Phoenix Marathon Training Weeks 10-14 of 14

Moderately crappy mileage-wise, I was lazy.  That said, I had consistent long runs and specific workouts.  Got really sick in week 14 a few days before the race (this happened too much this winter...).  I'll post the actual numbers whenever I get around to it (mostly just 50-60 mpw).

12-30-12 through 1-26-13: Phoenix Marathon Training Weeks 6-10 of 14.

Well, after weeks 1-5, I would say that 6-10 weren't quite what I wanted.  I got hit with a very lingering virus that wouldn't go away for the better part of 3 weeks, not to mention that SLC broke all sorts of records in terms of extreme pollution and air quality over the last month.  Until yesterday, I hadn't seen a blue sky in the city since before leaving for Christmas break, not to mention that the air quality was akin to directly smoking a cigarette while doing anything outside, ie making it quite disgusting and difficult to keep my mileage up.  Oh, and I've been logging things over a fastrunningblog.com on a daily basis, so I've been less inclined to keep this updated.  In any case...

(a bad SLC inversion, this one we recently have was considered the worst in history, so it was worse than this...)

Week 10: 65 miles

Sunday: 11 miles in 1:15 with Fritz, Kevin, John, and Nate.  Legs were a little beat up from yesterday (20 miles), so it was harder than it otherwise would've been.  Pace started off slow and picked up a bit a few times.  At times, it felt harder than marathon effort, but only because it wasn't all that even.  After the run, I decided my legs haven't had enough of a beating this weekend, so I slammed down some Aspirin and then skied pretty hard for about 3 hours. Hah.

Monday: 5 miles, 27:56.  5 miles treadmill tempo, didn't have a lot of time before gym closed (early because of MLK day), so I hopped on and used the first mile as a "warmup" (ie, 5:52).  Did the whole thing in 27:56, pace for first 4 miles felt sustainable for somewhere between 10k and 10 miles, but of course this is a treadmill, so it's slightly fast.  Also, since I knew I only had time for 5 miles, I kicked it up in the last mile.  I believe I figured out the mystery of why 5:00-flat mile repeats on the campus gym treadmills seem so easy, even on a small incline.  Up until about 5:18 pace, each uptick made a noticeable difference in difficulty, but after this point, everything between 5:00 and 5:18 felt identical (tried to kick it up for a finishing sprint, but noticed that it didn't get any harder, so the treadmill probably just doesn't actually go faster than 11.3mph). Splits: 5:52, 5:36 (11:28), 5:38 (17:06), 5:32 (22:38), 5:18 (27:56).

Tuesday: Off, resting for a big Wednesday.

Wednesday: Marathon on a treadmill. Hah.  2:53:07, felt comfortable until about 22.  Actually, I took yesterday off to try to rest up my legs, but they were still a little beat up after my bonk-inducing 20 on Saturday, my 11 mile / skiing double on Sunday, and my 5 miles hard on Monday, so they weren't 100% going in.  The goal was to get to the point that the last few miles were pretty uncomfortable, but without beating myself up, so that I wouldn't wreck my training, and I think I accomplished that very well.  I didn't pay attention to pace much while I was running (just tried to keep it comfortable) and inadvertently ran 12 seconds off my PR from 4 years ago, which is really encouraging.  The only ill effects were that my stomach is a little beat up afterwards (very common for me since my stomach sucks) and a couple toes are marginally sore from taking the Kinvaras the longest they've ever gone.  Nutritional plan was supposed to be 4 gels (1 @ 5-6, 1 @ 10-11, 1 @ 15-16, and 1 @20-21), but I knocked one off the treadmill stand about halfway, it landed on the belt, and flew off the back.  When I tried to get someone to grab it for me about 10 minutes later, it was apparently gone (who would take a gel???), so I didn't get the last gel.  That said, I had about 300 calories from Gatorade during the run as well, so nutrition wasn't so bad.  Having the last gel would've been ideal, but I survived without it obviously (I think the finish would've been a bit more pleasant with those extra 100 calories, but w/e...).  Overall, I got exactly what I wanted out of this run, so I'm pleased.  

Converting to the Phoenix course, I consider the fact that this is run at 4500', but at 0% grade (ie, equivalent of 52.8' down per mile, ie -1% grade due to lack of wind resistance).  At Phoenix, with an average elevation of 1500', a net downhill of 850', with about 100' up and 950' down, this would be worth 2:49:56.  I think I'll be happy with a sub 2:47, so basically I would only need the equivalent of 3 minutes faster than today's effort, which is absolutely doable and not bad at all.  I think a faster goal would be a good idea, but in all fairness, I haven't raced a marathon in almost 4 years and I really don't want to blow up.  I have plenty of time to go faster in the future. :)

Thursday: 6 miles, Easy 45 minutes in NSL/Bountiful.  Legs had almost zero pep, but they also weren't that bad.  They kind of just felt a little heavy and slow, but not terribly beat up (quads were a little sore, but only marginally).  

Friday, 9.8 miles, Very easy 45, a hair under 6 miles (intentionally planned this to be 5.8 to balance out the .2 from the marathon as I hate not having an integer mileage total, basically because I'm weird), NSL and Bountiful, would've been happy to do more, but want to not be sore for Winter Series tomorrow (looks like I'll probably still be slightly flat after Wednesday, but oh well...).  Later (1AM), another 4 miles.  Went to a "crazy hat" party, where I demo'd a new music reactive LED hat I just built for fun a couple days ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfejrNFmgo4 .  It was pretty fun, but a girl I met up with there was not OK to drive home and needed her car in the morning to do some MD student stuff, so I drove her home in her car and then jogged back to my car (from Sugarhouse to the U).  Hah.  This was kind of awful, given that I was wearing jeans, boots, and a down jacket literally rated for arctic exploration.

