Marathon Training: Week 3 - Road Race

Another decent week of training and slugging around the roads before ending the week with a 10k road race.  After last weeks long run on Sunday, I eased into this week with a few recovery miles.  I set my goal for the week of 70 miles, but missed that by handful of miles.  In fact, as I write this, I am highly debating getting those 2 1/2 miles in to make it a nice round 7-0 for the week.... but it's Sunday, and I just race a race and made it a 20 mile day.  I also just had a celebratory beer and have been watching football, so I guess I'm not going to hit it... oh well.

Anyways, this week was another good one.  I got plenty of quality miles for the week.  One of which was done in a workout on Wednesday, and the other in the Chips and Salsa 10k today.  My Wednesday workout (W.O.W. as the youngsters on Flotrack call it) was a classic 6x1 mile with 60 sec rest along the river path.  I went back to my old stomping grounds at Kit Carson park and hammered out some respectable paces.  I can tell things are shaping up as these workouts are getting a little faster.  Thank God!  Besides that workout, I just devoted the rest of the week to recovering and getting ready for the 10k.

The race went as well as I expected.  I set a goal that if I can't break 34 minutes, then I need to find a different hobby.... so luckily my body and fitness made that happen.  Chris Valicka and I decided that we should go out comfortable and then work on bringing down our pace.  Well... that didn't exactly happen.  We went out a little quicker than anticipated, but held on an even pace and finished as strong as possible.  I can tell that I need to build my endurance up, not only from my splits, but from my workout on Wednesday; as that workout I ended up with a positive split, but whatever.  So, long story short, I was lucky to take home the victory with Chris right behind me!  Go Dukes!  And speaking of that, the guys in the half marathon crushed it!  We had a bunch of dudes PR and go: 2-8th place, lead by Jesus Mendoza!  Our team is looking mighty good these days!

Week of Training

Mon - am. 6 miles in the foothills
Tue - pm. 10 miles
Wed - pm. 2 mile warm up, 6x1 mile w/60sec rec. (5:32, 5:31, 5:28, 5:38, 5:27, 5:40) 5:32/avg. 2 mile cool down. 10 Total
Thur - 4 miles
Fri - 7 miles
Sat - 10 miles
Sun - 2.5 mile warm up, 10k - 33:44 - 1st place (5:23, 5:27, 5:20, 5:24, 5:30, 5:31), 11.5 mile cool down. 20 Total.

Total: 67 miles

Marathon Training: Week 2 - Cross Crunchy (aka. Cross Country)

After completely missing my weekly goal mileage to, "rest" with a much needed nap after work; which may only come around as often as that lunar eclipse the other week, I still managed to get in my weekend warrior status!  With some decent miles throughout the week, a baby workout on Wednesday, and a long run, it all culminates into one tired individual.  I honestly don't know how I use to do it in the past, which brings me to my next point.  I am not as young as I use to be, nor am I anywhere near the same person.  I've already slowly learned that I can not do the same workouts I did in the past, so I need to throw out those old running logs and move on.... actually, those old running logs are my pride and joy, so I will never throw them away.  But seriously, I have come to peace with how I need to train in order to accomplish some of those fast times.  For starters, it's already been 2 years since my last stress fracture, and I try to stay away from double days because of that.  I don't know if it really works, since most of the "scientist" out there claim two different benefits from running singles verses doubles, but for my lifestyle, along with some basic math, I can only realistically run once a day.  I'm okay with that.  Also, I only need one workout a week along with a solid long run.  So, that's that.  Let's see how well this training will go.

This week also had me toeing the line of a cross country meet.  The Lobo Invite 5k!  Wow, how wonderful.... except for the fact that I am not in 5k shape, nor am I in cross country shape, nor am I in any kind of shape to be racing.  But it's always awesome and special to race as a team, and the Dukes TC had one hell of a team this year.  We got some young talent, with some freshly minted college graduates that are willing to work harder than ever to chase the Marathon Trials Standard with all their heart.  So, with those guys at the helm, and a few other DTC guys pushing everyone, we did alright at the College Meet.  I was our 6th runner and basically our top 5 guys had a faster average time than the UNM Lobos.  15:56 average to 15:59.  However, we didn't win due to points.  We lost by 1 freakin point!  It took a lot of work to add up the scores, but the final score would have been 37 - 38 with the Lobos beating us by 1 lousy point.... man, I need to run faster!

Here's the results:

Week of Training:

Mon - pm. 6 miles
Tue - pm. 6 miles
Wed - pm. 2 mile warm-up, 4x1 mile w/3min rest (5:28, 5:23, 5:21, 5:20), 4 mile cool down. 10 total
Thur - 0 miles - napped
Fri - am. 4 miles. pm. 6 miles w/strides
Sat - am. 2 mile warm up, Lobo Invite 5k - 16:34, 6 mile cool down. 11 total
Sun - am. 20 mile long run. 2:22:24

Total: 63 miles