Boston Training: Weeks 6-9

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, so I’m more than a little behind with my training logs. That doesn’t mean training hasn’t been continuing full steam ahead though!

In the past four weeks, I’ve logged a total of 228 miles and run six solid workouts. I usually aim for two workouts per week, but travel—both personal and for work—got in the way, so I had to just focus on getting in the miles some days rather than on getting a solid workout in.

The week before last, in particular, was tough, because in a matter of five days, I travelled from Ireland to New York, New York to LA and from LA back to New York. Not only is that a lot of time on airplanes, it totally messes with your sense to time.

At least I got to run in some pretty beautiful (and one slightly terrifying) locations?

March is setting up to be just as crazy as February, but at least I have some time to breathe and reflect on my recent training. Anyway, before we get to that, here’s what the last month (?!) has looked like:

As a quick overview, on the workouts, I feel like the best were the 5 x 1 mi. at 10k pace two weeks ago, the 2 x 4 miles at marathon pace four weeks ago, or the 2 x 4 miles at half marathon pace last week.

The 2 x 4 mi. workout at marathon pace was probably my strongest effort at marathon pace so far, since that pace had felt really hard through the first few weeks of the training cycle. This workout gave me a mental boost, and allowed me to go into my 18 mile long run with 10 miles at MP without total dread. I ended up splitting 27:33 (avg. 6:53) [6:55, 6:50, 6:58, 6:50] and 27:17 (avg. 6:49) [6:50, 6:53, 6:46, 6:48].

The 5 x 1 mile workout was also a great confidence boosted, because I was just feeling so tired and wiped out that morning, but I pushed through and put in a strong effort in less than ideal conditions. The workout was originally scheduled as a 5 x 1600 on the track, but when I got there, the track was an icy, slushy mess. I was really tempted to use that as an excuse to call it, but I pushed through.

I found the clearest 1 mile stretch of road I could find and kicked it off and clocked in 6:18 – 6:14 – 6:17 – 6:12 – 6:14. I was really happy with that.

Most recently, last week, I got in another solid 2 x 4 mile workout (if you can’t tell, I like these, and I think they benefit me a lot), but this time, it was at half marathon pace. As you can imagine, where I was struggling with marathon pace, I was really struggling with half marathon pace. It’s just such a hard pace for me to lock on to without dipping beyond my lactate threshold and burning out.

I started to feel really tired at the end of this workout, but given that it was rather windy and that I ran it first thing in the morning without any food/fueling, I think that’s okay. Here’s how that broke down: 26:00 (avg. 6:30)[6:26 – 6:28 – 6:37 – 6:29] and 26:11 (avg. 6:33)[6:26 – 6:38 – 6:31 – 6:36].

As of this morning, the Boston Marathon is less than 50 days away. That means it’s only 7 weeks—less than two months—until race day. With a half marathon coming up on Saturday, a mini taper this week to prepare, and a mini recovery next week, I only really have about three solid weeks of training left until the taper. That’s crazy. Where did the time go??

Hopefully I’ll actually have a recap of my half up in a timely fashion next week, so it doesn’t get left behind. I’m looking to use this race to judge my fitness and determine what pace I’ll go out in from Hopkinton in seven weeks.

 

Do you like to do tune up races before a goal marathon? How do you use the information from such races?