Saturday: 7 miles, probably a hair under 2 miles for the warmup (15 minutes or so), Winter Series 5k in 17:33, 2 mile cooldown (to the 1 mile marker and back).  Considering that I ran a "trial" marathon (~10 minutes off what I would peg as about my max capacity in 5 weeks at the real race) 3 days ago and didn't get nearly enough sleep after some festivities last night, not to mention the altitude factor and the fact that the smog was so disgusting and bad to breathe that the visibility was at times as low as .05 miles, I'll take it.  My legs felt average during the race, certainly not great, but not completely destroyed, although after the race, they just felt hammered. 5k is definitely not my best distance right now.  Hah...



Week 9: 40 miles, felt like garbage for a few days of the week.

Sunday: 15 miles, 1:53.  Started from Highland, did the first 7 with Jake, Kevin, Rob, Andrea, and Allie, then ran over to Sugarhouse Park for some laps (what was it, 5?).   I guess 5 laps makes sense considering that we were at 14.3 when we got back to Highland.  I hate ending at weird numbers like that, so I jogged the perimeter of Highland to get it up to 15.  I accidentally stopped my watch at 14.3 (1:48), but I would figure another 5 minutes or so for the slow/snowy extra bit, so probably about 1:53.  Not particularly quick, but I was sore from the workout and skiing yesterday, so it was enough to make my legs feel a bit beat and give me a light headache at the end (surprisingly similar to when I just haven't done any running of value and try to do my first long run back, but I suspect this was only because I only had a couple Sports Beans and a Clif Bar for breakfast beforehand, with the run starting at 11:30...)  What can I say?  I didn't get up until 10 and then just lay in bed on my computer for another 45 minutes. Hah.  (In hindsight, this is probably because of still being sick).

Monday: 1 mile, 8:0x.  Really frustrating.  Either getting sick again or still sick from 2 weeks ago.  Did about 1 mile, had a pounding headache and a totally sore body, so I decided not to fight it and went home to sleep for 10 hours.

Tuesday: 4 miles, Had to run across campus several times, so I literally ran.  Not really a good day of running, but whatever (felt like crap).

Wednesday: Off, exhausted, felt like crap.

Thursday: Off, exhausted, felt like crap.

Friday: Off, exhausted, felt like crap.

Saturday: 20 miles, 2:16:4x, Ran with Fritz, Kevin, Chad, and Adam for the first 10-ish (after starting a little late and having to run hard at the start to catch up as they had already taken off... hah..), and then Fritz and Kevin the rest of the way.  I think Fritz said it was 19.8 or 19.9.  My time was 2:16:xx (probably 40 something... had 2:17:0x, but forgot to stop my watch when we got caught at a light for 20 seconds).  Felt good up until 17.5-ish when I started to bonk.  It probably didn't help that my "breakfast" consisted of one gel and my nutrition during the run consisted of one more gel.  I gradually got dropped by Fritz and Kevin, but caught back up, until I got dropped again a couple minutes later.  At that point, I was just fighting to keep running, so I lost about a minute on them at the end.  Felt terrible afterwards, but whatever, lesson learned (how many times do I have to learn my lesson about actually getting out of bed early enough to eat breakfast before I do a long run? Hahaha...).  Bonking sucks, but I think it was more because of nutrition than fitness.  Still, today was a reminder that I should not be lazy over the remainder of my marathon training.  If I start to bonk at mile 18 when I'm doing 26.2 instead of 20, things will get a lot uglier.  As for my logging option, this effort would convert to 2:09:30 or so on the Phoenix course at lower altitude, so in all fairness, it wasn't all that far off marathon effort (based on the last few weeks sucking, I'm thinking that 6:20s will be a good goal pace for the gentle course at Phoenix).


Week 7: 56 miles (trying to get things going after being sick, but not quite ready, as evidenced by getting sick again in week 8).

Sunday: Eastern NSL and Bountiful loop starting by going up Orchard and then running all the way up the steep Eaglewood Drive, which felt absurdly slow today.  Legs were actually kind of sore after yesterday's 5k.  I also still felt like the virus was lingering a bit, which is getting extremely annoying.

Monday: Didn't feel good, was at work until 9:30, OFF.

Tuesday: 15 miles at an average of 6:13 (1:33:16) on a treadmill.  Split 10 miles in 62:28 (just under 6:15) and then did the last 5 in 30:48 (just under 6:10).  Last couple were getting pretty hard, but it was manageable.  I had probably 2-3 miles left in me at the end, but the goal wasn't to obliterate myself, so I stopped at 15 as planned (In hindsight, being sick probably hurt me as I'm pretty certain I could hold 6:15 for 20+ now).

Wednesday: 8 miles easy, about an hour, just breaking in some new Kinvara 3s.  I've been wearing shoes under 6 oz for awhile recently and I'm sick of buying new pairs almost constantly, so I decided to try these.  First thoughts?  Holy crap, that's a lot of sole under my foot. Hah.

