Week 20 Training Update for Boston Marathon 2011

Today marks the end of my 20th week of training, which I started in October.  My total training miles is 468 miles so far, with 5 more weeks to go.  I frequently asked how training is going and it is sometimes very hard to answer that question.  “It is going great!” is my usual response, but truth be told training is a roller coaster of highs and lows.   This part of the training schedule is the very hardest because the miles you run each week are at the highest they will get (40+ miles) and your weekend “long run” is at the very max (18-21 miles).   15 people on my marathon team are down with injuries and it looks like most of them are out completely for Boston 2011.

Newbie mistake of the week: “Going out too fast”

No, this is not an exercise in serial dating.  This means starting of the beginning of  a long run (10+ mile) too fast and then paying a price.  That is exactly what I did today on our team’s 19 mile run on the marathon course through Wellseley, Newton, up heartbreak hill, past BU to Cleavland Circle and back.  I was feeling strong and pushed much harder at the beginning than I should have.  To give you a sense of how “too fast” I was going, I set a PR (personal record) for the first 5K, 2 minutes down from my last 5K race on Jan 1.  I have to check but I am pretty sure I also set a PR for 10K and half marathon distances. I just got caught up in the excitement and stuck with a pace group that was out of my league.  I was doing fine until mile 16.4 and then I completely fell apart.  I have never actually hit “the wall” before but I basically was fine and then I was not fine.  I ended up walking/jogging/lurching the final 3 miles with pretty much everyone passing me asking me if I was all right.  Perhaps it was a good thing to make that mistake now because if that happens on marathon day I would never make it to the finish line.  I guess I am trying to put a positive spin on it, but today was a very hard thing for me to handle.

My legs were pretty beat up and since you can’t ice 7 different muscle groups very well I ended up in an ice bath this afternoon.  I have attached a picture because, well.. I just want to share the pain!  (BTW I can’t claim I just jumped in the ice water, you start out as cold as you can handle, add more straight cold and then add ice).

Thanks again for everyone’s support and encouragement!   I don’t think I could do this all by myself.