not.)

Training update.

Last week was finished with 61 miles; sounds low, but it was as planned with plenty of hard workouts. All went fine.

Tuesday I did 5x600 at 5K pace, and I nailed it. (5K pace at this point is 5:50/mile.) As it was fall break, I finally managed to do this outside (on the Waggener High School track, which is an asphalt quarter mile track).

On Saturday, I visited the track again for an LT session: 6 miles at 6:11/mile. This is quite a bit faster than my supposed LT pace (6:20/mile), but the training plan wanted me to run a race, so I assumed it was fine to go a bit faster. I think one of the points here to run a race is that approaching the end of the training cycle, your ideal training paces may have changed, and the race gives you the option of run faster. Indeed, after the initial 6:11 mile, I settled into a 6:13-6:14 pace, and it subjectively felt it was my current lactate threshold. I was able to run a 6:01 closing mile and it still wasn't race effort.

Sunday morning I managed a decent 17-mile run, roughly 16 hours after my LT run, and I felt pretty strong, in fact I felt stronger later into the run, and I got quicker, too. Then I got home, and painted rooms all day. Not bad for an old man. :)

Training update:

Week of September 21 went OK, but due to the weekend conference I had to skip the all-important tune-up race on Saturday. I didn't much try to make it up: all I did was a strong (marathon-paced) effort for he last 10 miles of the 18-mile long run in the weekend. I finished the week with 56 miles.

Then the week of September 28 was better. Even though I was forced to do the Tuesday intervals on the treadmill, I feel it was a decent workout with 6 x 1000 meters at 5K pace. I also ran a decent long run of 18 miles with the last 14 at marathon pace. In fact it was even a little faster: averaged 6:41/mile. I finished the week with 70 miles.

Two more hard weeks left before taper. I'm feeling good, I am where I should be. The training cycle wasn't perfect, but it never is, and so far this one was as close to perfect as training cycles have ever been.

The 70-mile week is successfully finished! It had a 12-mile run with a 7-mile LT portion on Friday, and a 22-miler on Sunday. Done both. Unfortunately the LT run was on the treadmill, so it's less valuable, but I ran 6:18 pace (as opposed to 6:20), and it was just too hot outside. Then, today, 22 miles at 7:43 pace at ~75 F, sunny. Both were hard, but not unreasonably so. My hip was bothering me at the end of the long run. I hope it will hold up for my race.

Some "records" this week: largest week ever (a tie, I think); second longest run ever (after my marathon); longest LT run ever, strongest LT run ever, PR on 20 miles, 21 miles, 22 miles. In fact since I finished the 22 miles in 2:50, I could walk the last 4.2 of a marathon and still PR! I shouldn't get complacent though: at 22 miles I was ready to stop.

Recovery week goes well so far, though I had too little sleep almost every night, except for the last one. I did my first VO2 max workout, 6 x half-mile with quarter-mile recoveries, with splits of 2:52, 2:56, 2:53, 2:56, 2:55. This was 5K pace, quite well executed. GA run with strides today dipped under 7:30/mile on average.

I changed to weeks starting on Monday by inserting an extra rest day on Labor Day after Sunday. I wanted to change due to real life schedules, and this thing worked well, because we had a long bike ride with the family on Monday, and this is recovery week anyway. I will have to tweak the last week or two to accommodate for the race that is one day early now.

Here is how the rest of training cycle looks like.
Week -7: 9/14 (70 miles)
Week -6: 9/21 (65-69 miles, race on 9/26)

Week -5: 9/28 (70 miles)

Week -4: 10/5 (60-64 miles, race on 10/10)

Week -3: 10/12 (68 miles)

Week -2: 10/19 (55-57 miles, race 10/24)

Week -1: 10/26 (43 miles)

Race week: 11/2 (28 miles)

The races won't necessarily happen, especially the one on 9/26, because I'll be travelling. No races nearby anyway. So that will probably be a Saturday morning time trial in Ohio. On 10/10 there is an ideal 10K in Louisville (Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 10K), so that is a likely option. On 10/25 I'll be probably running the Urban Bourbon half marathon (racing the last 10K only), so no race on 10/24 in that case.

