Starting fresh

I am slowly resuming training. I spent the past four weeks enjoying life and recovering from the Eugene marathon. Experience tells me that my best training cycles often follow good recovery periods.  I had a great race in Eugene and my legs felt good after the marathon. They were ready to resume training two weeks ago, but I decided to extend the recovery period 2 more weeks.  During this period, I went to Mexico and didn't run at all for 6 days in a row.  I expected to struggle with this decision, but I didn't miss running during these days.  Running is an important part of my life, and I know that if I want to enjoy it for many years to come I need to balance hard training with good rest.

I am ready to resume training.  The Berlin marathon is in 17 weeks, and I am already logging base miles for this race.  The weather in New Orleans is very hot and humid, but I am adapting well to these conditions.  I am going to make three adjustments to my training plan. First, I am going to peak three times before Berlin. The peaks this time will be at 65, 72, and 77 miles per week.  I need to do more miles if I want to maintain a 6:50 pace the whole race. Second, my tempo and marathon pace runs will be faster.  I realized in Eugene that I can actually go faster not only in the race, but also in my training sessions.  So I am going to try it.  Finally, I am going to join a running group for my speed sessions and long runs (ideally).  I love running by myself, but the group helps me to maintain my focus and push the pace.  I hope to find a training group soon.

I am going to update my blog more often, promise!

3:09:01 mile-by-mile

I had a solid race in Eugene, Oregon. The race I imagined for a long time.  One can always go faster, but I am very happy with my performance this time. My goal this year is to run really fast in Berlin, so I went to Eugene with the idea of using this race as a building block for my fall marathon.  I felt really good throughout the entire marathon. Strong physically and mentally. Below is a recap of my race.

Mile 1- 7:07. Easy running, the weather was very good. I didn’t want to push… only mile 1!

Mile 2:-7:12. Followed the pacer until mile 4. 

Mile3- 7:15. Uphill, took it easy.

Mile4-:7:12. Uphill, felt good.

Mile5- 7:08. I left the group, I was feeling fresh and decided to give it a try. 

Mile 6- 7:03. The first fast mile in the race. 10k split: 45:02

Mile 7-7:06. Legs were just moving fast, effortless…

Mile 8- 7:09.

Mile 9- 7:13.

Mile 10- 7:05. Another good one.

Mile 11- 7:10.

Mile 12- 7:19. Slow mile, I don’t really know why!

Mile 13- 7:18. Crossed the equator of the race… 1:33:52 for the half. The fastest first half ever.

Mile14- 7:08. I knew I needed to run a strong second half.

Mile 15- 7:11.

Mile 16- 7:04. Fast, just let the legs go.

Mile 17- 7:00. This is the fastest split ever.  I didn’t know I was running this fast, didn’t really look at my splits after mile 6 or 7. 

Mile 18- 7:05. Another good split, but still far from the finish line.  

Mile 19- 7:08. Feeling good, but tried to remain calm and ready for the last 4-5 miles.

Mile 20- 7:08. Second 7:08 in a row after 20 miles… I knew the next 6 miles were key, never lost my focus.  I knew I was close to the finish. 

Mile 21- 7:15. The race was old, feeling much better than in my previous marathons.  Decided to break attack one mile at a time.  A strategy that paid off in the end.

Mile 22- 7:21. Ok, slow, it is normal to slow down a bit after 22 miles.

Mile 23- 7:23. Used my guts to kill this one… I was tired.

Mile 24- 7:17. Rebounded, caught several people and never looked back.

Mile 25- 7:22. I could smell the finish line, but it was uphill… I knew I only needed 15 more minutes…

Mile 26- 7:22. I ran two consecutive 7:22 splits… tell me about consistency!

Last .2 miles- 7:07. I saw the door of Haywood Field for the first time. I knew I had a BQ and a LQ in my pocket!

Time: 3:09:01!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is what I call consistency.  I am recovering fast and looking forward to running in Berlin!

I won't be able to..

blame the weather this time... There is a perfect weather forecast for Sunday... Lows in the 40s and highs in the 60s.  So I better get my act together and run a solid race!!!!!   :)

I am in Denver, waiting for my next flight.  I woke up at 5 am this morning, showered and headed to the New Orleans airport to catch my flight.  So far, so good. We arrived to Denver on time and I have 1 more hour to kill before the next one. The waiting game before any marathon is always difficult. I am excited, pumped, nervous, ready to go... But I still have two more days to go before race day. As I said before, I am not sure how my legs are going to respond to the pace I am planning to run.  I know I have enough strenght to make it to the 20 mile marker without problems (Well, I should say that I hope to have the energy to make it without trouble to mile 20). After mile 20, I just don't know what's going to happen. 

