Week of 4-21-13: 95 miles (Utah Valley Marathon Training Week 4 of 9)

Sunday: 13 miles.  The original plan was for 13 miles mostly on trails with Holly.  However, it was too hot out and there wasn't enough water to be had, so I shortened her run to 8.  She wasn't interested in running fast today, and I didn't really care one way or the other, so it was very easy.  I dropped her off, and then went back out for another 5, all on roads.  Went a little harder,  but still easy, just a hair over 7.  It was nearly 70 degrees and I didn't have any water for myself, so I was pretty darn thirsty when I finished.

Monday: 14 miles, 1:40.  My place to South Temple to 5th East, down to the end of the road at 4500, which apparently was exactly 7.00 miles as I hit the intersection, and back.  Did mile 13 (a slight bit uphill) in 6:35, the rest mostly just a bit over 7:00.

Tuesday: 11 miles, 1:25.  2 x easy run, counts as interval training, right? :)  In all seriousness, I didn't have much time to run today.  I had enough time for an easy 5 with Holly around 6:30 PM (39 minutes), to, from, and a bit in city creek.  After that, didn't have time to run until 11:30, when I did 6 (46 minutes) in Aves / U.  Up 4th to cemetery, a sort of cemetery loop, had to come back halfway to get out up on 11th (was getting fenced into the cemetery at nearly midnight! hah...), then above Shriner's, up into the gated community, down the path to dry creek, out through JCC, back winding around north campus to south temple, and then back home.  Had a fair amount of climb and some slow early miles, but did the last one at 6:17 pace (net downhill, but with substantial climbs going from 2nd ave to 3rd ave and later from 3rd ave to 4th ave).

Wednesday: 16 miles, workout.  Left work via car, picked up Holly from daycare, dropped her off at home, and then ran 2.6 miles up to the track at the U (kind of humorous given that I work literally one building away from the track).  Workout was 4 miles, 3 minutes jog rest, 3 miles, 2 minutes jog rest, 2 miles, 1 minute jog rest, 1 mile, then of course the 2.6 miles home.  I wasn't sure whether I was going to do 4,3,2,1 with slightly increasing speed or 10 right at 6:00 pace, but quickly decided on the former, as it was quite windy and I felt that it would be hard to keep myself mentally engaged and right on pace the entire time by myself if I just did 10 hard miles straight.  So yeah, the goal was to do the first 4 miles at about 6:00 pace and then kick down a few seconds per mile each interval after that.  I hit it spot on and had a little more than I expected at the end.

Splits were:

4 miles - 24:01 (6:00 pace)

*3 minutes jog rest* 

3 miles - 17:52 (5:57 pace)

*2 minutes jog rest* 

2 miles - 11:46 (5:53 pace)

*1 minute jog rest*

1 mile - 5:37

I really didn't think I would end up having anything faster than 5:45 in me at the end, so I was pleased.

Workout was hard, but not extreme.  I was in control and it really didn't feel crazy except on the last lap of the 2 mile (pulled out an 86 after a bunch of 88-89s) and the 2nd half of the mile (85, 86, 85, 81).

The cooldown on the way home wasn't really fun, but it probably helped shake out my legs.  I don't usually do several mile cooldowns, but I intentionally planned the run this way to force a longer shakeout.

Thursday: 11 miles, quite easy (1:30, granted, with 1000'+ climb, and mostly on trail), all of it with Holly (her longest run in quite some time, if I'm not mistaken).  My place to Memory Grove, up to City Creek, up on the trail to the watershed boundary (ie, the end of the trail), back down, back to my apartment, up D to the cemetery, and back.  Garmin was acting up quite a bit and lost connectivity repeatedly on the trail over a 15 minute span on the way back.  It would frequently drop out for ~10 seconds, add on to my pace while counting time but not distance, and when it reconnected, it wouldn't seem to add even a straight-line worth of the missing distance, as it usually does.  At one point, on what was probably my highest effort mile of the run (still easy-moderate effort), the Garmin claimed I completed a mile in over 8:00 despite a net downhill of ~300' (ie pretty nice downhill).  When I got into a clearer area with less tree branches overhead and the Garmin stopped being stupid, I backed off, had a less steep mile, and ran 7:2x (very easy pace).  So yeah, ridiculous.  I think it's safe to say the 10.7 it gave me was more like 11 low, so while I'd normally try to go out of my way to get a complete mile, today I didn't.

Friday: 10 miles 1:05:xx.  Had no real plan except that I wanted to do 10 tonight.  Ended up running to the 700 side of liberty (a bit over 2 miles), lapping it a little over 4 times to end up on the 500 side (a little under 6), and then running home from there (2-ish).   1 mile easy, downhill, in 6:50-ish, then 7 miles at average 6:17 pace (a flat / very slightly net downhill mile to Liberty, then looping around the park a hair more than 4 times), then 2 miles easy, back, uphill, at 7:40 average.  Pace was a hair faster than goal marathon pace for sea level or at altitude with copious downhill, so it was somewhere between half marathon and marathon pace, a little closer to the tempo side of things.  Effort felt smooth and relaxed, but hard enough to tax me a bit.  Still, legs felt fresh and solid, despite this being a pretty big week for me.  Wore my awesome new American flag shorts, shoes, and nothing else, and got cat-called 6 times in the last 2 miles after my iPod died.  Ahh, Friday nights...

Oh, and got in a couple miles of hiking earlier in the day (Arapeen to the Living Room and back), while carrying a bunch of food in a cooler, which was surprisingly tiring. 

Saturday: 20 miles with Sasha Pachev, Chad Robinson, and Steve Ashbaker.  We did the first 2 miles at about 8:00 pace with a few of Sasha's younger kids, who are pretty fast (Jojo had a nice kick at the end).  After that, we went 9 miles up Provo Canyon, hitting mid 7s pace, gradually getting a little faster.  We turned around at mile 11 of the run, ran 12 still pretty easy (6:50 ish on the downhill), and then ran a bunch of faster miles.  From 13 to 18, gentle downhill, slight head/crosswind we hit as fast as 5:57 and no slower than 6:20 (~6:10 average), and then I really started to feel the big mileage in my week.  Mile 19 was mostly flat, but net slightly uphill, which I hit in 6:33, and then mile 20, with tons of uphill, was a massive struggle and I barely hung on to sub-7 pace.  It looks like a blow-up, pace-wise, but more than anything, it was a product of increasing grades.  I should mention that Steve and Sasha took off at mile 18, whereas Chad, who had picked it up around 11 rather than 12 and gapped us, was behind after about 16.  Overall, this is about what I expected from myself today.  The last couple miles were quite difficult as a result of all the mileage in my legs, but I managed to hang on somewhat well.

Totals: 95 miles.  332 miles in the last 4 weeks (83/week average).  Good totals so far, and have yet to have a discouraging run during this cycle.  Legs felt crappy-ish near the end of today's 20 miler, but that's understandable.  Otherwise, they felt good all week.  I think I'm probably going to race a half marathon next weekend, not to mention that this week was pretty big, so I have 2 good reasons to keep next week as one of the lighter ones in the cycle.