Thursday: 12 miles, 8 miles in a blizzard, up Lacey, around Bountiful/NSL golf area, over to the southern tip, and back down with various turn-offs, about 10 minutes per mile due to the unbelievably deep snow.  Afterwards, jogged laps in a tennis court (also super deep snow) with Holly chasing me around for half an hour, another 3 or so.  First part was super epic.  The very south-eastern tip of NSL is almost entirely unfinished construction, so the roads were unplowed.  At one point, I crested a ridgeline, running through knee-deep powder, into a very strong headwind, and the only thing I could see in the distance was the super bright white lights on the oil refineries on the west side.  All of the elements combined and I felt like I was in some sort of supernatural post-apocalyptic setting.  I don't know how to explain it, but it was pretty darn cool.  Oh, and one mile of jogging across campus because I was running late for something earlier in the day. 

Friday: Really didn't want to deal with the snow and the weather was bad enough to close the U of U, so I couldn't run at the gym either.  So... just jogged 2 miles with Holly.  Lame, yes, I know.

Saturday: 11 miles, 3 mile warmup, 4 x mile with about 800-1000 meter jog between (varied for me, whereas everyone else did 1000), 2 mile cooldown.  Run at Olympic Oval in Kearns on the 442 meter track.  The "miles" were done from the 1600 meter mark, but lane 1 was closed in a couple spots and blocked by speed-skating coaches in a few other spots, so it was already a full 1609, if not a couple meters more.  Add in dodging angry slow track patrons (and a zamboni on one lap) and the intervals were probably a couple seconds slow.  Mine were 5:22, 5:22, 5:25, 5:24 (at altitude, remember, so these are good times for me), so pretty even.  While it was hard, I had 1, maaaybe 2, left in me if I had to.  That said, I'm not used to doing stuff this fast lately, so I was pretty sore afterwards.  Went skiing later in the day and it just hurt like crazy. Hah. 


Week 6: 18 miles, very sick.

Sunday: 1 mile, Literally jogged with Holly for one mile just to avoid making it an off day.  Really exhausted, turns out I was getting sick.

Monday: Holbrook Canyon, as far up as the snow would allow, and back, with Holly.  Tired, whole body was a little achy.

Tuesday:  Felt absolutely miserable.  Stomache pain, chills, very bad body aches.

Wednesday: Really didn't even leave bed.

Thursday: Slightly better, but still in bed for all but about 30 minutes.

Friday: Tried to prep for a 5k for Saturday.  3 easy miles, a mile at marathon pace, and a mile at 5k pace, plus some strides, to get my body used to running again for a race on Saturday.

Saturday: I picked this race because it was actually a 5k (exactly 5k, without being too short or too long) and pretty flat for Utah (high point and low point only 25 feet apart), so I was irritated when I showed up and the start/finish had been moved by .04 miles off the course, making it 3.18.  

I did a quick 2 mile warmup and roughly half of my fingers and toes went numb (crappy gloves and Nike Zoom Streak XC3, which are very porous mesh on the top), so I quickly grabbed some glove warmers (only had one pair, so I let my feet freeze) right before the race.  

I figured I could show up and run about 16:50 at altitude right now for an actual 5k given that I was forced to rest up due to illness.  However, I wasn't 100% recovered and just wasn't all that fast, so I ended up running 17:45 for 3.18 (17:19 for an actual 5k).  I have no idea what my splits were because the mile markers were seemingly randomly placed (first "1" in 6:39, second "1" in 4:22, last "1.1" in 6:44).  In any case, I won by a couple seconds shy of 3 minutes, so a win is a win.

They gave me a gift card for a free $60 massage, an all-day unlimited pass to Boondock's Fun Center (pretty awesome, right?), a big jar of gels, a box of Lance Armstrong branded honey stinger waffles (hah) and a trophy, so I guess I can't really complain.  As for my effort, it was actually a good honest effort unlike the 5ks I ran in November (a pair of even 17:30s on hilly courses in which I wasn't in that great of shape and felt unable to really push all out), so obviously I'm disappointed that this was slower after having 5 pretty solid weeks of training.  In all fairness, though, I was still sick enough that I could barely breath due to congestion after about a mile or so, so I guess I'll take this one with a grain of salt.




Totals: 179 for 4 weeks, obviously far less than ideal, but my body is good now and the air quality is back to normal after finally getting a big storm that drove it all out, so I'm not forced to choose between staying inside and breathing poisonous air anymore, which is nice.  I did enough to keep making progress by still ensuring that I got the necessary bare bones runs in (long runs and workouts), so I'm still confident about my training for Phoenix.  The next 3 weeks are probably the most important, so I'm glad to say that I'm off to a great start for week 11 (25 over the first 2 days and feeling good in a workout earlier today).  I would like to average roughly 80 miles per week over the next 3 weeks with 3 good quality workouts and 3 good quality long runs before cutting to ~60 on week 14 and then 25-ish prior to the race on race week.  After my treadmill 2:53:07 at altitude that was not as difficult as an actual marathon race, I'm confident that my seemingly cemented goal of 2:46 will be achievable.


Music for the past 4 weeks is Grieg's Two Elegiac Melodies for strings.  I saw this in concert with Sibelius' Violin Concerto, Enescu's Romanian Rhapsody, and Kodaly's Dances of Galanta at the Utah Symphony a few weeks back and it was fantastic!

Week of 12-23-12: 101 miles, 4500' gain (Phoenix Marathon Training Week 5 of 14, ie Minnesota Toughness Week)

I'm now counting weeks as Sunday to Saturday to match up with the weekly schedule on Fastrunningblog.com, where I'm also logging my training.

