Rhett

Since I raced Saturday, I decided to change today's tempo run for the long run I was supposed to do Satruday.  The plan was to run 14 miles at 7:30 then the last 6 at mp.

It was a beautiful morning, about 60 degrees and no wind.  I was feeling pretty good as I got going.  I hit the first 10 miles in 13:30, about a minute and a half too fast, but I knew I had a 4 mile climb coming.  I lost my minute and a half that I had gained and ended up at 1:45:39 after 14 miles, 39 seconds slow but not bad.  I then dropped to marathon pace.  I was a little tired from the 4 mile climb, but I now had gravity on my side so I was able to get into the grove pretty quickly.  I ende up averaging 6:30 over the last 6 miles (irronically the same pace I ran Saturday's 10K), which was 60 seconds faster than planned.  So in the end, I was 21 seconds ahead of the plan.

Total run:  20 miles, 2:24:39, AP 7:14

I was nice to have a good run today.  I needed that after Saturday.  I decided I've become bipolar with my running.  Either it is a great day or a terrible one.  I just hope I hit Boston on a great day.

Lower body weights

abs and core

20 minutes stair speed intervals

10 minutes elliptical

Quads were a bit sore this morning from yesterdays run, but overall feeling good.

My schedule called for mile repeats this morning, but the thought of doing a full mile fast was intimidating today, so I decided to do Yasso's workout instead.  After a two mile warm up on the TM and some dynamic stretching, I programed the speed intervals to run at 6:00 pace and to walk at 3.3 mph and did half mile repeats with a minute walk break in between.  I did 10 of them and then cooled down for 1.25 miles for a total of 9 miles in 65:00.  It was a good confidence boost to do each one at 3:00 and still feel like I could do some more.  I hope Bart Yasso is right, that that means I can do a 3 hour marathon.

Specifics on my TM Yasso's repeats for my future reference.

TM @1% incline

2 mile warm up @ 7:30

Dynamic stretching

50 second walk @ 3.3mph

Switch to run speed @ 10 mph for 3:10

Repeat 10 times

1.25 coold down @ 8:00

Abs and core work

Lower body weights

20 minutes stair speed intervals

Only one more lower body weights workout next Tuesday and then no more weight lifting until after Boston!

The plan today was to go out and run 24 miles in 3 hours (7:30 pace).  I wore my Boston race shoes and socks.  It was only my 3rd time to wear theses shoes and first time to wear this pair of socks.  Both passed the test well.  I will now put them aside until race day.

I got started around 4:20 this morning and my stomach felt a bit queasy on the first mile, but then I started to find my grove and felt pretty good the rest of the run.  I hit the 12 mile mark 4 seconds ahead of pace still feeling strong, but knowing that the second half of the run had a lot more big hills than the first half.  I continued to run strong and was able to push a little on the downhill parts of the run.  Mile 24 was about a 200 ft climb, so I needed to bank a little time.  I had about a minute banked with one mile to go and was happy that I didn't need it all.  I ended up finishing in 2:59:21 with 39 seconds to spare.  AP 7:28

My splits were all over the place do to the nature of the rolling hills.  You can tell which were up and which were down just looking at them.  I was happy that my only mile over 8 minutes was the first mile where I was still warming up and finding my groove:  8:06, 7:25, 7:23, 7:22, 7:10, 7:32, 7:13, 7:21,7:13,7:19, 7:53, 7:59, 7:39, 7:06, 7:47, 7:24, 7:28, 7:34, 7:05, 7:06, 7:15, 7:42, 7:25, 7:54.

I'm very happy with my final really long run.  All I have to do is run 2.2 more miles in the same amount of time as today.  With a little taper, some carb loading, and some race day magic, I think I'll have a good shot at it. 

1 hour stationary cycle

Legs felt really good today.