Boston Marathon Training Week 2: Let's See if Legs Can Still Do Fast (ish)

This week got hard towards the end. I think the too fast miles on Saturday after Friday's harder workout led to Sunday being a slog. I seem to remember feeling like I was getting my ass kicked the first few weeks of my CIM cycle so this isn't necessarily new. It's just not as fun as when your body is more of a well-oiled machine in the middle/end of a training cycle.

(Strava linked on day headings)

Monday: 6.05 @ 9:10

This morning I got a group email from my run group coach about training plans coming this week. Interested to see what he provides though I'm glad I've started my backup plan using the BAA plan. I thought about doing Pfitzinger but I feel like I want more than the 55 mile plan, and it's late in the game to do the 18/70 (and the 12/70 kind of freaks me out). The BAA level 4 plan fits well in that is goes up to 64 miles (with a range of 58-64). A little more mileage than 18/55 and I also am intrigued by the LT interval work (I've only ever done continuous tempos which are about as fun to me as getting a tooth scaling from the dental hygienist).

We also were one of the only companies working today. We had all last week off so I can't complain (much) but it does feel kinda poopy to be working when everyone else is not.

Also I got sucked into reading about Bullet Journals and now I want to start one. Like I don't have enough hobbies (because I know I will get very much into the doodling/artistic part of it).

Tuesday: 4 x 1200 meters

Still no questionnaire. Ah well, that's what the BAA plan is for at this point. On deck today was:

2 mile warm up
4 x 1200 meters with 400 meter jog rests
2 mile cool down. 

In the morning when I was picking out my running clothes, I figured I needed something that would hold my phone in well and I wasn't feeling any kind of pants because 60F is warm enough. So I grabbed my Lululemon Fast Lane shorts which are a tad bit shorter on the sides than the speed shorts so sometimes they make me self conscious. But I figured I wasn't going to be quite a few miles away from the office, so what the heck.

They were like Magic Shorts today. From the moment I started running, my legs felt very "weee!" and almost made me wonder if maybe I need to get back to the old school 80s split leg shorts. Until I remember how kinda frumpy looking they generally are. Anyway. Warm up went a big fast: 8:49 pace. Towards the end I was trying to slow myself down and I did, but then it was time for the repeats. Goal pace per the 3:30 marathon goal was 10K which they stipulated as 7:10-7:30. The Garmin pace of my last 10K was 7:11 so it's in that range.

Split 1: Wind at my back, 5:23 (7:11 pace)
Split 2: Running into wind, 5:27 (7:16 pace)
Split 3: Feeling the cumulative effort more but I had the wind to help me, 5:21 (7:08)
Split 4: Last one into the wind where I had to work a bit harder to get the pace down in the last half, 5:26 (7:15).

Magic Shorts! Also, lots of pink

Finished up with 2 cool down miles @ 8:59. HR was pretty good too at 159 average, hitting around 177 for the intervals. 175 was my lactate threshold per the Garmin fancy caculator so seems like it was more of an LT workout for me. Not sure if that was the goal of the plan (it doesn't mention if it's intended to be VO2Max or LT).

Wednesday

Rest!

Thursday (Noon): 6 miles Aerobic @ 8:53

Ran in the rain, varying from misting to moderate and some wind here and there. Actually didn't mind the rain though my the only light rain jacket I had was a Hind model I picked up at TJ Maxx a few years ago. It is fairly useless if you have anything more than mist. My arms were soaked through at the half way point - basically when the rain moved from misting to actual rain. Thankfully, I have a new one on the way (on the delivery truck, so too late for this run, unfortunately) and this just confirms that I didn't make a frivolous purchase. This one sucks. 

Craptastic "Rain" Jacket


I was supposed to hit 8:30-8:50 pace but this is No Man's Land pace for me. It's slower than marathon pace but faster than easy. I rarely run in this range (unless I'm running with WCRR and they are pulling me along) so it's going to take me some attempts to dial it in. I almost hit it - maybe if I didn't have the 400+ feet of climbing it might have happened (in fact, GAP on Strava was 8:44).

Friday AM: 5 x 1 mile @ half marathon pace

2 mile warm up
5 x 1 mile at half marathon pace, 2:00 jog rest
1 mile cool down.

Split 1: Running uphill a bit, feels kinda hard, 7:37
Split 2: Down a bridge, then up the other bridge, 7:36
Split 3: Ok, this isn't much fun anymore, 7:35
Split 4: Don't remember much other than I was surprised when I saw the split time, 7:25
Split 5: Happy it's the last one, 7:27

Total 8.84 @ 8:19

I forgot my HR strap which annoys me just because I like to see where the effort level is. Hitting the paces but working way too hard is not my end goal. It felt pretty hard, but I felt like I could have probably done one more (though it would have been hard - like when I ran too many tempo miles because I misinterpreted the plan). My IT band feels a little angry now so rolling needs to happen.

Saturday: 4 @ 8:17

I rolled on Friday night and things were feeling better. It was opening day for WCRR at Road Runner Sports so I ran 4 and change with the group, kinda too fast per usual. Sometimes I wonder if I should drop down into the next pace group (but everyone tells me they are closer to 10:00 pace. I just need 8:45-9:00!). Stuck around longer than I was planning because there was supposed to be a potential member who had questions around breastfeeding and running (which was like all of 2014 for me) but by 9:30am she still hadn't showed and I was about to eat my run club shirt out of hunger. Ah well, I tried.

Sunday: 13:09 @ 9:24

Solana into Del Mar
I had legs of stone. I started at 6:35am to do 5 miles solo, and then met up with my best running buddy, Nicole. Lots of hills around Solana Beach and Del Mar and I was happy to have company. I hope I didn't slow her down much, my legs were just not interested in running anything but easy pace. The weather was great and the beach views, fantastic. For fuel at mile 5, I had a fruit rollup stick thingy that my daughter doesn't seem to care for. The rest of the day was grocery shopping, laundry, cooking and drinking too much Barolo (but it's so good). Which I then paid for today (it's Monday as I write this).

Total for the Week: 46.5 miles




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