How many miles do I need to get out of the way early to not dig myself into a hole this weekend…
Carryover fatigue has become expected at this point. It’s healthy fatigue, the type of dullness you expect to have after a couple weeks over 70 miles.
I’ve hit higher mileage before and have felt better than I do now. The sessions are tougher and they’ve felt as such since the Fall of ’23. It makes sense; that was the build I leveled up. I’m no longer just trying to see how big of a PR is out there every race, it’s more incremental now. It’s stupid to think that I will continue to see exponential gains at this distance. The journey from 2:41 to 2:19 was built off finally stacking some consistency for the first time in my almost 20 years of running. It was actualizing potential that was probably always there but wasn’t taken advantage of due to a combination of stubbornness, injury, laziness, and at times good old fashioned bad luck. Gone are the days of 4 minute personal bests; it’s just now about seeing what’s going to be that final number behind your name at the end of the day.
Those peak weeks tend to give you a lot of time to reflect on that I guess. Experience tells me that these weeks can often be that break or breaking point for an athlete. You either get just enough of what you need from those important last couple weeks or leave everything needed on race day somewhere in the middle of one of those sessions.
At this point I figure Tuesdays are going to feel a bit dull. Nothing exciting about 10-12 maintenance miles ahead of workout session the next morning. Despite my best efforts to wake up early to run, I am once again relegated to a PM guy, to the dismay of Cris twelve hours later.
It was a longer track session on deck for Wednesday morning. 10x 1K with 200 meter float recovery starting at marathon pace.
It’s a much easier session on paper than the week prior but the floats make it a bit dicey. Get too ahead of yourself in the early reps and those float recoveries become harder than they need to be. With this easy of a pace it’s easy to hit the gas harder than was intended. I opened up with the thought that I can get away with a slower rep on the first one if that meant that things were in control. Better to be off by a second or two on the slow end than jumping in the deep end.
I’ve done enough Kilometer repeats at this point that the workout seems to be just in my sweet spot. Once you go through 4-600 meters it’s fairly easy to get through each rep. It’s not long enough to bite you too hard and short enough where 200 jog is really all you need to get yourself back into the next one.
The workout went exactly how I wanted it. 3:21 to start and worked my way down to 3:13 with floats averaging between 6:10 per mile to 6:16 per mile. It felt manageable enough but looking over the workout was a gentle reminder to not get too ahead of myself here. Anything under 3:16 isn’t really necessary right now. I feel like I’m in PR shape but not 2:16:00 shape. Just got to be realistic. But this was a good workout, a workout where I didn’t feel like I was straining. We’ll take any of those at this point, considering how my leg has been feeling.
Reps: 3:21,3:20, 3:20, 3:19, 3:17, 3:16, 3:17, 3:16, 3:15, 3:13
7.50 miles, 5:28 pace
A good session to honor Crime Mob’s hit single Knuck if You Buck turning 21.
Normally at this high of mileage, I’d expect a decent mileage weekend to make up most of the mileage. With Project 13.1 the following weekend, my long run would be 18 miles. That meant that these midweek miles would need to be a pretty healthy amount to get to 85 while keeping things light on Sunday.
A six mile shakeout at run club brought the Wednesday total to just under twenty. Boy did I feel every mile of that the next afternoon. Another day I slept in meant another afternoon run. I wanted to hit the morning double to make things easier on myself but at this point I kind of knew that I was going to hit the snooze a couple too many times to make that a reality. So 12 miles at 5pm with the legs feeling awful until nine. Cool. Cool.
Missing the Thursday double meant doubling on a Friday. Yuck. A 10/4 double on the day. First 10 miles in the morning because the thing about a 10/4 double is you gotta hit the 10. After a day of work and managing Twitter for D3 Glory Days it was time to lace up the shoes again for another run, at 7PM… Because that’s the thing about a 10/4 double, you gotta run the 4.
We had rain on the forecast for the weekend. Pick your poison, Saturday or Sunday. I opted for the Saturday group run to get it out of the way and give me another day to recover ahead of the Half the following weekend.
Weather had me thinking that we missed the storm. I quickly realized that I was in for a wet and slippery two hours ahead of me with a workout that I hadn’t had the best of luck with in previous blocks.
18 miles, 5 miles easy then 15 minutes at 5:40-45, 15 minutes at 5:20-25, 15 minutes at 5:15-20, cooldown back to the store. Knowing this section of the path well, I knew I was in for a tougher section heading back than heading out. Two sections with uphills weren’t too bad when you’re running 5:40’s but they sure are a bitch when you’re running 5:1x’s.
With the 14 in my legs from the previous day I expected this to feel like a bit of a slog and a failure to come as soon as I came through the second section of this workout. I attempted to keep controlled and pull back to closer to 5:45 as I relived a past blowup I had in Savannah the previous year. My wet tech tee felt like it was choking me as I started the uptempo. After some adjustments and wringing it a bit I finally was able to take comfortable breaths. The first mile was a little faster than I wanted. 5:41. That’s fine. Nothing under 5:40.
5:39. Man….
Back off. 5:41. Okay good. Next section.
While the first section had some varied sections to it, the trees provided ample protection from the wind. This next section I would be exposed to it. As I ran parallel to the highway I could feel the gusts picking up. It was a nice tailwind for me taking to my turnaround point at nine.
5:24. Good.
It wasn’t so nice coming back. It was a fight to get myself under 5:25 as I moved to get myself back into pace after stopping to turn around, the wind smacking me around as I inched closer to the safety of the trees. I knew that once I cleared this section things would be manageable. Another 5:24 came like clockwork. The final 4 minutes? Yep, 5:24 again.
Two down, one to go. On the toughest section of the path. I gave myself a little bit of space for heading into the winding turn of the overpass on Henderson Ave. The loop always made it tough to establish rhythm but I focused on form and keeping uptempo off the bridge. Not much time lost. As I raced down the hill the watch beeped, 5:17.
There we go. One mile at a time.
The next section felt much more comfortable. The gentle curves provided a welcome break from what felt like an endless road ahead.
Keep it controlled. You know what’s next.
5:16. Perfect.
The next five minutes wouldn’t be fun. A slight incline to kick things off, a quick right and a light flat section. A gentle curve left, a dip, then a longer climb and a sharp turn to Broadway Ave. The section isn’t all that hard on paper but anytime you have an incline heading into a sharp turn going up is shit, no matter what pace you’re going. But what comes up, must come down. It would be a hard 400 meters but the light at the end of the tunnel was a downhill stretch to the finish to make up time. And I got in there right where I wanted.
5:17 pace. Done.
I’d like to say that was the hard part.
As I finished the final section of the workout, the rain began to pour hard again. Then the wind. 5 miles into the wind. My legs were frozen 3 miles out. 7:00 pace was a struggle. I got back to an empty store, soaked, tired, and hungry. But I did it. It was done.
The physical therapy seemed to be working too. My flexibility had improved tremendously and I could actually do leg swings without feeling like my leg was going to rip out of socket. My knee stopped hurting to the touch or any sort of lateral movement. My PT showed relief as he worried it may have been an MCL issue. Sleeping with a knee brace and consistent visits is what it needed and I was hopeful that I could be 100 percent by Boston. This week was tiring, but it was manageable and that’s just what I needed.
I enjoyed a nice little 9.5 miles the next morning with the fellas to get me to 85 on the week. Week complete, time to set sights on New York. Project 13.1 was next.
Beers and Miles 