Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

Nice run Joe. What time did the marathon air? I thought it aired live at 5 this morning right in the middle of my run.

Yeah it was 5am - DVR'd it...

DVR...of course. Every so often I think I could use one of those.

I'm on ET, so I got up at 6. I went to bed about 1, so I was pretty blurry-eyed. Good stuff though.

Looks like another 15-miler in the books, and a good start to the week. I'm thinking Boston might be possible for me this year, but I am looking for advice for long runs. What do you do for your buildups for your 3:01-3:02? My longest runs were 20 and 22.25 last year and I don't think the 22+ helped me that much. I'm trying to get on board with the Hanson Brother's approach, but I get nervous tacking on an extra 45 minutes to an hour on race day!

Hey Jason - I kinda think that the LR mileage matters a lot less than your total weekly mileage. I would keep doing what you're doing with the higher mileage, and just squeeze in a workout when you feel strong, once a week at most, to let your legs adjust. The key for me before my BQ PR was mileage, and patterning my training off Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning. Cliffs notes from that book are to do a mid-week MLR (build up to 15 miles), 3 long MP runs (like a 10 + 10), and recovery runs the day after any moderate effort.

Also, I noticed it looks like you're shooting for Indy, but keep in mind that to run Boston 2013, you might have to have the qualifying time by September, since it fills up early. Good luck!

Thanks, Joe. That sounds similar to the Hanson Brothers (higher weekly mileage and being able to run at goal pace on tired legs). I'm already approaching the 70-mile week mark, so I figured it would be a good time. Thanks for the reminder about the qualifying window. I still need a bit of time to train I think. The weather will be a lot cooler in November too.

What do you mean by "3 long MP runs (like a 10+ and 10)"? I get the first part but what does the 10+ and 10 refer to?

Thanks so much for your advice.

Sorry, that was a bit unclear. So in the entire training cycle, I do 3 long MP runs, the first at 9 weeks out, then 6 weeks out and 3 weeks out (which is more or less what Pfitz has in his plans). A 10 + 10 would be a 20-miler, with that last 10 at goal MP. I think the hardest one I did was an 8 + 14 on Christmas last year: a 22-miler with the last 14 at GMP. That might have been overkill, but the pace I ran on the 14 @ GMP ended up being almost exactly the same pace as my entire race 3 weeks later...so it's a good predictor of performance as well.

Good running as usual. Glad it's cooling down up there, send a little this way, it's still way hot here. So are you going to Boston this year? I just reserved a hotel today, so I think I'm going to finally do it.

Good run,I watched it too...first one, enjoyed it, but was hoping Hall would have a better time at it.

Flat - yeah, Fall comes a bit earlier up here - I will do my best to get you some cooler air! I am definitely going to try to register for Boston 2013, and probably buy the plane tickets after I get confirmation.

Dan - yeah having the 2 Americans drop out so soon was a bummer. Meb made up for it though at least.