Week 4 recap

 2011 Boston Marathon Training  Comments Off on Week 4 recap
Nov 232010
 

I finished week 4 of my 26 week training schedule with a total of 22 miles this week including the 9.5 mile long run.  I did have some dark moments in the middle of my long run when I was doubting myself and my ability to be able to really do this.  I kept thinking to myself “how can I hope to complete a marathon if running 9 miles is this hard”.  But after the fact, and with some perspective I realize that was just fatigue talking.  The fact is 4 weeks ago a 5 mile run was out of my reach and now I run that twice a week without even thinking about it.  This brings the total to 73 miles run since I started training 4 weeks ago.  By my estimate I will run 630 miles before the marathon in April, so I have barely just begin!

9.5 mile long run

 2011 Boston Marathon Training  Comments Off on 9.5 mile long run
Nov 212010
 

Brutal.  Ok I just have to say that.  It was a deeply unpleasent experience.  I left a few minutes before dawn.  Conditions were clear and 38 degrees.  I knew I was in trouble 2 miles in when I was already feeling tired.  I had switched to intervals of run 4 min, walk 1 min since all the recommendations is to walk a min.  I hated it.   By mile 5 I was pretty miserable and at some point I switched back to my normal 3 min run, 30 second walk.  I think for some reason the 1 min walking is too long, very hard to get moving again.  I need to do some research to see if 30 seconds will be enough to reduce lactic acid buildup.  I think all the miles this week wore me down.  I am very glad next week is a cutback week.  At mile 8 I was feeling a lot of discomfort in my left foot and shin and my right calf.  I stopped and stretched thoroughly for 5 minutes and then continued.  That made a huge difference.

My heart rate distribution shows most of the run was spent in the aerobic zone, but roughly 20 percent was in the aerobic threshhold zone, which means I was probably going too fast for part of the long run.  Sheesh, the one rule for long runs is “don’t run too fast” and I can’t even get that right!

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