Happy to report that I've had decent training recently: no skipped or blown runs, despite some really awfully hot weather and bad air quality. I was forced on a treadmill 3 times this week (must be a record for me). I had one decent run outside, which was my 13 miler, for which I set out at 9:30pm (shirtless, too).

My Saturday run (4 easy + 12 marathon paced on TM) was my first halfway decent marathon paced run, though I still had to interrupt it 3 times: twice for water, and once to tie my shoe. Also, I had a bathroom break (5 minutes or so) between the 4 easy at the beginning and the GMP portion. But it is still a lot better than any other recent GMP run of mine. GMP pace was set to 9 mph on the treadmill which is 6:40/mile, and in fact I set the last mile to 9.1 (6:36/mile).

All in all, I finished the week with 67 miles and this is after 68, 65 mile weeks, as planned. Probably the most miles I've ever run in three weeks. I hope it will pay off on race day.

I'm happy to report that I aced the 6-mile tempo today. Running outside, temps around 76 at the beginning, around 70 by the end (nice and cool), I ran 3 easy + 6 LT + 2 easy. LT splits were 6:09, 6:15, 6:21, 6:18, 6:25, 6:16. This is a 6:17 average for 6 miles! The goal was 6:20, but even this faster pace didn't feel too hard. After mile 4 I started to get some side stitches, so I eased the pace a bit and tried to relax. That was the 6:25 mile. I felt strong again for the last mile, and I'm positive I could have done at least one or two more.

I'm pretty sure this was my best tempo ever. I will look back onto this for years to come, being jealous of my former shape! :)

One more note on the 21-mile long run yesterday. Since I had some troubles with some of the longer runs lately (see failed 14-miler and 18-miler with marathon paced portion), I decided to take particular care of hydration. I took 5 bottles of Gatorade with me, 4 of them are 8 oz (but I overfill them to 9), and the last one is a bit larger, probably about 10 oz. I knew I would have access to a water fountain at mile 7.5 and then again at 14.5.

I had to drink the 10 oz bottle first, because it refused to stay in my belt. For the same reason, I didn't want to refill that one. I haven't finished a single 8 oz bottle by the time I ran by fountain for the first time, but by the second time, I had two empty 8 oz bottles, and I refilled both with water. By the time I got home, I was completely out of fluid. I followed no hydration plan; I just drank to thirst, and I allowed my cravings to dictate when to take water and when to take Gatorade. I downed the last sip of fluid 2.5 miles from home.

The summary is that I drank ~46 oz = 1.36 L of Gatorade, and 18 oz = 0.53 L of water. And it wasn't even that hot. That suggests that I may need a liter of fluid per 10 miles on some of my long runs. That is quite a bit more than I brought with me on my failed runs. I tried to complete my 14-miler on 0.8 L water, and I think for the 18-miler I had 1.36 L of water. Either the amount, or the sugar or salt, or multiple factors of these was insufficient.

It's a bit embarrassing that I still need to learn the need for proper hydration after over 6 years as a runner, but it is just so counterintuitive that I can run 13-14 miles on no fluid in the winter, and I need a water tower for the same distance in the summer.

I finished this monster of a week (68 miles) with a 21-mile long run. Pace was fine, and I felt OK. Note that this has been my second longest run ever; for my first marathon cycle I only completed 20-mile long runs (and one out of the two ended with a death march). I also ran those at 9 min/mile, and the marathon was just a bit faster than that. This time I managed 7:47/mile (or 7:45 if we count moving time only). So all is fine.

I'm starting some doubles next week. Then toward the end of the week, a 6-mile tempo on Thursday, and a 20-mile long run on Saturday. The real scary one is in two weeks: 16 miles with 12 at marathon pace...

The cutback week was more of a cutback than intended. Saturday was supposed to be a 15-mile run, but I had my firefighter test out on that morning from 9 am to 2 pm. It was so exhausting that I decided to skip the run altogether. So I finished the week with 40 miles.

