It’s taper time. Which means that I have two easy weeks before the hardest race of my life so far. This week’s plan…
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 mi + 7 strides | 6 miles | 5 mi + 7 strides | 4 miles - M Pace | 12 miles |
Monday I ran up the hill in the morning again. Same route as the previous few Mondays, and this time I didn’t accidentally bump my watch. It was cold, unlike last Friday. Form drills in the park, 5 miles up the hill and back down, and 7 strides (and then rounding off and a little more to get somewhere to stretch). I then ended up with a cold shower, which I failed to report to the office building management until the afternoon. All and all, I was probably a little better off than those that ran Boston in the sheets of pouring rain and high winds. 6.19 miles in 53:10 (8:35 pace).
Tuesday was interesting. Because I reported the hot water issue to building management until Monday afternoon, I decided I shouldn’t run in the morning. Then I realized someone made a meeting at 12:30 (WHO DOES THIS???), so running at lunch was out. Fortunately, I going to a soft opening event for Alexandria Brewing Company that started at 6 PM, so I clocked out at ~3:30 and ran my 6 miles in the afternoon, where I ended up running them at a fast pace around the riverfront. 6.01 miles in 50:07 (8:21 pace), and I still had enough time to get a warm shower before the opening event.
Wednesday was another Wednesday. Form drills, 5 miles, and 7 strides, just around the river. In fact, I ran the same route that I did on Tuesday, just the opposite direction. 6 miles in 51:53 (8:39 pace).
Thursday was a 4 mile M pace run. Since all my runs feel like M pace runs (or I have a really fucked up version of M pace), I tend to run these at tempo pace. During my warm up, I made my way down a path and found that it was underwater, so I turned around and ran back and pulled a barricade across the path. I then ran another path (the high road, apparently) and went to the other side of the flooded path and pulled a barricade across it too. I stayed in Friendship/Sawyer Point/Yeatman’s Cove/Smale Park for this, although I did go a little outside the parks to make a loop around the Bengal’s practice field. 5.5 miles in 45:14 (8:13 pace, M pace portion pace 8:00).
Friday was my long run. Since it was only 12 miles, I decided to take some Nuun Hydration, since it has only 10 calories (Gatorade Endurance has 90 calories, so it wouldn’t have been that bad to use either). Since I had been in the riverfront area twice this week, I decided to try and skip it. I ran out west and across the 8th Street Viaduct to Price Hill. This is usually an interesting run since there’s a lot of rail traffic going along the roads and over AND under the viaduct. Today it stunk. Literally. There is a sewer plant 1,500 feet north of this area and they were doing something smelly. After crossing the viaduct, I was at 4 miles so I figured I could get lost a little. I continued south on State Street until I saw some paths going to my left near what I believed was (and it actually was) 6th Street Expressway. So I ran down that path that went along the expressway wondering exactly where the sidewalk would end. It sent me over a pedestrian bridge over the Expressway to the south side and dumped me into a weird little turnaround at the end of Mehring Way. I proceeded down Mehring to the intersection with Freeman, which got me a little confused as to where I could run.
After seeing the streetsign for Mehring, I knew I wasn’t lost, after all, I run along Mehring way in some way/shape/form all the time. As I made it back into where I was earlier, I looked at my watch and realized I’d need more distance than if I went straight into the park, so I ran around Paul Brown Stadium and into Covington via the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge, ran around the IRS parking lot and back through the floodwall to the riverfront path that I followed to the Licking River. Then, ran up to 4th Street, crossed over to Newport and ran down along the floodwall and riverfront to the parking lot loop and back to Cincinnati via the Purple People Bridge (cussing at a stupid dogwalker blocking every bit of the 8-foot-wide path on the way – her on one side and her dog on the opposite side at the end of a 20 foot retractable leash). 12 miles in 1:42:52 (8:34 pace).
The week was faster than several of the previous, and my pace has gone up from the beginning of the year to a high of 8:59 in the 8th week of the year (when I had a particularly bad 15 mile long run) and now has been trending back down. Next week will be an easier week that almost seems too easy given what is after that, but I have to trust my coach (which is www.halhigdon.com).
Marathon in 16 days!