October 23 - 29, 2023
Marathon training week 12 | 28 days until Space Coast Marathon
In which I "overcome" summer and a wedding
Scheduled
ID: This week's schedule
Actual
Monday
Easy/strides: 5.57 miles, 59:46 (10:43), max HR 172, avg. ?
Wow, yup, it's still summer here in Orlando. There goes 60s/mile. I did get a little more into the groove as the run went on, but I was very sweaty afterwards. I am telling myself it's for the best since my marathon is also in Florida.
Pilates
Tuesday
Progression: 9 mile progression (start at easy, last 3 miles at MP, HMP, 10KP) + 0.5 mile CD
T+D ~ 132-140 | Adjusted goal paces: 8:42, 8:17, 7:50
Splits: 11:17, 10:23, 10:07, 9:44, 9:25, 9:08, 8:38, 8:08, 7:43, 11:32 (0.5)
Total: 9.5 miles, 1:30:26, max HR 191, avg. 158
ID: Pace analysis chart from Strava. So pretty 
This was another good workout. It was kind of a fun change to try to make each mile a little faster than the last with specific targets just for the last 3. I was actually surprised by how easy mid-9s felt halfway through given the conditions.
Then I turned around
Yes, of course I had a tailwind that whole time. So the second half was tougher than I expected, especially when it came to that last 10KP mile. But I did it. I added an extra half a mile at the end because I didn't want to run a mile at 10K pace and then just stop. It was a very slow half a mile for me
lower body strength
Had to make some modifications because one 20 lb and one 12 lb dumbbell had migrated elsewhere in my parents' house.
Wednesday
Easy: 6 miles, 1:04:33 (10:44), max HR 151, avg. 138, 100% Z1-2
I'm maybe getting there again on the heat/humidity - this run felt easier. I did get some cloud cover and a little bit of sprinkles, which helped. I meant to split the difference with Monday's run, but I am only slowly recalling the various iterations of the two routes near my parents' house, so there we are.
core
Short but actually not as easy as I was expecting.
Thursday
off
Friday
Medium-long: 10.09 miles, 1:33:39 (9:17), max HR 169, avg. 159, 80% Z1-2
Regular readers of this journal will know that I think easy is an effort, not a pace, and I typically run at the relaxed end of that spectrum anyway. But I was feeling pretty restless on Thursday, so I wasn't necessarily surprised to find that I had a lot of energy Friday morning. My resting HR and Strava's Fitness & Freshness metric agreed that I was way too rested for the middle of a peak week, lol. So when I found myself running in the low to mid-9s fairly early in the run, I just kind of went with it.
It actually went really well. It was mostly cloudy, so despite a T+D around 140, the run didn't feel hard. I drifted a bit into the bottom of zone 3, especially towards the end, but the last 6 miles were all at 4-hour marathon pace or below, and at the end my form was still good and my legs still felt bouncy. My VO2max, as measured by my watch, also reached its highest point ever (44.7). I always take that with a whole handful of salt, but it's correlated decently with my race performances in the past, so I'm not mad about it! I hope I feel like this on marathon day - and please god let it be overcast!
mini lower body strength
Saturday
Easy/strides: 7.06 miles, 1:13:10 (10:22), max HR 169, avg. 147, 98% Z1-2
I think I tweaked something in my right knee when I was stretching on Friday (pro tip: don't do legs up a wall using the edge of a pool table as your "wall"), and it was still bothering me as I was starting my run. So I started out a little slow and uncomfortable. Fortunately it stopped aching after a mile or two - a good reminder that running can actually help those little niggles sometimes. And then I was fine, if extremely sweaty.
upper body strength
I added a round of bicep curls/tricep kickbacks at the end.
Sunday
MP intervals: 2 miles easy + 5 x 2 miles @ MP/1 mile RI + 1(.35) mile CD
MP splits: 8:33, 8:24; 8:21, 8:34; 8:11*, 8:22; 8:50 
, 8:24; 8:40, 8:07*
Total: 18.35 miles, 2:48:32, max HR 187, avg. 164
ID: Pace analysis chart from Strava
A bit of backstory before this run: as I previewed earlier, on Saturday I went to a friend's wedding!
It was a great day and so much fun. As far as training-related takeaways go, I managed not to go too crazy on food or drinks (although I did snag a second slice of cake. They were tiny slices though!
). I did, however, spend practically the entire two hours the dance floor was open dancing. (Fun fact: after 12 weeks of marathon training, you can jump up and down while screaming the lyrics to "Mr. Brightside" with all the other thirty-somethings and not even feel out of breath. Focusing on what really matters here.) Anyway, between the dancing and the getting back to my parents' house around 11, I wasn't quite sure what this massive long run workout that I had scheduled for myself would look like.
Despite having gotten to sleep probably around 11:30, I still found myself awake a little after 6. I can't even blame my dog for this one; he was still in bed when I got up. I was hoping that would mean he was cool with a short walk so I could get out before it was super hot, but no dice - it took about 45 minutes. By the time I had fed him, eaten something myself, gotten all dressed and "packed" for the run, and done my dynamic warmup, it was after 8:30 and the T+D was already above 135
I had thought about the water fountain/gas station availability along my route and decided I could get away with carrying my handheld and refilling on the way. So I planned to treat this run as a race day dress rehearsal in terms of what I was wearing and carrying. Even down to my earrings and braids, everything was following the marathon plan. Except for my shoes - I did wear my Endorphin Pro 3s, but I think I'm going to go with the new ones on race day, though I'll give them a trial run first just to make sure everything is okay.
