Philly Marathon Training Recap

Post-Mortem to the 16 week training plan I put together back in late July:

Miles run: 690
Planned Miles: 600
Boston Marathon training miles: 589

Everything went very well: no sicknesses, no injuries, no periods of excessive fatigue, and no extensive travel to get in the way of running.  While I did keep to the general structure of a 16 week training schedule, I created the schedule in large part based on what I did for Boston with some modifications based on either items I've come across over the summer through articles, discussions with FHR runners, or just based on what didn't work for me during the Boston prep.  And then, I made a number of modifications once I started the 4 month training program.

Boston's program completed with 589 miles (including the race) and when I first created a training schedule, I ended up with more then 660 miles in it.  This 12% increase in miles seemed a bit aggressive for an increase, so I moved the miles back down to a total of 600, which was only a 2% increase.  Setting it that low left me with many weeks where I was certain I would over-achieve, so long as I was injury/sickness free.   Sickness was an issue for me during the Boston prep, with the better part of two (separate) weeks lost due to viruses, which included norovirus (at least) once.  That was in February and March of this year, and I attributed to the seasonality of sickness, fatigue from the amount of running I was doing, and of course, living with 2 small children.  I guessed I would experience something similar at least once during the Philly schedule, so it seemed fair to keep the increase in miles at something manageable.  As it turned out, I stayed perfectly healthy and I was able to come in above target every single week.

(click any of these graphs to enlarge)

That is part luck, and (I believe) part preparation.  I took great care of myself in the back-half of 2014, and I would say it showed in my ability to stay healthy.

As for long runs, my decision to run the Newport Marathon (as a training run) in early October certainly threw off my training, but not as much as I thought it might.  My learning there was that, as long as I'm prepared to run at a pace that is about a minute per mile above race pace, then chances are I can bounce back to resume regular training after 10-14 days.  I would certainly entertain marathon training runs in the future as well.

Additional thoughts on long runs: it was a valuable addition to begin incorporating a plan within my long run workouts.  Including the Newport Marathon, I was able to head out on long runs containing multiple segments at marathon (or faster) pace, and I found myself pushing my limits during these runs in ways I had not for any of my Boston long runs (aside from the half marathon racing I did in the winter/spring.)  I recently purchased a copy of Running Formula (Daniels) which I believe will help me with long run planning in 2015.  That and Steve Way's blog from his Marathon preps in 2010-2012 have plenty of long run marathon sessions that I can parrot.

I was also pleased with my ability to incorporate some doubles in my highest mileage weeks without it being an issue.  Running an easy run at lunch, and then a second easy/medium effort run in the evening really worked out fine on the two occasions I gave it a try.  This cycle I topped out at 65 miles a week, and my goals for 2015 are to ramp that up to the 70-75 miles in the peak spring weeks, and 80-85 miles in the fall cycle, and in order to do that, doubles will be necessary.  I'm already reconsidering when I should be hitting my peak mileage week (or, weekS, I guess....) in my spring marathon planning, in relation to my race week.  More to come on all that later...

I have become less worried about tracking my weekly pace as I have been in the past.  With Boston, that was the only way I could measure improvement levels, but this time around just the presence of Speed, Tempo, targeted long runs at MP, I had plenty of other ways of tracking my progress.  That and with those harder workouts, came more warm-up and cool-down miles at a comfortably slow pace.  I'll probably continue to monitor these weighted averages, but I'm not putting much stock in them any longer.

And speaking of weighted averages (hahaha) the final number I keep track of is lbs.  The lighter I get, the faster I get.  BUT, I'm only trying to lose weight at roughly a lb every week or two; consistent with my progress over the last 2 years as I've dropped 44 lbs at an even pace.   As this graph shows, I went from 184 down to 175 and there were plenty of non-Monday AMs (that is when I designate to weigh myself) over the last few weeks where I was at 174.  I'm actually going to start tracking my weekly weigh-in on Fridays, at the same time as resting HR, moving forward.  During my recent body metric screening for work, I still show up on the high end of the "normal" range for BMI, but they also measured % body fat and that was at 14%, which isn't too bad.  I'm guessing my optimal race weight will likely be around 160-165, and that will be a goal to reach by the end of 2015.

So, that's the story of the last 4 months.  I'm already eager to begin planning 2015 activities!