Last week, I asked our group coach to review my workout log and suggest a goal for the upcoming Buffalo marathon. He usually writes our key workouts in advance, but he's been taking a step back from that lately, plus I am doing this race on my own, so I have just been making my training up as I go (with the exception of Tuesday track, when I join the rest of the club for whatever workout we added last-minute!).
Jimi kindly agreed to take a look and told me - 3:20. Ouch, that hurts the ol' ego! But his reasoning is that I really just need a solid BQ, and since I'm ancient, that's a 20 minute cushion for me. And if I want a good summer, I need to be healthy and ready to run, not on some prolonged recovery period. Plus, while my long runs have been surprisingly good lately, it's a really short training cycle, and my other runs - tempos, speed work, have varied from "nothing special" to "downright awful".
Let's take a look at this week, for example: if it were modern art, I'd call it "variations on 6:58".
We did hills on Tuesday: 8xbridges (hard up, easy down); a little over a mile at aerobic effort; then another set of 8 bridges. The result? 5 miles at 6:56 average.
Oh, but redemption on Thursday tempo, right? No. I usually have a tempo on Friday, but I moved it to Thursday because of my weekend schedule, and on Thursdays my legs are generally pretty tired. I had a four mile tempo, plus warm up and cool down, and I could NOT move my legs, and got 6:53, 6:52, 6:46, and 6:50 (goal was around 6:40-6:45). Then Saturday I show up and blast out 18 miles at 7:21 pace - but really, it was a long workout, with an 8 mile warm up followed by two sets of four at marathon pace with a mile easy in between and a mile cool down. So of course, my four mile segments were (6:58, 6:58, 6:57, 7:00) and (7:00, 7:03, 6:53, 6:55). *
Basically, this training cycle? I have learned how to run 6:58 pace for a few miles.
Anyway, I guess that proves that I am nowhere near a magnificent marathon, and I need to sit down and chill out at 3:20. I bet I find that 3:20 is challenging enough - I never ran a marathon that felt easy!
*A word about that workout: 1. Obviously that's not current MP; that's goal MP 2. I botched it, taking a water break during the rest mile and at mile 2, which I know, that negates the whole workout. But it was 80 degrees and I am not in stellar shape, ask coach Jimi!
I think it’s wise to set a goal that seems somewhat easy for you since you are coming back from lengthy injuries and a shorter training cycle! Maybe on race day you will realize that pace is really too slow for you and you can turn up the speed in the 2nd half. Either way I am confident you will BQ!!
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