I’m in the last week of hard training before tapering for the Philly marathon. I’ve been keeping my thoughts to myself lately and off the blog, mainly because they’ve been somewhat negative in regards to my motivation.
What defines this as “hard” training for me is simply one tempo run of 9 miles on Wednesdays, and a long run of 20 miles at marathon pace. I promised myself to do this for the entire month of October. In between are easy days with just Tuesdays off. But it’s the long runs that are kind of adding up and taking their toll. More mental than anything else.
Surprisingly, all is well on the physical front with the exception on my right achilles a bit tight at times, but I have enough experience with it to know it’s not near anything like tendonitis or tendinosis. I’ve been taking some precautionary measures as well with the heating pad at nights (that’s right, NOT ice). After my long runs, I’m very diligent about getting carbs and protein in the form of tart cherry juice and 2 hard-boiled eggs (usually without the yolks). The cherry juice also has an added benefit of keeping inflammation at bay and might be why I’ve been able to recover better than usual. If it sounds gross, well, it is. But I’m a sucker for placebos like these, and these seem to work great.
Tart Cherry Juice - Liquid Aspirin
Tastes great when washed down with a glass of tart cherry juice - NOT
For October, I’ve done 60 miles for each of the past three weeks. Each week ended with a long run that left me completely hurting. Each one hurt more than the one before. I’ve done three so far. Here, here, and here. If I do all my planned miles for the rest of the month, I’ll finish off with 260 miles total. This has been the toughest month I’ve every put myself through.
For the long run I just did last Saturday, I originally planned to do it easier. And, I started with that intention, but it’s like I forgot how to run these slower. When I covered the first 10 miles, and my garmin reported an average pace faster than what I would need for a sub 3:00 marathon, I naively hoped I could hold it for 20 just to see.
Lo and behold, I could not. At least, not on that day. I slowed down enough to average a 6:59 pace by the end. And although its not a faster pace on average than the one I did in the prior week, it was probably the most painful 20 miles I’ve ever pushed through. And it was done on a day where I really could have used a long run with a finish that left me feeling great. I had a few of those back in the spring. With the last two, all I could think of was how the hell am I going to get through the next one?
End of this week, I might do my last long run a little easier. But, I’ll probably stretch it out for an extra two miles and make it 22. Then I’m done. I’ll do plenty of marathon pace runs during the taper.
I want to feel a 20 mile run at marathon pace will be easy on race day. These runs aren’t really doing that for me. In fact, I’ve been dreading my long run. That is quite the opposite of how I normally feel, since I’ always looked forward to running long on the weekend.
But, it did prove to me one thing. I could do 20 miles at marathon pace, even on a bad day. An extra 6.2? Dunno yet.
Will all the extra effort pay off? Hard to tell, regardless of the outcome. If I bomb it could be for a slew of unrelated reasons. You can’t prove a negative. And if I do great, it doesn’t necessarily prove running 20 miles at marathon pace four times was the sole reason either.