I had a very good training cycle, I was healthy for the most part and partially missed only a couple of key workouts.  The records suggest that my shape is very similar to the one I had before running in Traverse City 11 months ago.  This time around, however, I trained in more difficult conditions (with heat and humidity). So I should be able to handle the first 20-22 miles with relative ease... Then, if the legs feel good, I am going to go for it.  I want to run fast, but I also want to save my legs for Berlin. I am going to attack the last 6 miles if I see that I can run a PR. If not, I am just going to enjoy and think about the pinot noir that I will drink after the race... :)  

More updates soon...

Why do I run?

I have been thinking about this for a while.   Below are some answers...

  Running a marathon is not about...

- Winning (that's for Kenyans or Ethiopians - I race against myself)
- The race (only 2 days/year)
- A time (And... So...)
- Finishing (Been there done that)
- The medal (How often do I look at my medals? Not very often!)

  Marathon running is about the journey...

The journey where:

- I am smiling drenched, chaffed, bloody after a 20 miler in a hot and humid day. That odd sense of satisfaction.
- I feel that urge to run first thing in the morning.
- I definitively conclude that I am insane to be running in a 85 degree weather/90% humidity, but run anyway.
- I find myself marveling at the beauty of nature...

  Running is about living...

It's about feeling alive...

One week to my next marathon...

It's very hot and humid in New Orleans, but my running has been good lately.  My legs feel better, the speed is coming back, and my strenght is good (I think).  I have noticed that I can handle the marathon pace workouts with realative ease this time.  This is good because running MP workouts in the last two weeks of my previous cycles used to be difficult.  Anything can happen in a 26.2 mile race, but I have trained hard and am ready to test myself in a marathon again. 

It's difficult to predict how I am going to run next Sunday, primarily because I didn't run a half-marathon in my build up.  I did, however, do a half-marathon on February (1:30:30), a Yasso 800 workout (3:04 avg) 2 weeks ago, and a 10k yesterday morning. I ran 43:44 in the Crescent City Classic yesterday, but I never went all out. I just used this race as my penultimate MP workout.  It was very hoy and humid, but I ran a solid race.  The splits were:  7:11, 7:04, 7:03, 7:04, 6:56, 6:53, 6:46, and 5:52 (last .2 miles)... Legs felt good, strong throughout, but I didn't let them go full speed. 

I am going to do a shake-out run today... 3-4 very easy miles and then chill the rest of the week... well, I have 2 workouts (a short marathon pace run and a 4x600 workout), but that's better than a 20 mile run in a 90 degree weather, isn't it?

Happy Easter!

Not all weeks are good weeks!

I need to admit that my running was very mediocre last week.  The weather is bad (hot and humid), I have been very busy at work and traveling, and I just posted 4 consecutive weeks of more than 50 miles.  The only certain thing is that my body is exhausted and my legs just didn't have any spark since Tuesday. I had a pretty average tempo run on Wednesday and then a terrible long run on Saturday. I wanted to do 20 miles but ended up doing only 17. Please don't ask me how I felt throughout the entire run...because I was empty the whole way. I had nothing, nothing in the tank.  I haven't had that feeling in almost two years. There is one word that can describe my training last week: disappointing!

 So, after the disappointment, I decided that I am going to take things easy this week and go with the flow. If my legs feel good, I'll go fast. If they don't I'll go slow or not run at all.  I still have three weeks to go to my next marathon and I will try my best to recover.  I hope I can do it, I have enough time to do it.  The week is off to a good start, so I am hopeful that running will also be good :)

Less than 4 weeks to my next marathon

I will be running another marathon in less than 4 weeks (May 1).  I find myself thinking that I can have a good one out there.  My training has been good and it's a matter of finishing this training block strong and stay healthy. This is the last week of heavy training. After this week, everything is downhill (at least that's what I tell myself :)).

But, first things first.  Last week I did 60 miles. It was a very good one, except for my run on Saturday.  I struggled with the tempo, long run, tempo combination. It was very humid and my legs were feeling the effects of the mileage. I had to activate the survival mode since mile 13... I did 17.5 miles. The workout is done and that's what really matters.  I didn't know how my legs were going to feel after suffering in the sticky weather for more than 2 hrs. on Saturday, so I went out again on Sunday morning and did 5 very easy miles. To my delight, my legs felt fine, no pain. It was a very slow run... Sunday's run was slow by design, not by choice.

This week started with a speed session... 8x800 mts with 400 mts recovery. 7.5 miles total.  I ran strong every 800.  3:04 was my average time.  It was very windy and humid so I am very pleased with those splits.  Some people use the yasso 800s to predict their marathon time.  I have always been skeptical about using this workout as a predictor for my races, but I feel like using it as a predictor of my next race for the time being!  It's a difficult workout, I was strong throughout.  It is a good sign...

I have a busy travel schedule this week. I hope my training survives my travels :)  Have a great week!