Thursday, July 13, 2017

Baystate Marathon training, week 3

Week 3 of 18 for Baystate.

Motto for this week: consistency, consistency, consistency.

I went back and looked at my old training logs for the last two marathons I did (Perth, in August 2013, and Gold Coast, in July 2014). I was nominally using the Hansons beginner plan, but not really adhering properly to it, and my peak mileage was maybe 45 miles due to work and...seriously, a 2.5-week trip to Italy in the middle of one cycle. Seriously. What was I thinking?

But now I've been running consistently (like 20-30 miles a week), trained for three half marathons in the last year (May 2016, October 2016, May 2017), and actually run 5 half marathons (May 16, Oct 16, Nov 16, March 17, May 17, some as training runs for the others)...so maybe this round I'll be somewhat more prepared for a full marathon? Something like that?

Monday - AM: 4 miles easy with stroller. PM: track with the group. 2 mi warmup, 3(1200,400). Total for the day: 9 miles

Tuesday - 3.2 miles easy with stroller. We went to a northern Massachusetts farm in the morning for some end-of-season strawberries, and had to drive 45 minutes back. Uh-oh! Any time the kiddo has a car ride after 10am, he takes a mini nap that ruins his real one. Inevitably, he took a 30-minute car nap. 1pm rolled around, and still no real nap. 2pm...no nap. So in the heat of the day, I loaded up the stroller, slathered us with sunscreen, and took the kiddo for a run...all the way to the ice cream shop. Happy Fourth of July!
one for the bucket..one for the mouth. one for the bucket...

Wednesday - Warmup, cooldown, 5 miles tempo: 8:58, 9:12, 8:48, 9:22, 9:14. Tempo runs are HARD, y'all. Total 6 miles

Thursday - Ran with a friend who was visiting from out of town! (Thank goodness for flexible hours so I can do things like this; I tend to make it all up at night, which suits me fine.)
Original plan: run downtown to meet her, run 3 miles, run home. Got stuck doing work. Made up new plan: take the T downtown to meet her, run a bit, run home. Then I was stuck on the world's slowest bus and there were delays on the T (oh, Boston). Ran downtown to meet her, ran 3 more miles, took the T back and ran to daycare pickup for a total of 6 miles.

Friday - rest

Saturday - long run, 12 miles.

sunrise over the reservoir 

Sunday - unplanned rest day, because I honestly needed that extra hour of sleep more than I needed a few easy miles today; we went to the beach in the morning and then to a toddler birthday party in the afternoon.

Total: 36.2 miles, which is a nice gentle ramp-up for me instead of trying to jump straight into 40+ miles a week.
Yes, the 0.2 mile does not drive me crazy. I'm a Type A in life and a Type B in running.

Currently reading: Commencement, about the friendship between four young women during and after college. The characters sometimes tell, not show, rather clumsily, but it's not terrible. Unfortunately I saw the 'reveal' coming from a mile away, but it was a sufficiently entertaining summer read; I especially enjoyed how spot-on the portraits were, and how exactly the book captured the sense of dislocation that college freshmen experience.

Currently listening to: Cape Francis, 'Iditarod'

Currently eating: Homemade strawberry shortcake, using that Fourth of July haul

3 comments:

  1. Smart ramp-up! With a lot of quality, too - 9 miles on track day is hefty.

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    1. It's not *too* awful :) I know some plans and coaches favour pretty high-volume speed workouts for those who can handle it (Angela at SF Road Warrior has done some). Plus if you do a full Yasso 800 set (10x800, with equal time shuffle-recovery) it adds up to warmup + cooldown + 5 miles of work + 1.5 miles recovery, which if you think about it is practically 9 miles in a single session!

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  2. Well done! 36ish is a great start. :)

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