I need a nap. Last week wiped me out. And we're only on Week 3, so that should be a sign of good things to come. Let's go through it...
Tuesday- 4.25miles with hill repeats thrown in. As per Coach Cane, "This week it's hill repeats. Not the fun kind where you race to the top, collapse, crawl to the bottom and repeat, but rather the type where you run at a brisk tempo to the top, immediately turn around and jog down, then repeat." That sounds like a lot of fun, Coach. Definitely won't leave me regretting this whole marathon thing, at all!
The workout called for a jog from the 72nd street transverse to Cat Hill, 10+mins of hill repeats, jog to Engineer's Gate (90th Street) & back to Cat Hill for 10+ more minutes of hill repeats, and finally a jog back to the west side of 72nd Street. I had to do this work-out solo again, due to my work schedule. And it was definitely hard not to stop when no one's there to encourage you. It also left me completely useless the rest of the day. All I can say is that I'm glad I wasn't the only "doctah" in the office that day. ;)
Wednesday- Easy 3 miles. I take the word "easy" very seriously.
Thursday- Easy 3 miles. I was going to throw in a tempo run, but my hip/groin was bothering me after the hill repeats. I figured a tempo would only strain it more. It was my only wise decision of the week.
Saturday- Group long run, 10 miles. The workout called for a jog from W72nd Street to Columbus Circle, back up to Engineer's gate, 4 laps of the Reservoir (each lap is 1.55 miles), and back down W72nd Street. As per Coach Cane, "Shoot for goal marathon pace + :30/mile or so. There is no added value in pushing faster than that at this stage, as it will undermine the work for the week that follows...You'll get plenty of "quality" miles on Tuesdays, with occasional races, and at selected long runs, but doing your long runs too aggressively is a sure fire recipe for peaking in training instead of on race day."
He's so smart. Too bad I'm not smart. My long run was slightly faster than MGP (that's marathon goal pace, for all you non-running folk), overall. I do have good reason though! (Actually, I don't.) I was cruising at MGP (which I realize was not the instructions), when one of our coaches started running next to Anand & I, and said that we were "too relaxed" and not running naturally. He then asked us to run our 3rd lap :15-:30 seconds faster/mile. Well... we ended up running that lap a full minute faster/mile. If you've never ran before, a full minute doesn't sound like a lot, but it's the difference between a 4:50 marathon and a sub 4:30 marathon. So, we basically failed at all instructions that day. And it left me way more tired than usual. Despite this, our coach for that day believes we'll be able to readjust our marathon goal time by 20 minutes as the training progresses. I'm pretty sure he's crazy.
Sunday- Recovery Run, 3 miles. Once again, I take the words "easy" and "recovery" very seriously.
And now we're starting Week 4. And it looks just as fun as last week! I'm only half joking, because I actually do find this fun, in a masochistic sort of way.
Hope everyone's had a good active weekend also!
Tuesday- 4.25miles with hill repeats thrown in. As per Coach Cane, "This week it's hill repeats. Not the fun kind where you race to the top, collapse, crawl to the bottom and repeat, but rather the type where you run at a brisk tempo to the top, immediately turn around and jog down, then repeat." That sounds like a lot of fun, Coach. Definitely won't leave me regretting this whole marathon thing, at all!
The workout called for a jog from the 72nd street transverse to Cat Hill, 10+mins of hill repeats, jog to Engineer's Gate (90th Street) & back to Cat Hill for 10+ more minutes of hill repeats, and finally a jog back to the west side of 72nd Street. I had to do this work-out solo again, due to my work schedule. And it was definitely hard not to stop when no one's there to encourage you. It also left me completely useless the rest of the day. All I can say is that I'm glad I wasn't the only "doctah" in the office that day. ;)
 |
| 72nd Street Transverse. Where all the magic starts. |
Wednesday- Easy 3 miles. I take the word "easy" very seriously.
Thursday- Easy 3 miles. I was going to throw in a tempo run, but my hip/groin was bothering me after the hill repeats. I figured a tempo would only strain it more. It was my only wise decision of the week.
Saturday- Group long run, 10 miles. The workout called for a jog from W72nd Street to Columbus Circle, back up to Engineer's gate, 4 laps of the Reservoir (each lap is 1.55 miles), and back down W72nd Street. As per Coach Cane, "Shoot for goal marathon pace + :30/mile or so. There is no added value in pushing faster than that at this stage, as it will undermine the work for the week that follows...You'll get plenty of "quality" miles on Tuesdays, with occasional races, and at selected long runs, but doing your long runs too aggressively is a sure fire recipe for peaking in training instead of on race day."
He's so smart. Too bad I'm not smart. My long run was slightly faster than MGP (that's marathon goal pace, for all you non-running folk), overall. I do have good reason though! (Actually, I don't.) I was cruising at MGP (which I realize was not the instructions), when one of our coaches started running next to Anand & I, and said that we were "too relaxed" and not running naturally. He then asked us to run our 3rd lap :15-:30 seconds faster/mile. Well... we ended up running that lap a full minute faster/mile. If you've never ran before, a full minute doesn't sound like a lot, but it's the difference between a 4:50 marathon and a sub 4:30 marathon. So, we basically failed at all instructions that day. And it left me way more tired than usual. Despite this, our coach for that day believes we'll be able to readjust our marathon goal time by 20 minutes as the training progresses. I'm pretty sure he's crazy.
 |
| That's 2 hands up for 10 miles. I immediately face planted after this photo was taken. |
Sunday- Recovery Run, 3 miles. Once again, I take the words "easy" and "recovery" very seriously.
And now we're starting Week 4. And it looks just as fun as last week! I'm only half joking, because I actually do find this fun, in a masochistic sort of way.
Hope everyone's had a good active weekend also!
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