Sunday: 18 miles, Minnesota, with Bill Mennell (we did 17.5 together, I did another .5 to round it up), 1000' gain.

Monday: 14 miles in 1:31:31 (6:32s).  A little slower than marathon pace, but most of the run was faster than the average (more like 6:20s) with about 5 of the miles at a little over 7:00 due to unplowed snow on some back roads (still marathon effort, just slow terrain).  Probably harder than I should've gone the day after an 18 at any pace, but whatever, it wasn't that bad.  Last 3 were more like 6:05-6:10 pace.  Loop was standard Maht/Still route with a Jamaca/Keats loop thrown in, then up to Kimbro (Womanbro loop rather than Manbro, as named by my high school team back in the day, on Jeffrey, parallel to Gateway Trail, since the trail was even snowier than the road), then Jamaca back to normal route, with a slightly lengthened finish to get up to a 14 mile total.  Pretty cold out (12 degrees straight, windchill of exactly 0), but I felt OK with hot chillies, shorts, a l/s cotton shirt, and my American River 50 jacket (standard lately) with light hat/neckwarmer/gloves, 500' gain.

Tuesday: 14, pretty easy, 1:40:xx.  Maht/Still typical route (I really love this route it seems), a couple minutes past Manning Ave, and back.  Once again cold but not brutal (windchill of -3, straight temp of 6), although my eyelids kept freezing shut every mile or so. Hah.   This is almost certainly the farthest I've ever gone on Christmas, 500' gain.

Wednesday: 1:18, pretty sore.  kathryn abbot loop, oh nature loop, up to jamaca, back a bit on the old mile repeat dirt roaf, through old mahtomedi neighborhoods a bit, north on mahtomedi ave, extended park/summit loop, back normal way with extra wildridge loop.  first two loops in crusty and slick snow were annoying for my legs, 500' gain.

Thursday: 
20 miles with the last 3.1 at MP (6:15s over some moderate hills), total time of 2:21:24 (71:50 out, 69:34 back), stopped at a small convenience store for about a minute for a glass of water at 11.x miles).  To Wisconsin and back via the standard route.  Bill Mennell ran with me from like 3.3 to 16.7 or so, good run for him, even if not blazingly fast.  My legs were not exceedingly happy today after 5 days of 14, 18, 14, 11, 20, all in singles, but I didn't really expect them to be.  The pace was a little faster than I expected to do today and I ran it without looking at my watch much and with intention for the pace to feel easy.  I guess it's good that 20 miles of 7:04s still feels easy on pretty beat up legs, 1000' gain.

Friday: 12 miles, 1:25. Back in Utah, typical 89/10th N/Main/89 loop, but through in an extra mile out into Centerville and back. Got back from MN at 7:00, got to my apartment at 7:30, unpacked and cleaned, and finally got out the door at 9:45 PM, so this was a late run. Sidewalks were quite icy / snowy in places where they hadn't been plowed, but totally fine in others, so it was kind of a back and forth between sidewalk and road the entire time.  Somewhat annoying, but at least it felt pretty darn nice out at 23 degrees, especially compared to the sub-zero windchills I'd been running in back in MN.  Legs were OK, really not all that great (wouldn't have been up for a hard effort), but better than I expected, 500' gain.

Saturday: Out and back on Center and Orchard/400.  Today was one of those rare days where I just didn't want to be running.  I was excited to run beforehand, but it just felt like a bit of a chore the whole time.  Pace was pretty slow (1:27 for 12), which may have contributed, as slow running is less fun.  In any case, this still got me over 100 for the week, which while rather arbitrary, is a nice mental milestone, 500' gain.

Totals: 101 miles, 4500' gain, lots of rolling hills up and down over and over in MN in considerably colder temps than UT, so I'm calling this "Minnesota Toughness Week".  I'm moderately sore at the end of the week, even with only one moderately decent quality run (14 at marathon effort), so it's clear to me that I should not do tons of weeks of this volume before Phoenix.  I'll back off the mileage slightly to keep the quality, but this week absolutely served its purposes of toughening me up mentally and adapting my body at dealing with Utah's "cold" temperatures.

Music for the week is a piece by Katatonia: 

This band has some of the cheesiest lyrics I've ever heard, but the voice is fantastic (at least in the studio).  I saw them live a year or two ago and they were terrible, but at least they sound good on their records.

Week of 12-17-12: 71 miles, 2500' gain (Phoenix Marathon Training Week 4/14)

Monday: 5 miles, treadmill, steady state, mostly at 6:40, with a faster last mile.  Was just getting in some junk while resting up for the next day's workout.

Tuesdsay: Wanted to do a 3x3 tempo workout at 17:00 to 17:20 per 3 mile (on a treadmill, so more like running at sea level).  However, the gym closed early and I realized that I only had enough time to do the exact workout with no time for warmup or cool down.  I have come to realize that I run rather poorly at fast paces without a warmup, so the pace immediately felt extremely forced.  I made it through the first repeat at 17:18, took my 2 minutes rest, and started up repeat 2, hoping to feel more relaxed, but didn't.  Split 2 miles in 11:24, then got another .33 in before just really starting to feel extremely anaerobic.  I could've made it through repeat 2 and a mile or 2 of repeat 3 if I had to, but I felt like I was going way past the intended effort, so I cut it off there to avoid killing myself and just jogged another 1.67 miles to cool down before leaving.  I was a bit under the weather, so this probably also didn't help...  2 weeks ago I was able to handle this with splits of 17:28, 17:11, and 16:56 (if memory serves me correctly), but I had a good warmup that day.  This will be important for me to keep in mind in the future.

