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Monumental Marathon Training Weeks 3 and 4

I really just finished week 5 according to the plan with the week late start mentioned in the previous training update. About that plan, it went pretty much by the way side over the last couple of weeks due in large part to running Blister in the Sun Marathon on Sunday the 8/2/2015. More on that when I get to it.

As I eluded to in my last post, I have really been struggling with getting going in this cycle and I think a lot of it had to do with the vacation to California and then rushing and trying to cram workouts in to get caught up. In the future I think I would simply trust my fitness enough to know that I could have sacrificed that first week and maybe even the second week in order to not start out the cycle stressed and tired.

Enough with the psychology and on to the training.

Week 4 only had 1 real workout which was a 20 mile long run and 2 other "kinda" workouts with 14 and 12 mile medium long runs. No tempo or race pace workouts scheduled but I skipped the race pace part of a long run a week ago and that was eating at me pretty bad. I made up for that by adding the 8 miles at goal pace to 1 of the medium long runs. Also, I have been wanting to run more tempo and harder paces so I planned an interval workout that I ended up blowing up on. So this is how it looks on paper.

Weekly
Total Runs -- 10
Total Time -- 10:30
Total Miles -- 86

Workouts -- 4

Tuesday 7/28/2015 Marathon paced run 8 miles at goal pace and 14 miles total. I felt good during this run and even better after. 1 small monkey off my back.

Thursday 7/29/2015 6x1 mile @ goal 10k pace (5:55). Totally blew up on this work out. 5:55, 6:15. At this point I called the workout and just went to get in the mileage. After about 10 minutes I decided to try again only this time limiting the intervals to 5 minutes and just running them hard by effort instead of a full mile at a particular pace. I ended up doing 3 more intervals for a total of an additional 15 minutes of work. The paces for the 5 minute segments were 6:03, 6:04, 6:07. I have no doubt that this workout was self-sabotaged.

Sunday 8/2/2015 Blister in the Sun Marathon
3:09:10 3rd place over all. Even though this was just a training and I could have run it harder, I still wouldn't have placed any better. The winner was a full 20 minutes in front of me and 2nd finished 15 minutes before i did. So, I am very glad I stuck to the game plan and just ran this as a strength workout. It was 60* at the start and 83* at the finish. About 1700 ft of elevation gain for a total of 3400 ft of vert. I honestly felt very strong throughout. I had allowed myself a 3:30 time limit. Very glad to not even come close to that.

Week 5. I spent most of this week recovering from the marathon. Monday morning was loads of fun. As far as workouts go, the week included a medium long run of 13 miles on Wednesday morning, followed by a 3 mile tempo on Wednesday night and a long run of 20 miles on Friday and a 5k on Saturday. Not bad for a week after a marathon. I expect some real strength gains from this week.

Week 5
Total Runs -- 11
Total Time -- 10:00
Total Miles -- 82

Wednesday 2 workouts
AM medium long run 12 miles @ 7:15
PM Attempted a 4 mile tempo but I only had 3 @ 6:14 in me

Friday
AM 20 mile Long Run @7:04 average. I wore my Newton Distance IIIs without socks. I really like these shoes they are very comfortable. The uppers feel like a pair of socks and so far going sock-less in them  has been no problem but I think 8 miles was the furthest distance before this run. I paid for it with some nice raw spots on the top of my foot that started around mile 13. I rerouted to get to my house sooner and 5.5 miles later I was in the house patching up my foot so that I could finish the remaining mile and a half without the torment of the raw spots.

PM
Attempted a 4 mile easy run. I was completely out of gas and struggled to make it 3. It's been a long time since a 3 mile run was a struggle for me and it was humbling.

Saturday CAM 5k on an XC course. 20:25. Slow for a 5k even on trails. I was still feeling pretty bad to start this race. About half way through I came alive and started to feel very strong. I finished the race feeling good and was just happy the funk had lifted. I had a very nice 3 mile cool down with a couple of friends from CKRR and left the race for home reinvigorated.

So, that wraps up the last couple of weeks of training. I've been whining a lot this cycle, I know. I am in the middle of a recovery week though and I believe it is just what I needed because today for the first time in a while I am excited about running again. I am ready to get after it and nail some workouts in the next phase of the training cycle. My focus will be nailing the prescribed workouts and logging a lot of goal pace miles in preparation for a new marathon PR. Some secondary goals for the coming weeks are to get some consistency with core work and strides, both of which I have neglected for too long.

Cumulative Monumental 2015 Training
Total Runs -- 40
Total Time -- 40 hours 15 Minutes
Total Miles -- 332


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