3 Weeks to Philly (Nov 3-Nov 9)

Planned miles: 40

Actual miles: 49
Planned long run: 16
Actual long run: 16
Accumulated pace for the week: 7:54

Links to key runs:10 x 800; Friday Quick Run; Long Run including Blue Hill

Three weeks out for me is a step-down week going into the final two week taper.  I still wanted to accumulate a decent mile total; something consistent with where I've been over the last four weeks, which is close to 50 miles on average. 

The plan within the plan for this week was to try and get my average pace back down below 8 min miles for the week, and to find some hills to run.  Here's a nice graph set from Strava of my elevation totals for the last few months, and while I like the progressions followed by resets, those are really not great totals.  Maybe too much running on the perfectly flat Charles River and on the Neponset River Trails...it's hard not to in those spots though, they're so scenic!



So, instead of running to PJP park in the evenings, I ran the Milton loop.  And instead of hitting the Charles at lunch, I opted to run up to BC, which ended up being a pleasantly fast run.  I'm actually not that surprised with the pace of Friday's lunch run, since I had the company of a strong runner in RTB teammate Dan.

I've already written a bit about the Yasso 800's on Wednesday, which I was really happy with, especially because 3-4 months ago, that workout would have left me depleted and hobbled for 3-4 days, but  this week I was humming in under 48 hours.

The only thing left of note would be the 16 mile long run I did this AM.  I decided to run out Randolf Ave all the way to the Blue Hill Forrest which meant 8 miles of rolling hills to start the run, and then I would climb up to the top of the Blue Hill ski-hill/observatory.  Its a steep climb: ~400 feet in roughly 6 tenths of a mile, and it was really tough, but I did a decent job of holding my pace.  That climb ended up triggering my max heart rate (173) of the run though, which is what I had in mind.


My thought was, if I can trigger the max heart rate at the mid-point in the run, and wear out my muscles in the process, then when I hit the flat last 6 miles of the 16 mile run, my body may be experiencing the relative discomfort of mile 20+ that I'll feel during the final 6 miles of the marathon.  And I was there...I was forced to pull-up to wait for traffic at around mile 12 and getting back moving was not an easy task!

The goal for this long run was to keep it under 8 min miles for the run, and to hopefully hit my marathon pace on the flat final 6.


So, that comes in at a 7:42 average.  Solid for me, but not the 7:37 I'll be shooting for at Philly.

Now the taper begins.  I'll cut back on total miles but try to accelerate to marathon pace in those runs as quickly as possible.  I would give my overall health a 7 right now (with totally injured/fatigued being a 1) so the idea now is just to get myself back up to a 10 over the next 10-14 days, but not in cold-turkey fashion.

Miles run in the past 365 days: 1,748
Miles run in 2014: 1,569
Philly plan through 14 weeks: 608 miles run vs planned 533.
Philly plan vs Boston plan through 14 weeks: 608 miles vs 513.

I'm currently projecting to finish at 675 miles, and I likely will not try and surpass my goals for the next two weeks during the tape.  I will say that when I first worked out a training plan for Philly, it totaled 665 miles, but I figured that kind of an increase over Boston's 589 was too aggressive.  Thankfully I've been healthy and the original plan wasn't too far off the mark!

Yasso 800s

So, a mid-week update for a change.  While last week was peak week (64 total miles with a 23 mile long run) this week is no slouch either, and contains the final Yasso 800 workout.

Background: I'm new to the track.  I ran speed work with a running club in DC in the fall of 2001, and it lead to my marathon PR the following January.  I ended up running with them for the better part of a year, and when I moved to San Diego, I made an effort to join a speed workout, but on my first visit, the format (I can't remember what they were doing at this point) wasn't what I was familiar with, and I felt out of place, so I never went back.  Which, in retrospect, was a poor decision, and coincided with me running less and less, and slowly adding weight through 2002-2005.

Other than that one year, I haven't run on a track at any other time in my life.  However, during the year in DC I quickly discovered that running on the track was pretty great!  But, as a novice, I need someone to tell me what to do-I just follow other people's lead.   Over the winter, FHR came on my radar twice, and while I didn't want to jump into speed work right before running my first marathon in 8 years, once it was over, I started showing up at the FHR Thursday night track workouts.  My body went through some understandable pains as it adapted to running faster and harder.   I've mentioned the before, but during the Boston training I really didn't have a plan other than knowing how far I wanted to run, and trying to see if I was naturally running faster over time, which I was.  What I wasn't doing was pushing myself through speed drills or tempo work.  When I started running with FHR, it just felt strange to be moving my legs that fast.  But over the summer, my legs adapted (sort-of) and I became more comfortable with it.

Around the same time (at the end of the summer) as I was developing a plan for the Philly marathon, I came across this article:  http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/yasso-800s and I immediately knew this is something I would like to incorporate.  A lot of people seem attracted to the idea that you can predict your marathon time with it, but while I'm curious about predictions, it isn't why I selected to run that full workout.  What attracted me to it is a) it gradually stepped up the track workout commitment and b) it was a plan...I can stick to a plan if you give it to me, but finding out Thur afternoon what each week's FHR speed workout is going to be can be a bit distressing for me.  Also, doing the same workout each week, but graduating to a longer distance each week allowed me to measure my progress from week to week.  So, I added 800 workouts to my schedule starting in mid-September (with 6x800) and over 7 weeks, progressed up to 10x800 this week, two-and-half weeks out from the marathon, as prescribed by Yasso himself.

I've also heard and read that doing this every single week is not the best speed work training you can do for a marathon, and I believe it.  Doing 800s from time to time is great, but doing mile repeats is probably better.  And sacrificing tempo runs for 800 workouts in some weeks is not ideal either.  But, I'm still getting comfortable on the track, and I've always liked doing 800s. They seem to be just the right amount of draining.  So, really this Yasso 800 work was a process in track education for me, and also a nice build-up routine for me to stick to.

If I keep doing marathons, will I feel the need to do 7 consecutive weeks worth of 800s? Absolutely not.  Will I do a mix of speed drills, preferably with a larger (and stronger) group of runners?  I hope so!  I think I can find a better hybrid of speed work in the future, that incorporates at least one 10x800 3-4 weeks prior to the marathon to see how my fitness/preparation compares to where I'm at going into this marathon.  So, now I have a baseline.

So, with all that being said, here is how they went:

 (click to enlarge)

I'm pleased with the results.  I came across multiple articles (though they all may have been sourced from the same or one-another) that said it is typical for runners to be 10-20 minutes ABOVE their Yasso results.  So, averaging 3 minutes and 2 seconds for the 10x800, Yasso would say I could have it in me to run a 3 hour 2 minute marathon.  Well, I can't envision myself doing that!  It becomes about my aerobic threshold vs speed.  (This blog/article does a nice job summing up the criticisms I've seen of the Yasso 800 marathon regimen.)  But, I'm hopeful that by running low 3's in my yasso 800s, I will be prepared to run a sub 3:20 marathon.  This all seems reasonable to me.

Last thought, 3-4 months ago, I never thought I would be comfortable coming to the track and running 12 miles (including warm up and cool down) and that is what I've totaled at the track each of the last three weeks.  So, even if I could have been doing a better variety of speed work training over the last 7 weeks, I do not believe it would have lead to the comfort level I currently have with the track.

And my hope now is that in the next iteration, I'll mix it up more but still have this same level of comfort.