Wednesday: Previous day's run was terrible, so I wanted something else of reasonable quality.  My legs felt surprisingly good after taking the afternoon to ski and temperatures were quite cold at night, so I ended up just going moderately hard in my 10 mile (about marathon effort, but with a bit of hills mixed in) so that I could stay warm and still get something of quality in.  Total time of 63:47 on the Center/89/1000N/Main/89/Center loop that is becoming somewhat standard.  The pace felt fluid and never forced, which was a nice change from yesterday, 500' gain.

Thursday: 9 miles, 61:0x, treadmill.  Bored to death, didn't feel that great.  I'd felt slightly run down for the last couple days, so everything felt a little harder than it should've and I felt like I was sweating a massive amount.  Meh.

Friday: 10 miles in Minnesota with Bill Mennell, a little slower than MP (65:33 on an undulating course with tons and tons of ice).  First mile in 7:05, second mile in 6:50-ish and then faster from there, last mile in 5:49, but we had to cross a massive section of deep snow which halved the rate for about 30 seconds, so it was mostly at about 5:35 pace for the last mile.  Felt really relaxed, even the last mile, due to being at sea level, which was awesome, 500' gain.

Saturday: Hilly 12 miles in MN, 1:19:42, my parents house to the red barn on Stillwater Road and back via the usual Mahtomedi/Stillwater route.  First 6 pretty easy in 40:40, mile 7 in 6:02 (oops, got pretty carried away after the turn-around), intentionally slowed it back down on miles 8 and 9 (hilliest part of the run, mostly uphill) with 14:28, and then tempo'd miles 10-12 hard in 17:32, with mile 10 (about 40 feet net downhill) 5:52, mile 11 (20 feet net downhill) in 5:44, and mile 12 (60 feet net uphill) in 5:54 with more ice on mile 12 than most of the previous miles.  Last mile was pretty hard with the uphill and the ice, but it was still relatively relaxed.  I considered doing an afternoon 5k, but decided against it due to the ridiculous entry fee ($40), so I just closed today's run hard instead, 500' gain.

Sunday: 18 miles with 17.5 of it with Bill Mennell (then an extra .5 by myself to get up to an even mileage), 2:10:30 (7:15 pace, right on the money).  I didn't realize this, but he hadn't run more than 10 miles in like 2 years, so I was surprised he hung on.  Pretty even pacing on the 8.75 out, 8.75 back, with something like a 30 second negative split.  Felt like a very easy pace, but I had about 50 calories during the run, so I was a little low energetically at the finish, but not bad (basically just enough that I wouldn't have wanted to speed up from the 7:15s we were doing, even though the pace felt slow).  I actually brought 4 chocolates of 75-80 calories a piece, but Bill was hungry around mile 9, so I gave him 3 of them.  When I pulled mine out to eat it around mile 13, it fell out of the package and the shell mostly shattered on the ground, so I only had a little over half of the chocolate (with plenty of extra dirt on it, yum...).  Another unpleasantry involved sweating too much in the first half (wore too much clothing) and then freezing from all of the sweat in the 2nd half.  Haha.  Windchill of 3 degrees is cold! 1000' gain.

Total: 71 miles, 2500' gain.  A good recovery week after working pretty hard in weeks 2 and 3 of the cycle.  In hindsight, the 2nd half of the week wasn't really "recovery" style, but I just did what seemed comfortable and relatively easy, and it still ended up at 71, so I guess that's a good sign.  I'm unlikely to be able to do much quality here in MN, so I'll likely just push the mileage up a bit this coming week.  Ideally, this should be one of the highest mileage weeks of my training cycle.

Music for the week is Mestis - Te Mato.  This just came out recently and features one of the guitarists from last week's band Tram.

Week of 12-10-12: 82 miles, 3000' gain (Phoenix Marathon Training Week 3 of 14)

Monday: 10 miles, 500' gain, 68:21.  Nice steady state effort, ie harder than easy, easier than marathon, and felt nice and relaxed.  Up Center to 89, up to 10th North in Bountiful, over to Main, back on Main to the diagonal meetup with 89, and back on 89 to Center.  Felt like I was going to freeze to death at the start, despite leggings, thick socks, thick gloves, neckwarmer, wool/acrylic hat, flannel shirt, sweatshirt, and windbreaker, but was sweating buckets by the end.  It was 29 degrees at the end, but I swear it must have been colder at the start.  Given that I started at 7:xx and finished 8:xx, this seems unlikely, but who knows.

Tuesday: 18 mile wave workout, 1:52:57.  Alternated "hard" miles in 6:00 with "easy" miles (ranging from 6:31 to 6:35, averaging 6:33), treadmill, flat because a flat treadmill at 5000' is a couple seconds per mile slower than flat at sea level still, supposedly at least, for long aerobic runs like this.  Seems reasonable.  Odd miles were "easy", even miles were "hard", no rest, other than a few seconds to reset the treadmill after 10 miles (62:xx, treadmill only goes up to 65 minutes max).  Miles 14, 16, and 18 were really hard.  Oddly, 14 seemed slightly harder than 16, but 18 blew both of them out of the water in terms of difficulty and I struggled mightily.  This is too hard of a workout to do on a weekly basis (note that when I did 18 of this in the past, I alternated 6:00 with 7:00, not 6:00 with 6:33, so this was substantially harder, especially when trying to recover my legs on the latter easy miles).

