Week 12-Arizona Half week.
My go-in plan 55 to 60 miles, 1/2 marathon on Saturday
Coach Alan's plan: 48 with an offday on Sunday
Workouts: Tuesday put in a good effort of 7 miles in the mid 7's and
Wednesday: 3x800 in 3:00 with 2:30 jog rest, 3x600 in 2:09 with 2:00 rest, 3x400 in 82 with 1:30 rest
Pace for the week: 7:36
I had hoped to maybe do a shake-out when I landed Sunday night, but that didn't happen. A 3 hour delay on the ground before our non-stop flight followed by a 6+ hour flight meant 9 hours of sitting in a window seat, during which time I stood up once. Ouch. A shake out would have been welcome, but I landed after midnight AZ time and didn't get the car rental and checked in until close to 2am (AZ time.) I was there a week before the marathon for 2 reasons: 1 a conference on forecasting and 2. my father and brother joined me on Wed night for four rounds of golf at the tail-end of the week. I had suggested this weekend originally to them because of the timing around the half marathon race, and then the golf fell into place and then later on I realized there was also a conference I could attend.
One of the reasons I decided to attend this conference is because a demand planning manager from Nike would be presenting, and I was looking forward to meeting someone else who works closely in the same environment that I do. During his presentation, he mentioned that he is an avid marathoner, and after his session I introduced myself to him. We sat through a few other presentations together, and later that Monday morning, I had myself a running date for 6am Tuesday. I excused myself from the conference around 4 that day to get in an easy run before dinner. It was pretty wonderful. After putting in a month or so of heavy treadmill running, or running in 8lbs of sweaty wet layers when I did get outdoors, it was fantastic to throw on shorts and a short sleeve shirt and head out nice easy run in the fresh air. And I got to make use of my birthday present to myself, a new pair of Julbo sunglasses. It was refreshing, and after too many boring hours on a treadmill, and a challenging long run (that should NOT have been challenging for me) it was exactly what I needed. I followed that by a to-be-expensed sushi dinner and a 9pm bedtime.
At 6am, I was feeling good. In talking with my new friend Alan (from Nike, not my coach) the day before, I quickly realized he was a strong runner. I love love love running with stronger runners. When I first started running with FHR folks, I was quite intimidated by their paces. I realized quickly that even if I can't hang with them for their full work out at low 7 paces, I can certainly hang around for a long time, and it pushes me like I can't seem to push myself. Alan is a strong (2:40's) marathoner currently in an ultra training cycle. We agreed on a 7 miles at 7:30 pace (exactly what Alan the coach prescribed for me.) It was basically pitch black when we started, but this gave me a good sense of what my 6:30 am marathon start time would be like. We set off on a paved bike trail that was uninterrupted by traffic, and like my run the previous day, very flat. While the day before we had chatted about mostly work-related things, this AM we progressed through the 7min range chatting about running, running communities, and family. It was great! As we approached what should have been a turn-around at 3.5, we quickly talked each other into stretching it out to an 8 mile run, and on the return trip, we pushed pace just a touch, down to what I hoped would be my 1/2 marathon target pace in the high 6's. What I didn't realize at the time is that this was a great prep run for my 1/2, both in pace and also in elevation, as we dropped about 20 feet per mile on the return, which was a similar grade to my race. This run was EXACTLY what I needed that week. Back at my room afterwards, I felt great. The confidence was back.
The following day, after the conference had ended I made an attempt to do the track workout that Coach Alan gave me for the week. I couldn't find an open track, so I just did it on a perfectly flat piece of trail next to the canal behind my hotel. It went pretty well...I missed plenty of splits in the shorter items, and my effort wasn't as high as it would have been on a track. I had set up the entire workout in my watch (I love my Garmin 620!) but there is still the challenge of not having a set finish line to focus on wiht each interval. Anyway, it went well and afterwards I treated (maybe not the right word...) myself to an ice bath back at the hotel. Ice baths haven't been proven to do anything, but I will say that from my own personal experience, I get out of them feeling incredible, and that was the case this Wed AM.
The rest of the week shifted to family and golf, whcih meant early AM departures to great golf courses that just happened to be an hour or so drive from our hotel, so that meant 5:30-6am treadmill easy/recovery runs, which is a bit of a shame since the hotel we stay at is adjacent to some amazing desert trail running. However, even if I had time after sunrise to run, I was glad to keep running close to the start of my 1/2 start time, and I would not have wanted to risk turning an ankle on a trail run 2 days before a b race. And since this post is plenty long already, I think I'll go for that easy run now and dedicate an entire post to my race.
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