Of Mice and Marathons

AM/Lunch: 3 hours 42' on the road bike. 69.6 miles @ 18.7 MPH. 198W. HR 140.

Michigan Mountain Mayhem 100k Route

Call out for the route in Boyne City area went out earlier in the week and I decided to do it for something different. About 4400 feet of climbing, so it was far hillier than anything in our area. A lot like Maine, actually. Good group, though I forgot my bottles at the hotel. One of the guys gave me a bottle, so I drank that and refilled at the gas station stops and it worked out fine. There were some fast descents and some really sharp uphills. Nothing was really more than 4-5', but "the Wall" in East Jordan was very wall-like. I was grinding out of the saddle in my lowest gear and it was slow. Good chatting with the guys. I wanted to do the road race next year, but I guess they have discontinued the event, sadly.

AM/Lunch: 13.5 miles, averaged 7:25. HR 150. 

60' @ Marathon Effort

I was going to run on the treadmill, but it wasn't too bad outside. Moderate dew point and humidity, in the mid-70s to about 80 by the end. I planned on 2 hours to 2 hours 10, but it got a bit hot and I didn't want to overdo it, but I was due for a 60' effort to check marathon effort versus pace. Right at 7' pace @ 158 BPM. Started around 7:10ish, I think but I didn't take splits. Some low to mid 6:50s in there, so that was decent. 

I see that Josh Kerr does 8-mile tempos at what I assume is about his marathon effort and he's a miler, which probably confirms my long-held belief that an 8-mile tempo around marathon-to-steady-state pace is one of the most beneficial workouts for runners training for many different events.

AM: 6.5 miles, averaged 9:23. HR 120. 

Cooler this morning, which felt nice.

PM: 5 miles, averaged 9:13. HR 123. 

Fairly warm, but tolerable. I went shirtless for the first time in a couple years.

AM: 7.8 miles, averaged 7:41. HR 153. 

3 x 2k @ 10k Effort

First harder workout in some time, though technically the subthreshold stuff isn't exactly easy. This is the first time my HR has been in and stayed in the 170s for any duration of time. I was hoping to start around 4:00-4:04 per k and work down, but stay mostly by effort. Given the range of data of I have, that pace made sense. I was a little pressed on time, so I didn't get in as long a workout as I would typically do but it was getting hot fast and it was quite humid/high dew point, which didn't affect me as much as it sometimes does. Heat training is definitely paying off. Took strict 2' jogs between.

First set: 8:04: 4:04, 4:00 (6:29 pace avg, HR 165 avg.)

Second set: 7:56: 3:59, 3:57 (6:23 pace avg, HR 169 avg.)

Third set: 7:55, 4:00, 3:55 (6:21 pace avg, HR 172 avg)

Felt pretty good about the workout as I paced it well and didn't die in the heat. For Beach to Beacon, this is about what I am hoping to run, so I can get back under 40' and keep working on getting my times back down. I am going to try to bring my 5k time back down this fall and see what I can manage in the half. I imagine this is closer to half marathon pace in cool dry conditions, so I might be able to get back into the low-1:20s this fall, maybe under. Scraping a plan to run a marathon in 14 weeks. I can do it, and there is plenty of time, but I am not ready yet. I think maybe next fall. I really want to see if I can maximize any speed I have left before I do that because I don't have many more years left of chasing faster times. 

PM: 4.5 miles, averaged 9:02. HR 126.

AM: 4.2 miles, averaged 9:34. HR 121. 

PM: 2 hours 43'. 46 miles @ 16.9 MPH. 186W. HR 136. 

Thursday Night Dirt

Decided to do the ride even though the weather looked questionable. It was fine until I headed home and I got soaked. Nice B Group ride with a handful of guys I know well. Race on Saturday, so I didn't want to smash, and it was pretty hot out anyway.

PM: 80' ride. 173W. HR 127. 

Openers!

Some 3 x 3-5' efforts and 3 x 1' hard efforts. Felt decent. Looking forward to racing the new bike tomorrow. It is supposed to be a fast race. The 50 mile race was quite fast when I did it last year.

AM: ~2 hours 38'. 

Cedar Blitz Gravel Race 

34 miles @ 20.7 MPH @ 236 Watts (247 normalized)

I tried hard to stay with the front group, but my legs were shutting down around 6 miles or so. I felt like I was done. Tried to latch on to another group, died again. One of the women encouraged me, I tried to hold her wheel, gave up, but kept grinding and eventually started catching people and feeling ready to race around 40-45'. I did a fair amount of pulling to try to keep the pace up. I thought we had more miles but I could tell we wer already back in town as there was a turn onto a side street, so I started breaking from my group and picking off the guy who pulled ahead and I put in a solid effort into the finish. 

Somewhat frustrated as I tried a longer warm up and a harder interval to try to prime the legs, but they still felt like they weren't fully awake. I am going to need to figure it out if I am going to be more competitive. I just feel like my bike fitness and racing is going backwards, but I am going to try to make some changes and see what I can do.