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July 3, 2005
beat training, pete training
I've been a real slacker all week about posting, but it's a 3-day weekend and I don't have to work at all so I have time to catch up on sleep, blogposting, reading (Graham Greene's A Burnt Out Case for the 29th time), tv-watching (tour de france!), and all the rest of it.
This week was the 3rd week of Pfitzinger, and it's getting better. During the first week I ran consistently too fast, which helped wipe me out for the 2nd week, during which I was consistently too slow. This week I've clawed my way back up to consistently just a little bit too slow. Of course, it's damn hot. I know that training in this weather cannot compare to the benefits to be had by training through the heat and humidity of Michigan, but as we sometimes say in German, "ve sink ziss may haf helped uss anyvay. Zumhow." If I still have working legs in October, Baltimore's weather will feel like heaven.
I decided to race one of the many July 4 5Ks, so I moved today's 19 to yesterday, which gave me 77 for the week. The speed for the week was 4 tempo miles in the middle of Tuesday's 10. I figured tempo meant 6:50 - 7:10 these days, so after a warmup I said "go" and proceeded to run 2 miles way too fast. It was uncomfortable and felt awful, and I could neither find a rhythm nor slow down, so I stopped home, declared to my husband that I could not finish the workout, stated further that marathoning was not for me, and whined for a few more minutes. Then I jogged a half-mile, ran 2 miles way too fast for tempo, cooled down. I'm glad I did the whole distance, but it's not as good as actually running the 4 miles all at once. Week after next is another tempo run - this one 5 miles instead of 4 - and I really want to do the whole thing without stopping to whine.
Looking at my training log, I see that last year I ran upper 70s for the whole month of July, then one morning noticed the "sore leg" which turned out to be a stress fracture. I'm running differently this year - more recovery-pace runs, no short repeats on the track, etc - but still I worry a little. This time last year there was no doubt in my mind I was going to run Chicago and do a lot better than I had in my first marathon. Ha.
Posted by joe positive at July 3, 2005 1:18 PM