Some redemption of all the setbacks happened today. On a 10-mile run, I executed a 5-mile LT portion with mile splits 6:14, 6:19, 6:27, 6:27, 6:13, a 6:20 average. Spot on. But this time, it was not treadmill: it was road, 81 F with some sunny portions, traffic, and some small amount of elevation change. It does seem like I have the fitness, I just lack the endurance.

Last week was a disaster. After my first long run fiasco on Tuesday, I had a much worse. It was the Saturday long run. It was supposed to be 8 miles easy + 10 miles at marathon pace. Intimidating, yes. But I was OK after the 8 miles, and I set out at the normal 6:40-6:50 pace. After not quite 3 miles at that pace, I got very bad side stitches, and the run was effectively over. A 7-mile death march. I tried to speed up maybe once or twice after that, but it was hopeless. I had to stop or slow to a walk many times in the last 3 miles and my side stitches only changed between "quite painful" and "extremely painful".

I haven't experienced anything like this for years. Dehydration? I did lose 4-5 pounds, which is 3-4% of my body weight, but that's not extreme, I'm sure it happened to me before. I did not feel thirsty when the pain came. (Gebrselassie lost 9.8% of his body weight during his marathon World record). It wasn't even that hot (80-85F). On top of everything, I felt just fine minutes (or actually seconds) before I blew up.

Both Pfitzinger and Daniels say that marathon paced runs are mostly of psychological benefit: practising your marathon pace and increasing your confidence. It doesn't seem to work for me...

No chance for redemption this week. It is a recovery week with no real workouts or even long runs. Longest is 15 miles.

A bad day followed a good day on Tuesday. I got dehydrated on my 14-miler and I gave up after 13. I was so done, I had to walk home, even though I was only 0.1 mile from home. I couldn't go another step. This is despite having 3 bottles of water with me that I drank in regular intervals. It was just too hot, I guess.

Today was the first time that I ran a continuous tempo run (as opposed to intervals) since (I think) last fall. Though this was actually treadmill. Still, managed 6:18 pace for 5 miles. The most incredible thing was that it felt fairly easy! Never in the pain cave, and what's more, stayed with a 2-2 breathing pattern all the way.

These are good quality treadmills, so hopefully they are correctly calibrated. I couldn't do this workout outside, because it was over 90 degrees, and at this time of the year in this part of the country it's very hot until very late (it is still 82 F as of this writing).

If this is correct, this must be the best tempo I've ever run by far. The fastest 5-mile tempo I've found in my blog is 2013 Spring, and it was at 6:25/mile. Last fall (outside, in warm weather) I ran tempos at 6:30/mile on a good day, and I still managed a sub-1:25 hilly half marathon.

I'm ambivalent about running the Urban Bourbon Half Marathon all out two weeks before my marathon. My team counts on me, even if I just run a slow-7 fast-10K combination (say, in 1:35), as per my training plan. But it feels wrong not to give 100%.

I finished the fourth week of training with only one missed 5-mile recovery run: I got a stomach virus that made that day a misery, and even on the following day's 11-miler I had a few issues (stomach cramps). The highlight of the week was the 18-mile long run today at 7:47. I got mildly dehydrated and quite exhausted. I thought I was done at mile 15, but managed to rally and put in a strong last mile (7:13). I'm happy I have a rest day tomorrow.

The paper on the clinical study that I participated in over the winter is being written, and got a sneak peek into it (read most of the thesis written about the study). I was in the placebo group. No surprise I felt zero effect of the supplement. But even people who took the real supplement showed no improvement (neither worsening) of running performance or quality of life.

Mostly successful LT run today. I felt like crap when I was heading out in the evening at around 6:00pm; it was still 83 F and sunny, and my legs felt heavy. I ran the warmup miles at around 8 min/mile, and they didn't feel super easy. Despite all of this, I managed 6:15, 6:21, 6:27, 6:18 mile splits. I was tired, but not unreasonably. I finished with 1.5 miles of cooldown.