Skip to main content

Carmel Marathon 2020 Weeks 2 & 3

Training for the Carmel Marathon on April 4th, 2020 in Carmel Indiana
Goal: 2:51

Week 2
Runs: 8
Weekly Milage: 72
Cumulative Milage: 139
Workouts / Long Run: 17 with 8 at Marathon Pace

Performance Management Chart for the week showing my running fitness progression from the beginning of the cycle through the current week.


The main focus this week was just building my milage a little from last week, about 5 more miles, while being ready for my first MP workout. I am pretty focused right now and I struggled some last week with wanting to do more that the plan called for. I really wanted to add in a threshold workout. Marathon training is about discipline and long term thinking though. I could have added in some threshold miles and it probably would have been ok but doing the plan the way the plan is written will get me where I want to go and will keep me feeling on track and help me from wavering in the other direction as well. I'm doing the plan, period.

I ran my first double in a while. I really hate doubles but if you want to run high milage they are a good way to get there. It was just an easy 4 and I let myself listen to a podcast to distract me.

The MP Long run went really well. 9 miles easy followed by 8 miles at marathon pace. I had Steve and Chad with me as usual. We ran down in Indianapolis again this week and picked up a couple of Steve's friends for part of the run as well. So again this week I got to feel like I was part of something a little bigger than just myself. I ended up averaging about 10 seconds faster than current MP as determined from the Monumental in November. This was a good confidence boost because I was able to pick it up in the last mile and I was in basic trainers not the vaporfly's I wore for the Monumental.

Week 3
Runs: 9
Weekly Milage: 83
Cumulative Milage: 222
Workout: 5 mile LT Wave
Long run: 20 miles

Performance Management Chart for the week showing my running fitness progression from the beginning of the cycle through the current week.


The focus this was again building milage a little and adding another run. A 5 mile threshold run was on the schedule for Monday and a 20 mile long run on Saturday but we got a bout 3-4 inches of snow Sunday night into Monday morning so I just ran the milage hoping that something would workout later in the week. Something kind of worked out on Thursday. I had a 12 mile run scheduled and the roads were dry and the wind was manageable but it was really cold, feels like -1. I modified the workout to be 1/2 mile at about marathon pace followed by 1/2 mile at a little faster than threshold. I was pleased with the results.

Saturday of week 3 saw my long run back up to 20 and there isn't much to remark on except that I got the miles in with Steve and Chad.

Next week I'll be holding my milage and frequency from this week and I plan on bumping up the long run another couple of miles.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Running Goals or Running Goal; What is it That I Want?

The other day I got all caught up in setting running goals for myself for the rest of the year. After the goals were set, I found myself starting to worry about how I was going to reach them. Wondering if there would be time to sufficiently prepare for them all. My goals were to run a 5k in under 20 minutes, to run a half marathon in 1:25 minutes and qualify for and run in the Boston marathon in 2014. At first, I thought that setting and meeting these goals would make me a more serious runner. In fact, I thought that to be the "serious" runner I want to be that I needed these goals. However, while I was running the other morning I realized that first of all, I was thinking about how to shift my training to meet my 5k goal. Then I began thinking about the right approach to a 1:25 half while training to qualify for Boston in a full marathon a month later. That is when I realized that the ancillary goals were starting to consume my focus and quite possibly i...

Frequent Confession: My Hesitations

About a year ago I made a commitment to receive the the sacrament of reconciliation on a monthly basis as a way to grow closer to God. I didn't make this commitment without some hesitation however. One thing in particular kept me from it for a while; it felt silly. What I mean by that is that I don't go around breaking commandments in big ways anymore. That being the case, I was afraid that I would sound like a second grader to the priest and instead of making a good confession and feeling the Mercy of God that I would merely be reciting a list of the various and unexciting ways that I had "sinned". There are a couple of things that have gotten me past this. First, I spoke to a priest and told the him that I wanted to receive reconciliation monthly but that I felt like I would sound like a child with "small and petty" sins. His response was two-fold. First, he said that if a person wishes to truly be close to God than no matter how "small" a sin ...

My AMDG Run: An Answered Prayer.

I have never been a person to pray for specific favors. It never felt right to me. My prayers generally are for strength, guidance, an acceptance of what comes my way. That is always how I "felt" right praying. To pray for a specific favor like a good grade, to do well in some competition and things like that just always felt a little wrong and to pray for physical healing was something I never would have considered. I am not saying this was any kind of selflessness. I am not sure exactly what it was. A fear of seeming childish or perhaps it was out of fear that my faith would be shaken if the prayer wasn't answered. Regardless, this is how I generally pray. And that is not to say that I don't or didn't think that God doesn't concretely answer prayers. I believe that He does. For instance I have always prayed when overwhelmed something like "God, I cannot do this all alone, please help me" and I will somehow, someway find my way through whatever it...