Wednesday: 12 miles, 500' gain, 1:28 starting at 10:30 PM (way too late... haha...)  My place up Center to 89, up 89 to the diagonal with Main, up Main into Centerville, west to 200W, back to Bountiful, back west to 89, and back.  Actually, this route would be a little less than 12 (more like 11.25), but I started out the run, got a couple minutes in, and realized I had an annoyingly large set of keys in my jacket pocket, so I turned around, got rid of them, and started over.  Stopped at about 8 miles at a surprisingly nice McDonald's restroom and just really didn't want to finish the run, partially due to fatigue brought on by it being 11:30 PM, and partially due to tired legs after yesterday's very hard effort.  Haha.  Note to self: 12 miles is not a recovery run.  With that in mind, tonight's run took some mental toughness, so I'm glad that I did what I did.

Thursday: 7 miles of NSL/Bountiful/Woods Cross, 500' gain.  Had no specific aim given that I had been extremely busy with work all day and didn't run until 11:30 PM, just wanted to get in whatever I could before falling asleep on my feet.  Decided to have some fun, through in some surges for no particular reason, and absolutely all out sprinted the last 200 m on a slight decline.  I was wearing some new Saucony A5s that I just got in the mail earlier today and they're a bit more cushioned than I'm used to, so I felt like I was running on clouds while sprinting.  Haha.  Not really the most productive run fitness-wise and kind of a waste of a day, but it was a fun, and that counts for something.

Friday: 5 very easy, in the rain with Holly, the pooch, literally about 9:00 pace.  Running circles at Hatch Park.  Extremely boring.

Saturday: 20 miles (actually 20.25) in 2:21 total time.  Hilly east bench route (1000' according to someone's garmin) with tons of snow and slush, plus some snow coming down. Effort ranging from easy to slightly harder than marathon effort.  With Kevin, Jake, Fritz, etc, group of 7 guys.  I only ate a banana before hand, mostly because I slept in until 45 minutes before the run and didn't have a chance.  I brought 2 gels, but should've had 3, so around mile 12 or 13, I was bonking a bit and told the group to take off so I could get in my own zone.  I took my 2nd gel right around then and it kicked in, so after almost immediately losing a minute on the group, I caught a nice surge on 2700 east, which carried until I had to run back up 4500 south to Wasatch.  Spotted the group about 2 minutes ahead on this part and apparently they picked it up on Wasatch a little bit with a sub-6 mile near the end, so I finished 3 minutes behind, 1 minute accounting for each of those things, but similar pace otherwise.  Once I was in my own zone, everything was OK, but I just had a bit of a mental game of trying to hang on the group when they were running ever so slightly faster than I wanted to do.  Overall, a good run.

Sunday: 10 miles (actually 9.8x), 500' gain, 72 minutes, with 6 or so others from Fast Running Blog starting and finishing at Highland High, looping South and East of there.  Yesterday's 20.25 got logged as 20, so today's 9.8 seems fair as 10. :)

Totals: 82 miles, 3000' gain.  Only 1 mile more than last week, but I'll take it.  I was beat up from Tuesday's hard run for a couple days afterwards.  My hip wasn't really painful at all over the week, but I could "feel" it, if that makes sense.  Fortunately, I'm seeing a sports MD on Wednesday and a PT the  week after that when back in MN.  It hasn't gotten worse and has been at 99%  for 4 months now, so I'm not concerned about it interrupting my ability to train hard for Phoenix, but I just don't want to have to think about it.

Music for the week is a pretty cool supergroup called TRAM, who features guitarists from Animals as Leaders, the ex-saxaphonist from Mars Volta, and the drummer from Suicidal Tendencies, playing a unique blend of fusion rock:

Week of 12-3-12: 81 miles, 6500' gain (Phoenix Marathon Training Week 2 of 14)

Monday: 10 miles, 71 minutes, 1000' gain, with Kevin Smith, a 15-mid 5k guy looking to run a 2:35 in the Spring, rather circuitous route from campus to Sugarhouse Park, around the outside, then down to Liberty Park, around that, then back up to campus.  Kevin had the route planned and I don't remember all of the turns, so I won't try to explain it any further.  Hah.  71 minutes on a course like this at our elevation would've been more like 65-66 at sea level, which makes me feel a little better about it.  My legs didn't feel all that great and I felt more taxed than I would've liked at the end, but in hindsight, the pace isn't really terrible.

Tuesday: 10 miles, 70:01, 500' gain.  Really didn't want to run and put it off until pretty late (8PM) as it was cold and drizzly outside.  Finally got out and was really glad that I did.  My place up to 89 all the way up through Bountiful up until 1000 north, over to Main Street, back until that links back next to 89, back along 89.  Mapmyrun puts it at 9.90, but my route is probably almost exactly 10.00 as I have to cut pretty far off the side of the road a handful of times to follow the sidewalk and avoid running in the road / getting hit, etc.  Took it out pretty easy and gradually sped it up a bit.  The only exact splits I paid attention to were the first and last 1.8.  The last was done in 11:56, which is about 6:13 pace, whereas my first 1.8 was 13:45, or 7:38 pace.  I wanted to pick it up more at the end, but Wednesday's upcoming workout kept me sensible.

