Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Still Running

The summer has been going well. Since the big move, things have settled a bit and I've been able to get back into a running routine. Thus far my training weeks have gone: 44 miles, 52 miles, 60 miles, 66 miles, 60 miles. I've done a number of 14 mile runs, and my longest run thus far has been 17.25. This weekend I have another long run scheduled. It will be a 2:45 run and may or may not get me to 20 miles. I'll let you know how it goes. The 17 miler was slower than my typical long runs (8:37 pace), but it was a challenging course and I'm running more miles than I normally do. The day after I ran a killer 10 mile workout. Still, slow long runs don't exactly yield confidence for me, but that's where I am right now.

As far as marathon training goes, it's probably too early to tell how things are going. More miles is tiring. Well, it's either the miles or an almost 5 year old and 2 year old running around...I'll let you decide. I don't have a definitive training plan, which is typical for me, but I am more committed this time around. Looking through the Run Faster book, I found a table that loosely identifies miles per week with competitiveness and race distance. Sort of in the middle is just competitive. For the 5K, that's 40-50 miles, which is what I was running when I ran 18:48. For the half marathon, that's 50-60 miles, which is what I was running when I ran 1:29:11. For the marathon, that's 60-70 miles, which has never been what I've run (except in college when I only ran the 5K). I've also never been able to run the marathon times that the calculators say I should be able to run based on my other race distance times. So, it's probably not so surprising that this time around I'm making an effort to stay between 60-70 miles. I'm also making more of an effort to let go of some of my ridiculous interval workouts and replace them with slower tempo and MP runs. It's hard though. I like the feeling of short and fast, but I don't think it's really helping my marathon time. It's hard to say how things will go. There are still almost 12 weeks to go, and that's a long time. Right now, other than being tired, I seem to be holding up okay.

And just for fun I'll leave you with a couple pics.  :)

 The ladies found my iPod.

I have no idea what Em is doing, but she's cute.

I hope everyone else's training is going well!

6 comments:

Raina said...

Well, katie , looks to me like you are priming for a great fall marathon. I agree that it's hard to sacrifice the intervals for the other workouts, but probably for the best with all the added miles. You really did your homework.
It's fun to see your MPW so high and climbing! I will wave up to you for a while. :) You are doing a fabulous job. 8:37 is no slouchy pace in my opinion- I am sure some of your long runs will be a good clip faster than that too.
Hope you are enjoying your summer :)

Ana-Maria RunTriLive said...

WIsh I could run with you! I hope to be there and cheer though! Miss you:)
And AWESOME JOB!!!!

Karen said...

I think those calculators are off for me too. But I think that our fastest times are tailored to, surprise!, what we like to do. You're into sprints and short-n-fast stuff, so it makes sense your half and 5K are better than your full marathon. I like a lot of LSD and seem to have the opposite problem, my half and full PR predict a 5K time I just laugh at. It's nothing close to my PR.

I think you're doing awesomely training for your marathon!!! :)

Katie said...

@Raina: Thanks! I'm just hoping that I don't implode! And my summer is going well, which is probably why I'm not blogging as much.

@AM: I miss you! We have to run together when you're ready!

@Karen: That could be. It could also be that we train more for the stuff we like and that's what our bodies get accustom to. I guess we'll find out!

Raina said...

LOL. I identify with the imploding without intervals, which is why I am very happy again with running. Happy you are having a great summer :D

Lindsay said...

Weekly mileage looks good to me! I'd blame the tots ;)