This week was 65 miles of running, 12 "miles" of pool-running, and 1000 yards of swimming.
And that's the last of six weeks of focused marathon training. Just like most of the other weeks, I went with two workouts - this time tempo intervals on the treadmill on Thursday, and then a progressive 20 miler on Sunday.
The tempo intervals felt a bit easy, but I decided not to push them. When marathon training it's almost always better to err on the side of a slightly slower pace and more volume - staying conservative ensured that I completed all 5 intervals for a total of 37:30 of tempo-ish work (45 minutes, if you count the short recoveries). I kept the recoveries at 90 seconds to match the Jack Daniels recommended ratio of 1 minute recovery for every 5 minutes of tempo work.
About the tempo intervals - I generally prefer straight tempos on the track but tempo intervals on the treadmill. On the track, it can be hard to keep the recovery durations exact, since I may need to wait for a gap in traffic before jumping back into lane one. And there's also something to be said for the focus and solid pacing required by a continuous tempo on the track.
However, on the treadmill I find continuous tempos to be hard on the body - I think it's because every step is the same. My theory is that inserting very short breaks where I am running at a different pace (and so my footstrike is slightly different) helps mitigate injury risk from the repetitive stress of running on the treadmill.
I was excited for Sunday's workout because I thought the hot weather was going to finally break. And it sort of did, but not as much as predicted. The weather for my progressive 20 miler ended up being almost identical to two weeks ago, and so I ended up running pretty much the exact same splits as two weeks ago.
I would have really loved to have had a good weather day so that I could get a sense of where my fitness is, but I guess I'll just have to be patient.
And so now, with six weeks of marathon training done, I'm going into a five week taper. This wasn't the original plan, but then I started my marathon training a week early so that I could avoid awful weather for the first marathon effort workout. At the time I thought that I'd just take a down week at some point and jump into a 5K, but my coach suggested instead that I just do a longer taper. His reasoning was that if I didn't run a 20 miler the week before my tune-up half in two weeks, that would set me up for a really good race there. And I like that theory.
Additionally, one of my big issues with tapering is that it can be really hard on me. Aerobic exercise is effectively medication for Parkinsons, and so tapering is withdrawal. It can be challenging to strike the balance between a) resting enough to freshen up but b) not resting so much that I'm too stiff and awkward to run well. A longer taper means that I can very gradually ease off of the mileage, which will ideally make for a better balance between the two concerns.
We'll find out in about five weeks, I guess. In the meantime, I'm feeling pretty good - this definitely feels like the best marathon cycle I've had in several years, and the fittest I've been in the past 2-3 years.
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Monday: 9 "miles" pool-running in the morning. Yoga and foam rolling in evening.
