Of Mice and Marathons

You're kicking butt on the miles this week! Nice work. And great job on the reps yesterday. I can definitely see why your legs are heavy.

Jason, I'm diving in with a direct order here - ease up for a day or two. You've got to let your body recover and adapt to the stress from workouts; stress doesn't come much harder than 4x1 mile off 90 secs. 2 runs with a total of 16.5 miles is too much (for you and come to think of it, for most people) the day after that session.

5k pace workouts and VO2 max stuff are a lot harder on the body than MP efforts and tempo runs. Step back for a day or two and then pick up the miles. For sure, those two runs, on top of the workout, will have added extra stress to your system.

Ease up and don't blow all your hard and intelligent work for the sake of a few miles. That's an order.

Thanks, Matt. The snow is leaving and the weather is turning fine so it's easy to get caught up in just keeping running, but . . . as Bam says.

Bam: I know. I was thinking of that both as I was doing it and this morning. I got caught up in the fact that my legs felt really good and that we have finally had some decent weather (just because legs feel fine doesn't mean they are recovered). I slept a 10 hours last night and had a good nap before my afternoon run yesterday. I'm skipping my morning run and keeping the afternoon run to 50-60 minutes. Tomorrow will be AM/PM easy 50-60. I'm thinking I may skip my long run on Sunday. I have 4 long runs this month including a 22 and 24, and as you say I am chasing numbers a bit. I appreciate the sense as always.

I'd keep the long run on Sunday and ease up even more today and tomorrow. The difference between a 35 min run and a 60 min run is marginal, apart from you increase the chance of injuring yourself the longer you're on your feet.

Tomorrow, if your going to run twice (I'm in favour of this), run shorter 2x40 mins. You'll get nothing out of the extra 10 mins. You're better off letting your legs recover, while replenishing your glycogen stores ready for a long run on Sunday.

I think Bam has some wise points. Your training has been great lately, stay smart and stay patient.

This blog is great for motivation, but too many people get sucked into chasing higher mileage than they should with that mileage board.

By the way you mentioned 10 hours of sleep and a nap, that's incredible. I'm so jealous! I'm lucky to get 7 hours even on weekends.

I'll go with something closer to what you have in mind. I certainly have plenty of non-running things to work on!

Thanks, Riley. I've done pretty well not getting crazy until now, but you are right of course. My problem is I'm not chasing the top guys (we all agree that's crazy!) but I had some ideas of numbers that I planned a few weeks ago and rather than applying the "that depends" rule I was trying to stick with what I had planned (again, another bad idea when you happen to insert one of the hardest and most successful sessions, unplanned, you've ever done). That's the imaginary guy I was chasing I think.

As for the extra sleep, my schedule is pretty flexible, although I lost some weekend time getting stuff done last Saturday and Sunday! But I did feel a bit guilty. Now I suppose I should see about doing some work . . .

Well the truth is if we all want to reach our true potential in the marathon we need to eventually build up to 120 mpw.

But it has to been done very gradually in my opinion i.e. over several years. It's hard to be patient when you feel great and you know that to hit the "next level" you need to jump the mileage. Looking at your mileage graph though you do seem like you've been patiently building it up with a couple spikes here and there. I don't see chasing mileage as a problem for you.

You're doing it sensibly. With your speed and performance at sub-90 or sub-100 you'll be at top notch performance once you fully build up. Amazing.