Marathon Training WK#5

Tuesday has rolled around again so time for me to recap my previous week's training.

This particular 7 day cycle was decently solid but there were some up and downs.

Let’s start with my Tuesday tempo run.

If you remember two weeks back, I went 27 miles on the trails between Crowders and Kings Mt. Well, let’s just say that I ran a little too hard on the downhills. My quads were still plenty sore on Tuesday morning when I rolled out for me 8 mile tempo.

Interestingly, my first couple of miles were actually faster than any of my previous tempo runs, and not be a little but by a lot. Then, around 6 miles my quads just started to fold. The more I tried to push, the slower they seem to be able to function. The last couple of miles were a real struggle.

Several times the thought crossed my mind that maybe I should just tank the workout. My body clearly wasn’t ready for it. I could live to tempo another day. This was the creative side of my brain talking. The logic side said – no I needed to keep going. Reasoning – in the later stages of a marathon, I am very much likely to feel the same way. Experiencing it now and continuing to push through it would give me the confidence that I need to push through it in the actual race.

Moving on to Thursday evening, I headed down to the TrySports TryThursday Adventure Run. This would be the first time that I had ever did their run – supported yes, but never participated.

Beforehand, I was out getting in some extra miles, and my legs felt absolutely dead. Then, the adventure run started. Running with Dan, Billy, Andrew, and Paul, my mind worried less about how my legs felt and more about the conversation and the challenges that we had to perform at each station.  

Friday, I pushed my run to the very evening because my legs still felt so bad.

Saturday morning, I was off to run another trail run at Lake Norman State Park. This time my target mileage was about 25 miles. I had run a couple of the trails a few years ago, but this time I was headed for a section of trails that I had never done.

I would start on this trail which was a 9 mile loop that could be extended by 3 other loops for a total of 18 miles. The one thing that I had missed when looking at the park information was the construction at my favorite parking lot. Instead of parking near the trail head I had to run about 3 miles to reach the trail head from the main parking area, and of course, there is still the return trip back to my car. It is what it is.

This also meant that I had to carry all of my water and gels during the entire run. This was a slight bummer because I was going to be out there for 3 hour plus. I had to ration my water.

The trails in this section were quite nice. There are some rocky sections and some loops meant for mt. bikes to climb the steep banks, but there are also some nice sections covered in pine needles which I dearly love to run on. The Wild Life loop was actually my favorite section. It isn’t overly technical. It doesn’t have a lot of climbs. It just weaves back and forth a lot.

Compared to Crowders/Kings Mt. trails, this trail was much easier to run and my splits albeit determined by my Garmin were over a minute faster per mile.

Just in case you thought my week was done, it wasn’t. Sunday morning our club was participating in the SLR Unsanctioned ½ marathon on the McMullen Greenway. The threatening rain clouds meant the air was loaded with moisture and sweat turned into a coating on my skin.  I ran the first few miles with Mike and Sharon. This was over the first half of the course. The second half I was solo. The first half my legs continued to feel dead, but over the second half they started to feel better. In fact, they felt the best they had felt the entire week. I cannot explain it, but I can just accept it. In this case, I welcomed it.

Like I said, this was a week ups and downs. Now, I am in my last full training mode this week before starting my taper for Lehigh.

My perception of time is that it moves faster when I least want it to.

 

Sharing one thought at time,

The Cool Down Runner