Philly Training: Week 14

With less than four weeks until race day, I think I’m finally starting to hone in on my goal pace.

Last week was a record week in terms of mileage, and had some critical workouts that made it one of the most important weeks of the season so far.

I started the week with my standard Monday morning recovery run, and then followed that up on Tuesday with a medium long run that didn’t really know what it wanted to be.

I had scheduled 72 minutes at marathon pace, but with a marathon-paced long run slated for Saturday, I decided that probably wasn’t the best idea and made this one “general aerobic.”

When I got out there though, I was feeling pretty good and pushed it a little faster, so my pace ended up being about 30 seconds slower than marathon pace, but 20 seconds faster than general aerobic pace. Wednesday, I ran an easy 4 miles to help boost my mileage to where I wanted it for the week.

Thursday, I had my first real workout: 1600 meter repeats with an 800 meter recovery.

I was supposed to do this in the 6:13-6:18 range, but was a little slow, hitting:

6:20 – 6:16 – 6:21 – 6:20 – 6:23.

Still, I think this was a strong threshold workout and good prep for my 5k this coming weekend.

On Saturday, I had 16 mi. with 10 mi. at marathon pace. As you may know, I’ve been struggling with what marathon pace should be all season, most recently after running a better-than-expected half a couple weeks ago.

My MP runs so far this season have all been around 7:15, but I decided to step it up this weekend to see how it felt. The MP miles went like this:

My heart rate was really good and stead for that portion of the run, so I’m feeling pretty okay about planning on going out at 7:08ish at Philly in four weeks. (Disclaimer: This may end terribly.)

Total: 54 mi.

All in, it was a good week heading into the peak week of the season. This week, I have a 5k and a 22 mile long run on tap (my last real long run of the season!) and a total of 56 miles.

I plan on capping it off by cheering my head off for my friends running the New York City Marathon this weekend. (If you are running, good luck!)