The twinge in my calf turned into pain following last week's 22 miler so I shelled this week's second quality workout and moved around the other workouts to try and put as much time between runs as possible. Still managed 52 miles of mostly easy running against what should have been a 63 mile week. Legs feels better after an Epsom salt bath and a couple sessions with the stick. Easy 20 on tap tomorrow and I'll be running two out and backs on trail to give myself a chance to pull the chute if things flare up at all. The rest of the week is easy running and a 10 mile tempo effort on Thursday. Had a chance to preview some of the new music I picked up including the latest album by a group called Fanfarlo. They are from England and that's pretty well all I know about them. It took me a while to think of who it was they reminded me of but then I clued in: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, indie rock darlings circa 2005. Three songs this week. One from Fanfarlo and a couple from C.Y.H.S.Y's self titled debut from 2005.
Week 13, 11 weeks till race day. Biggest mileage week for me ever. Just over 70. Legs feel good. Bit of a twinge in my right calf that I'll have to keep an eye on but otherwise feeling good.
Stopped wearing the HR strap for the key workouts because it was pretty uncomfortable and giving me a spot of chafing on my sternum. Long run was tough, ran on a dike next to the Pacific, 11 mile out and back, with the wind on the way out and fighting it all the way back. It's a hill without a summit. Effort equal to about 20 sec/mile faster pace. Good for the mind. Toughen up...
With the internet comes podcasts, and with podcasts comes new music. I DL'd about 10 albums today and will throw up some more good stuff once I've had a chance to listen to it all. Today, something a little outside my usual sphere: a Canadian/Somalian rapper named K'Naan and two singles from his latest album 'Troubadour'. He was raised in Mogadishu until he was 13 and then moved to Toronto. Powerful perspective listening to someone with his background.
Connection down at home again. Switching providers at the end of the week and should fix things for good. Training is solid, about 60 miles this week, stats to come once i'm back up at home.
Good week training wise. 52 miles vs. weekly goal of 54, 8:36 average pace. Right on target. Week 7 of the program, 18 weeks to go until race day. First week running quality sessions since before Vegas last December. All told felt pretty good. Funny how after a long stretch of base training all you want to do is run faster until a few sessions show up in the training calendar and then all of a sudden maybe easy running doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Just nerves though and legs felt good. Session Following Daniels elite marathon plan with a few adjustments. Daniels recommends that only elite athletes use the mileages listed and that everyone else adjust the plan and run for time rather than distance with one mile being 'worth' a certain amount of time depending on the intensity: 1 mile easy equals 6 minutes running, 1 mile at threshold = 5 minutes, etc. When I calculated total mileage using this formula I wasn't going to put in enough miles on my long runs to prep me for Boston. So, I have kept the easy miles as actual miles and substituted time goals for milage run at other intensities: M pace, T pace, etc. That way days that are just long easy runs I'll still get the mileage but when quality is added to a day I won't run over suggested mileage caps for intensity and will hopefully keep myself from injury and over-training. First quality session of the week was before I figured out how I was going to adapt the program: 12 minutes Easy 30 minutes Marathon pace 4:45 minutes Threshold pace 25 minutes M pace 4:45 T pace 12 minutes Easy I'm going to try and remember to wear my HR strap on the quality days just for curiosity sake.
Second quality session was more straightforward: 12 minutes Easy 6 miles Tempo 12 minutes Easy Felt good. Workout called for 8 miles and I could have ran a couple more but wanted to keep the total tempo mileage under/close to 10% of weekly miles. At 6 miles I was already a little over.
More fun this week including some interval work tomorrow AM.
On the music front, I've been hearing a ton of covers popping up lately. I'm on the hunt for a good quality version of a Death Cab cover I've been hearing a lot lately and if I find it I'll post it. Until then, here are two very different takes on the same song. Bonus points if you know which is the original. Merry Christmas.
A couple of pics of my costume from the Mo-vember wrap up party. Our team ended up raising about $1000 for prostate cancer research. Thanks to everyone for their support. The wrap up party was at a club in Chinatown called Fortune Sound Club. I walked into the line and the girl in front of me turned and said" When you were coming up the street all I could think was 'Oh, I hope that mullet isn't real'". Best compliment ever. It's a bit disturbing how real it looks and how much I enjoy wearing it...
And beneath the Canadian tuxedo, my new favorite shirt.
Training is going well. I'll end the week close to 50 miles and begin adding faster efforts next Wednesday. Weekly schedule will look like this initially:
Hopefully, the rest day wont leave me feeling dead legged for the week's second key workout. The way my week sets up with work and family doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room to change things around. Monday is 18 weeks until Boston. We've rented a room in a B&B across the water in Cambridge for our accommodations. We've got a room on the third (top) floor seperated from the rest of the units. Pretty pumped that we'll have the ability to do our own cooking and won't be held hostage by the hotels and their overpriced menus. The suite is about 1M from the finish/shuttle areas and very close to the subway line. Local transit passes are $16 per week and include unlimited subway travel and access to the innrer harbour ferry. We're there for a week and I can't wait to check out the city. This time, unlike Vegas last year, we're flying in just before the race and staying for a few days after. Super pumped. Maybe check out a Bruins game, who knows. Never been to the Eastern seaboard. I'll probably swim in the Atlantic just in case I never get back there.
The twinge in my calf turned into pain following last week's 22 miler so I shelled this week's second quality workout and moved around the other workouts to try and put as much time between runs as possible. Still managed 52 miles of mostly easy running against what should have been a 63 mile week. Legs feels better after an Epsom salt bath and a couple sessions with the stick. Easy 20 on tap tomorrow and I'll be running two out and backs on trail to give myself a chance to pull the chute if things flare up at all.
