I keep looking at the ends of these segments similar to the way NASCAR has competition cautions at the ends of their racing segments (which is partly odd, but may also be justified). It really stems from the end of the Endurance segment, which was a pull-back week where my long runs went from 15 and 16 miles to 12 miles. However, it’s not the same at the end of the next segment – that ended with a 20 mile run. Similarly, the end of Race Prep that signals the beginning of the taper goes out with a similar bang (bang, bang, bang). It isn’t the longest week in the plan, but it’s close (two miles short).
This has been a very different training experience compared to the last four. For starters, I’m going a lot slower. I blamed my last marathon planewreck on training speed being too slow, when it may have been too fast. One thing every book that I’ve read and remember agree on is to go slow on easy days. Initially that was difficult because I was doing what many others do – too fast on easy days, and a little faster on hard days. For both hard days and races (caution, small sample of ONE race) I haven’t slowed down. I may have even sped up, or it might be the slight eupohoria of putting down progressively faster split paces on 1.2k repeats (8:16, 8:01, 7:52, 7:43, 7:31) on the morning that I wrote this paragraph.
One fun part about occasionally thinking about and writing about this stuff is that I’ll realize where I messed up. On the morning that I wrote this and ran those 1.2k intervals, I ran five and the plan called for four. Whoopsies.
The difficult part about changing something this big is the unknown. I’ve put down four sub-four-hour marathons, and my PR of 3:33 seems like it’s slowly fading in the rear view mirror. I have a bonus card, though. There is a saying “everyone thinks they have a plan until they get punched in the face”. And in general, that is true. In fact, I’d say it was true for marathons 1, 3, and especially 4. In all three, that punch in the face was heat – marathon 1 had a finishing temp between 64 and 68 (I finished halfway between two observations), marathon 3 it was around 62, and marathon 4 was around 54-58 BUT I had long sleeves on because the temperature skyrocketed from between 36 and 42 when I started (and I messed up with nutrition and hydration too). That leaves marathon 2 as the ONLY marathon I had good weather for – it was around 40, maybe making it close to 50 at the finish – the only thing I did ‘wrong’ was I had a headband on that I wrapped around my wrist about halfway through.
I think it’s safe to say one potential punch is going to be heat. And I have a plan (extra fluid intake plus dumping water on my head, which I tried in a few other races and it worked well). I know another possibility is poor pacing, and that’s all in my control. Another possibility is GI issues. I think I have that figured out, particularly after a rather uncomfortable half marathon.
So this is it. Two weeks (ish) until raceday.