Practice To Suffer So Racing Becomes Easy

Morning:  4 miles no watch just to shake things out from yesterday.  Hopefully, my 30% volume reduction will give me the energy to put together a fantastic 3 weeks of 1/2 marathon training.  

AM:  7 miles Avg 7:30 pace around Fort

PM:   Workout with Andrew - 2 mile warm-up, then 6x1 mile with 60 sec. rest.  5:27, 5:25, 5:28, 5:27, 5:32 (mentally fell apart on this one because Andrew left me for a 4:59)!  He's much more comfortable running 5 min pace than I am.  Hopefully, by doing some more work with him I can improve on my speed.  He struggles with the long runs and the long repeats, where I struggle more with the short stuff.

Nonetheless, I improved my average time by 1 sec. again on these intervals.  Again today the legs felt what I would call flat.  I'll try increasing sleep before I cut intensity or volume since I'm still feeling healthy.

Afternoon:  3.5 miles no watch

Evening:  7.5 miles Avg. 7:30 pace + 4 hard hill sprints and lifts

AM:  3 miles - no watch  

Afternoon:  10.58 miles w/repeat 200's, Andrew and I did 5 sets of 4x200m with a 400m rest between sets and a 200 jog between reps.  It went surprisingly well, we had 1/2 into the wind and 1/2 with a strong wind.  

2 mile warm-up

Set 1 [33.40, 35.28, 34.32, 32.93]

Set 2 [33.04, 33.00, 33.24, 33.40]

Set 3 [32.16, 33.63, 32.78, 34.24]

Set 4 [33.60, 33.83, 33.88, 33.60

Set 5 [32.50, 33.78, 32.98, 29.91]

2 mile cool-down

Afternoon:  3.2 miles around St. Joe's - no watch

Evening:  6.3 miles around Fort - no watch

Morning:  5 mile very light progression run 9 min pace down to 6:00 min pace for last mile Avg. 7:35 pace

Afternoon:  4.5 miles - no watch 

Afternoon:  4 easy miles around Madison

Evening:  3 very easy miles (not feeling well), Madison 1/4 Marathon, 2 miles easy

Well lucky for me I was able to run the majority of this race at my 1/2 marathon pace for the win because I wasn't up for a hard mental effort.  This is a new event to kickoff the Madison Marathon.  Normally, a 5K the morning of the Marathon is the race to kickoff the Sunday 1/2 and full.  They decided to change it to a twilight 10K to help shrink the number of people on Sunday.  I think it's a good idea because running at twilight is so enjoyable.  We had a nice cool evening and a lot of support.  About a 1,000 runners registered, which to me is a good amount for a 1st year event.  I have to admit I'm a little perplexed about why they decided to cancel the full marathon.  I know a heat index of 97 is crazy hot, but why not wait till the day of the race.  So it looks like everyone who was in the full has the opportunity to race the 1/2 marathon now, but they aren't doing any corral assignments!  It's going to be a sketchy start with all the marathoners now joining the 1/2 marathoners.  

Not a whole lot of excitement to report in terms of how much guts I showed tonight.  I basically used this race as a 1/2 marathon pace workout due to a really stressful week of training and work.  I certainly wasn't ready for a PR tonight and the competition wasn't there to probably push me to one anyway.  

The 1st mile went 5:19, which felt comfortable.  I was familiar with the course because it was basically the same one used for the Crazy Legs race I ran a month ago.  It's up and down through the 1st miles then a big climb through mile 2, but flat with slightly rolling until uphill the last mile.  I was sitting in 4th feeling very relaxed and under control with the pace.  I was running really conservative and content with letting other people do the work.  Mile 2 with the big climb was slow.  We split a 5:40, it felt pretty slow during the race.  I wanted to push it harder, but again I held back and focused on my goal to get a good 1/2 mp workout.  The 3rd mile was a 5:35 and our pack had shrunk down to 3 guys.  I could tell the guys I was running with were working a lot harder than me, but I was kind of just enjoying the strong, but relaxed pace at this point.  The 4th mile was a 5:54, highly likely this mile was long.  The pack was now down to 2 guys.  Each time I tried to run next to the other guy he would surge ahead of me.  He must have done this at least 15 times!  Not a very efficient strategy.  Each time he made a move I would just hold my pace and he'd drop right back to me.  Then he'd do the same thing again. Finally with 1.5 to go I made a strong move because I was getting tired of the yo yo pace this guys was running.  He stayed with me for about 15 strides then he was gone for good.  Mile 5 I split a 5:35 and I was still feeling like I could run this pace all night long.  Mile 6 was all uphill to the capital for a 5:36.  The cop leading me almost got hit twice on his motorcycle, one time he actually reached out and banged on the hood of 1 of the cars.  Needless to say I was glad he was leading the way for me!  The last .28 I coasted in at 5:23 pace feeling really good.

The race was a nice way to finish off a BIG week for me.  I did two quality interval workouts, a medium tempo and ran a solid 80 miles.  I basically have a long tempo and a few more interval sessions before I taper for Grandma's 1/2 marathon.  Just got to stay healthy and focused for a few more days.  Tonight's decision to not push for a PR was a smart one for me.  Probably, not something I would have done in my early days.