Wednesday: 12 miles, treadmill, workout.  2 mile warmup in 14:0x, then 3x3 tempo workout w/ 2 minutes rest between, then 1 mile cooldown.  First interval directly out of the warmup in 17:27.  2 minute rest (1 minute treadmill off, 1 minute of letting treadmill slowly get up to speed so that it would hit .1 in 1 minute and I could run from .1 to 3.1 and not lose time due to waiting for the treadmill to speed up), 2nd in 17:11, 2 min rest, same way, 3rd in 16:55.  First and second were too easy for a tempo workout.  I think ideal would've been about 17 flat for all 3.  This is of course on a treadmill and I just ran it at flat, but given that I'm at altitude (just under 5000' for this workout), it may be close to accurate for sea level.  We'll see when I'm back home in MN in a few weeks (assuming the track in my home town is useable, ie that it isn't covered with ice).  Was disappointed that I didn't push myself harder, but I did wake up moderately sore the next day, so it must have been still decent for me.

Thursday: 12 total, 1:35.  AM: 5 miles, flat, NSL loop with Holly, :41.  Sore from the previous day's workout, right hip annoyingly was a little sore again (almost moderately sore, tbh).  It never seems to be much of a legitimate issue anymore, but annoyingly, I occasionally still feel it.
PM: 7 miles, 2000' gain starting at like 10:30 PM.  Absurdly hilly road/golf 6 mile course loop from NSL up and through southern Bountiful, around the outside of the course, and then through about half of its holes before coming back down, in 46:0x (ie a pretty moderate effort, would be 40:00 or so on flat), then 1 more mile of jogging with Holly near my apt.  Oh, and I had taken an ibuprofen an hour before the PM run, so that likely helped, but my hip was 100% fine.  Weird.

Friday: 12 miles, 1:44, 2500' gain.  All the way up to the Eaglewood Golf Course, around the entire 18 holes + practice hole + a decent bit of doubling back when I made a wrong turn, then back down, with Holly, plus up to the corner store and back.  Good night time run, but pretty cold out for just wearing shorts/t-shirt/windbreaker (39 degrees at finish and pretty windy, giving a windchill of 33 down at the start/finish, probably more like 28-30 up on top of the hill with much more open wind and another 1000' of altitude).

Saturday: 18 miles, 1:57:xx, 500' gain.  Down in Provo with a big group.  Ran pretty close to step for step with Kevin Smith, except that I did an extra half mile at the beginning to round it up, while he did his at the end.  First 5 were out on the Toe Path with a huge group at about 6:48 pace, next 5 were back at about 6:00 pace.  2 minute break for gels/water/etc, then up towards Provo Canyon (nice gradual 2% incline).  3.75 out that way, then back down, another 50 minutes for that 7.5, averaged out to basically 6:30 even pace.  My marathon PR pace is 6:36s at very close to sea level (maybe 800') and this run was roughly equally hilly, so this was a very good sign for me.

Sunday: 7 miles, Flat, 0:54. AM: 2 miles, 15 minutes, just up to Orchard and out a very brief bit before turning around.  Got 1 mile in with Holly and she started having some relatively distressing GI issues, so I turned around, ran home, and took her to the vet.  She is going to be fine, $100+antibiotics later...  PM: 5 miles, 39 minutes, Center to Legacy Parkway Trail, up that to the bridge on the Spectrum Academy Turkey Trot Course, back on the path to Redwood, down Redwood, and back up Center.

Totals: 81 miles, 6500' gain.  A great second week of marathon training.  The higher effort runs (Wednesday and Saturday) were extremely encouraging.  Holly's mileage for the week was 24 miles.  Not bad for a dog and I wonder if, since 1 human year is equal to 7 dog years, maybe 24 human miles is equal to 168 dog miles?  Next week should be pretty similar in mileage, perhaps slightly higher.  We'll see.


Music for the week is Ravel's Rapsodie Espagnole...  I saw this live last night and it definitely the best work of the night.  Too bad I was outrageously exhausted and barely able to stay awake after not sleeping enough and then running and relatively hard 18 miles... Hah...

Week of 11-26-12: 71 miles, 1500' gain (Phoenix Marathon Training Week 1 of 14)

Monday: 8 miles, :54, treadmill.  I was going to run on a flat road, but it was quite cold out by the time I was able to run, so I just did it on a treadmill at the campus gym instead.

