I really have to hand it to the training program i’m on because I completed yet another 20+ miler today and feel great afterwards. I managed to get 15 miles of the 21 at marathon pace like I had planned. This week seems to be the week when things are starting to come together with my training .. earlier this week I ran a 14 mile mid-long run and it was easy. I did my double session on Thursday, and it was easy.
There certainly is no time to celebrate yet, i’ve got 5 more weeks until the Rochester marathon, so there is still lots of time to screw it up. I have a 5K scheduled for next weekend and am unable to find a longer-than-5k distance for the following weekend when i’m in Connecticut. Its probably not appropriate if I leave my in-laws for 2-3 hours to drive to a far away race, but I still may try to pull it off. This is the time when I jumble up the training because i’ll be out of town all this week, and then with the race on Saturday, i’ll actually take Friday off from running, so the race Saturday, then a long run on Sunday. We’ll see how that goes.
This mornings run actually started out kind of cool, I was concerned that it wasn’t going to warm up enough, but eventually it did. I had my fuel belt, a few GU’s and some change to stop at the local supermarket to fill up my water bottles. Its amazing how fast the long run goes by when you’re at marathon pace compared to doing the normal 10-20% slower than your pace. The only bad part of the run today were due to a car show going on just down the road from me..
ok, time to vent:
To the moron with the so-called ‘muscle car’ who felt the need to make a lot of noise and speed about 50 MPH down a 25MPH road through the center of town and almost HIT me, I hope you get a flat tire. You should realize that pedestrians and RUNNERS don’t appreciate almost getting hit by your natural immaturity and need to show off something that is so material.. i’m really not impressed by your car, my beemer can beat your hunk of junk old car anytime on the long course.
Ok, venting is over, back to my post.
I guess they’re holding this Das Awkscht Fescht down the road, which meant the roads around it were just crowded with car people, which made it difficult to run. Once I got past it, the rest of the run was fairly easy. I didn’t even see the sun until around mile 14 due to clouds, which kept the run kind of cool.
After pulling my splits off my Garmin, I actually ran faster in the last 4 miles than anywhere else in the run. It felt good on the home stretch, it seems like I could’ve kept going for several more miles (which of course is a good thing since i’m marathon training).
Enough about the long run, I have a challenging week of being in Virginia for work and not eating as good as I should. The problem with being on the road is that I just can’t get those real good-for-you foods like I can at home, so it’ll be a challenge. This week I head into Mesocycle 3 on Pfitzs training plan, which is called “race prep”, I guess it kind of brings all the components together now and the good part is that I feel i’m ready for it.
Tomorrow I have a bike ride scheduled with a friend .. its my first time riding with someone else since I got my bike, so i’m not sure how i’ll do. We expect to get 15-20 miles .. it’ll be a nice change from running, so i’m looking forward to it..