I'm a buffoon. A fool, an imbecile.A dolt.
The only reason I'm even writing this in the blog is because I feel like I should commit to 100% disclosure on everything marathon related, so... here it is:
I made a mistake when I calculated the start date of my training program... I started one week late.
Now, in reality, this makes almost no difference at this point. I've been running very consistently for some time now, so being behind in my training by 1 week won't hurt me. I just finished up the training for week 10 (the book counts backwards, so week 10 = 10 weeks until the marathon.) Ironically, the little marathon countdown widget I put on the page is what alerted me to my error. Right now it says 55 days... that works out to 8 weeks... yet I'm on week 9 of the program.
Whoops.
So next week, instead of running an 18 mile long run, I go right into a 20 mile long run... 20 miler 3 of 5 to be exact.
I'm not worried about it, I just feel retarded.
So, Friday I was supposed to do a BRUTAL LT run. 8 miles... 1 mile warmup at about 8:30, and then 6 miles at 7:44, then 1 more at 8:30. Here's what happened:
8:16 (too fast)
7:28 (too fast)
7:26 (too fast)
7:30 (too fast)
7:35 (too fast)
7:54 (dying...)
7:58 (a quivering mess)
9:06 (HA!!!)
Just awful... truly a piss-poor performance. I had to walk in between miles 5 and 6, and then between 6 and 7. Mile 8 was half walk, half shuffle. It's funny how I've learned to look at a workout in which I ran too fast as a bad workout. Running smoothly and consistently is SOOOOO much more important. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson by now, but the urge to go fast is hard to kick.
Today was a 13 mile long run. It's hysterical to me that 13 miles seems like a joke to me now. I used to be intimidated by anything over 10 miles... now I think 15 is the cutoff. 13 is just an easy jog.
I was supposed to run the 13 miles at an 8:15 pace. I thought that the pace would feel pretty damn fast after last week's 20 miler at 8:30. I also haven't slept as much as I should have this week, and I had a wedding Friday night at which I got properly soused.
I wake up... it's gray and cloudy and 50 degrees outside. I suit up and get out there. It's goddamn cold. I start going. My legs feel stiff. The first mile feels slow. I look down at my GPS.
7:51
WHAT!? I tell my girlfriend that we just started out 25 seconds too fast. We gotta slow down. 1 mile later:
7:55
Apparently, like a freight train, I need some distance to slow myself down completely. Mile 3:
8:07
I felt like I was crawling at this point. My legs were stiff, but apparently I was cruising at a pretty decent clip. The next few miles went like this:
Mile 4 - 8:04
Mile 5 - 8:11
Mile 6 - 8:18
Mile 7 - 8:17
Mile 8 - 8:01
Mile 9 - 8:06
Mile 10 - 8:03
At this point, I figured that since I'd already destroyed my goal of an 8:15 pace, and I felt really strong, I should just go for a nasty time. (Nasty = Really Good)
I do this thing when I want to get a little boost of energy, where I imagine that I'm running the Vegas Marathon, I get to mile 23, and I realized that I'm a minute behind my goal pace, so I need to run the last 3 miles pretty quick. I know it's silly, but I've yet to find anything that works better. So I just make believe and have a pretend race... fun!
The last 3 miles were: 7:54, 7:53, 7:15
I felt GREAT at the end too... I could have kept going easily. It was a very nice change to finish a long run and not feel like curling up in a ball and going to sleep.
I am so pumped to run this damn marathon. Only 8 more weeks... just enough time to lose another few pounds, get a few more great runs in, and psyche myself up to beat my PR by 30 minutes... no big deal.
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