Tuesday: 16 miles, 1:42, track.  This is probably the most simultaneous miles I've ever done on a track (I can't think of any other workout more than 15 miles).  The goal was actually 20 (2 warmup, 16 workout, 2 cooldown), but I cut out the last 2 miles of "workout" as well as the 2 miles of cooldown, given that I absolutely and totally blew up.  The run was supposed to be 2 miles warmup at 7:00 pace, 8 miles marathon pace, 1 mile threshold pace, 6 miles marathon pace, 1 mile threshold pace, 2 mile cooldown, any pace.  However, I miscalculated my marathon pace at 5000' and wound up going about 12 seconds per mile too fast.  This, coupled with lack of fitness, led to a spectacular blowup, so I cut it slightly short when I literally felt like I was going to pass out from running myself into the ground so hard.  My goal pace in March is roughly 6:13s, as based on my current 5k fitness (calling myself 17 flat shape right now, as my 2 recent times of 17:30 and 17:29 were on quite hilly courses with about 150' of climb at 5000', ie about 31 seconds slow each).  In any case, 6:13 for marathon would be about 6:32 here at altitude, but I stupidly used a treadmill conversion that I'm used to doing instead (10-15 seconds faster than flat here) and chose 6:20 as pace.  This was too fast.  The first 2 miles of warmup were fine, if not a hair fast (6:55 ish a piece), the first 8 miles of marathon pace were OK (6:20, 6:21, 6:15, 6:20, 6:19, 6:19, 6:20, 6:20) and then the 1 mile of tempo was 6:01 (would've been better with 6:05 to 6:10).  These first 9 were really honestly OK, even if the 9th mile felt forced.  Up until then, however, everything felt controlled.  After that 9th workout mile, though, I had a hard time settling back into marathon pace.  Mile 10 was a 6:24, and I figured it was just a result of having intentionally slowed after the tempo mile, but mile 11 was also a 6:24.  4 seconds per mile isn't major, but I was trying to run 6:20s, so it was worrisome.  Mile 12 slipped to a 6:25 and mile 13 slipped to a 6:29.  At this point, I was hitting the wall badly and I felt like I was going way too hard.  I was running the workout at 4:00 PM and hadn't eaten since 11:30 except for a small 200 calorie snack, so I was running out of gas, getting dizzy, and developing a headache.  I had brought a powerade to the track, but some young kid there with his parent had picked it up and thrown it way into the infield, so I couldn't realistically get to it without stalling the workout and I figured it was too late to salvage the last few miles anyway.  So, I just decided to opt for a grueling last threshold mile as mile 14 of the workout mileage (not counting the first 2 of warmup).  Sadly, at this point, running what felt like threshold netted me exactly 6:20, the pace I was mistakenly aiming at for marathon pace at 5000'.  I finished the run, literally nearly fell over from exhaustion and tied up legs, swigged the entire powerade, and went home.  I will never make this pacing mistake again, as that was truly mindbogglingly awful.  I think if I was in race-shape, I could've handled it, but just starting the training cycle, it was way too much to screw up my pace by 12 seconds per mile.  I realize this description is absurdly long, but I hope it will be helpful to me in the future.

Wednesday: Off.  Pretty beat up from the day before and didn't get home until 8pm.

Thursday: 12 miles, 1:22, 500' gain, out and back to and on Orchard Drive/whatever it's called north of Bountiful (400E I think?).  This seems likely to become a standard route during the winter.  My right hip was actually still slightly tweaked from Sunday's run (big climbing still seems to irritate it every so slightly, so I will mostly avoid this in the future) and I was generally a little sore from Tuesday still, but not bad.   Went out in :42 and back in :40, but effort felt pretty consistent and quite easy for sub-7 pace on a slightly hilly course.

Friday: 13 miles, 1:26, flat, treadmill.  Ran at campus gym because it was rainy and unbelievably windy  outside (I've become quite lazy with regards to annoying weather).  First 6 at a hair over 7:00 pace, last 7 averaging about 6:15s (roughly goal marathon pace), although just to have some fun I made the pace quite variable  I through in a few 5:00 pace surges, slowed it down to 6:40s a couple times, just generally had fun with it while averaging 6:15s.  Oh, and hip wasn't bugging me at all.  I'm not really sure why, but it really does only seem to get irritated by steep climbs.  Oh well, running 15:00 pace up steep mountains probably isn't the best way to train for a low-6:00 pace road marathon anyway. :)

Saturday: 17 miles,  2:01, 1000' gain.  My place up to Orchard, all the way to the end of 400 E, left from there, a little less than 2 miles of a loop in North Centerville, eventually onto Main Street, a little detour to stop at a grocery store to buy a candy bar (I had a dollar in my glove pocket and I was starving), back on Main until it runs right next to 89 in South Bountiful, and back on that.  Last few miles were spectacularly unpleasant, but given that my Thursday run was very late in the day, I did 41 miles in under 48 hours.  Given that my endurance is currently not where it was in early summer, I guess it could be expected that this would make me a bit sore.  Overall, these are the kind of runs that make the big improvements in fitness, so while it wasn't super fun, I'm glad I got it in.

Sunday: 5 miles, :40, flat.  Nice and easy loop around North Salt Lake with Holly after getting in some runs at Snowbird for the first time for the year earlier in the day.  Winds were absolutely insane, which was pretty annoying.  Legs felt surprisingly good, but my energy levels felt a little off (usually happens after spending time doing anything physical at 10k' for the first time in awhile, ie skiing).  Also of note is that my legs felt surprisingly strong for my first day of skiing for the year.  Usually they absolutely suck the first couple times out, but I really built up some strength this year, so I was capable of skiing pretty hard right from the start.

Totals: 71 miles, 1500' gain.  A good opening week to my marathon training.  This is about the lowest mileage week that I would have, ideally, over the next 3 months or so, but anything over 70 seems pretty solid.  In hindsight, it would have been helpful to not have dropped my mileage so low over my 3 rest weeks, but at least my legs were very well rested coming into this week.

Music is Ravel's Scarbo from Gaspard de La Nuit.  Beyond being very unique and well-written, this piece is one of the most fiendishly difficult compositions ever written for the piano.  It took me a very long time just to play the first movement (Ondine) semi-reasonably well 5 or so years ago when I was still semi-seriously playing, but this movement is considerably harder.  I'm going to be seeing a Debussy and Ravel concert this upcoming weekend which I am excited for.