Training log - Week ending 9/4/2022

This week was 72 miles of running, ~1500 yards of swimming and 12 "miles" of pool-running -- training log is here.

My mileage looks like a big jump up, but that is deceptive - I did my long run on Sunday instead of Saturday, and so this week had six days on land and one in the pool instead of five and two.  The overall workload was the same.

We had a nice break in the humidity on Friday, and so I stretched out my tempo workout to 8K - 20 laps on the track.  I was pretty happy with this one - the effort felt right and smooth.  As for the pace, it was still slow compared to where I was 18 months ago, but a bit improvement over even last month, so things are definitely continuing to improve.

For this marathon cycle, I've been alternating between marathon effort workouts (17 with 4-3-2-1 or 2x5 at marathon effort) one weekend and a double of a long Friday track workout plus a Saturday long run with surges in the middle hour.  In years past, that second week would have been a Friday tempo plus a Sunday progressive long run, but I intentionally swapped things this year to give me a slightly different stimulus. 

For my last 20 miler of this cycle, I decided to go back to basics - a Friday track tempo and a Sunday progressive long run.  I really wasn't sure how the progression long run would go - to be sure I wouldn't get in my own head and overthink it I deliberately took manual splits at landmarks rather than autosplits.  Since my Garmin doesn't display pace, this ensured that I couldn't be checking pace during the run, and would have to rely exclusively on effort.

I was pleasantly surprised to realize after the fact that on a fairly warm day (temp 81, dew point of 74 by the time I finished) that I held around 7:30 pace for the entire marathon effort segment - the fastest I've run at marathon effort for a while.  Furthermore, the long run felt pretty easy - certainly not any harder than Friday's tempo.  I wasn't expecting that for my first progressive 20 miler in a year.

So that was a big confidence boost.  Judging from this, the change in stimulus has worked, and I've reaped some improvement this summer.

Monday: 6 miles very easy (10:15) plus drills and strides.   Foam rolling at night. 

Tuesday: 11.5 miles, including a track workout of 400/800/1200/1200/800/400 in 1:43, 3:25, 5:07, 5:01, 3:16, and 94.  Recoveries of 75 seconds after the 400 and 2:0x-2:4x after the 800s and 1200s.  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.   Foam rolling in evening.

Wednesday: Streaming yoga and 10.5 miles very easy (9:36), drills and four strides.    Foam rolling at night.

Thursday: 12 "miles" of pool-running and upper body weights/core. Foam rolling at night. 

Friday: 12.5 miles on the track, including an 8k tempo in 34:55 (7:10/7:05/6:58/6:55/6:47).  Full recovery and then six 1:00 hill repeats up a 6% slope (cycling twice through easy, moderate, hard)  Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night. 

Saturday: 11 miles very easy (9:39), followed by drills and then upper body weights/core.  Foam rolling in afternoon.

Sunday: 20 miles progressive, split as first 7.5 miles averaging 9:45 pace, next 6.5 averaging 8:23 pace, next 6 averaging 7:30 pace.  Then a half mile cooldown jog.  Followed with injury prevention work and 500 meters recovery swimming.