I forgot to check the T+D adjustments, but I was pretty sure it was supposed to be around 8:40 for MP, and going up from there. (Turns out I actually underestimated it slightly and was supposed to be aiming for 8:43 for T+D = 136-140, but that also ended up being not that relevant to me anyway because I'm still bad at pacing.) Between the conditions and my late night out dancing, I had also given myself a mental pass to cut the workout short if I needed to.
I started the warmup feeling slightly slow, sluggish, and headachy. The headachy part I eventually more or less solved just by loosening my hat a bit - I hadn't left room for my braids. The slow and sluggish feeling lingered a little longer, through the first MP interval (although it wasn't actually slow, just felt like it). I did have a slight hiccup in my plan in that the water fountain I had thought I would be able to use for my first refill did not have enough pressure to get anything into my bottle. But I still had some Skratch left, so I took a few sips from the fountain and crossed my fingers that my remaining hydration would carry me through to the 7-11.
By the time I hit rep #2, MP started to feel pretty good. Even though I was aiming for 8:40, I actually kept running around or even a little below my unadjusted pace of 8:28. One of my issues with pacing is that I find it really hard to slow down or speed up just a little bit, so I kind of tried to dial it back a bit but it didn't really work.
There's something to be said for long run workouts. I was thinking a lot less about how many total miles I had left and a lot more about the next 1-2 mile interval. I did add up how far I'd come a few times - I had to use my fingers. Thanks, running brain
I reached the 7-11 in the middle of rep #3 and got a water bottle to dump in my handheld. The cold water was very refreshing after an hour and change in increasingly hot, humid, and sunny weather! (And I wasn't really running an 8:11 mile; Strava just struggles with deciphering pauses sometimes.)
By rep #4, my legs were really feeling the fatigue of a night of dancing plus the 11+ miles I had already run. Somehow, though, MP actually felt easier than the recovery miles - I felt like I could barely get my legs to move running easy pace, but it wasn't that hard to run at 8:30 and my legs were way happier about it. Maybe that was the supershoes? That's the only explanation I've been able to come up with, although it's not very convincing.
Anyway, I had finished my water a lot quicker this time thanks to the heat and fatigue. I really should have stopped at one of the gas stations or fast food places I was passing, but I would have had to cross a busy street and my dumb, fatigue-fogged brain didn't want to wait for the light. So I kept going and stopped briefly for a few more sips from the crappy water fountain. I finally reached a functional fountain 0.25 miles from the end of my last MP interval, and I could have just finished the interval first but I was so so thirsty that I went for the water. I paused my watch to fill the bottle, and when I went to restart it again, I'm positive I hit Resume, but somehow it ended the workout.
ID: GIF of Baby Groot throwing a tantrum
ARGH! I spent a moment wanting to tear my hair out, then started a new run - at least I knew I only had a quarter mile left in the interval.
Because I had gone a little farther to get to the water fountain, I obviously had to cover that extra distance again to get back to my parents' house. At this point my legs were so tired that I was trying to run the tangents on the extremely winding but fortunately not busy streets of my parents' neighborhood just to make the distance a little shorter.
I finally stopped even though I was still a few houses away because my legs were just done. So done, in fact, that when I walked up a very brief and slight incline, they were like, "WhY iS mAkE tO hAvE pAiN???" I forgot to check immediately (again, tired), but I think the T+D at this point was around 148
After I finally got back and grabbed some more water (having already finished my refill), I hopped into the pool in my shorts and sports bra, and it was AMAZING. Why don't I do this after every run here? Then I had to walk my dog, of course. (Fortunately my legs felt a bit better by then.) But hey, I actually did the whole thing! I'm kind of surprised, and I'm also hoping that it doesn't take me too long to recover from this craziness. And now I know how to combine workout files
Oh, also forgot to mention that I tried
@striker1064's gel timer idea and it worked! I was able to run my workout and timer at the same time and just reset the timer whenever it went off. So I had 2 UCANs and a GU at intervals of every 40 minutes. The dress rehearsal went pretty well too - a couple of slight hot spots I'll want to prepare for, but that's why I tried it BEFORE the marathon.
In conclusion, I did not mean to make this post so long. Thank you for coming to my TED talk
Totals
Running: 56.6 miles, 9h 10m
Strength/mobility: 1h 30m
Total: 10h 40m
A new weekly mileage record! Honestly I'm kind of surprised it didn't take longer
ID: Strava weekly training log
Coming up
ID: Next week's schedule
Hey look, a down week. Yesterday I told my mom with no irony whatsoever that I only had to run 11 miles next Sunday, and she looked at me like I was crazy. Marathon training, am I right?
I woke up at 4:30 
, took the dog for a short-ish walk (he was upset that he couldn't keep going), and had some coffee and zucchini bread for breakfast. I managed to get out the door around 6:30, which is about what I had planned.
The first few miles were a lot of highway - actually that was kind of most of the race - but at least it meant there was a decent amount of space for all the runners. Since I hadn't quite made it to 8 miles before the race, I ran the anti-tangents, trying to make the course as long as possible.
I'm not sure I wanted to know that's where the on-course water comes from 
), 7h 24m
Not good.
Like I said, things were getting a little tougher the last few miles, but I was also running into a headwind and the sun, which wasn't my favorite. My left hamstring had a couple of twinges, but not even painful, just sort of "hey, I'm not all that happy right now." Overall, not too bad other than the water issue.
