Skip to main content

10 Weeks to Boston

Welp, it's 10 weeks 'til marathon race day and I haven't run for the past two. As per usual (I feel like I've been saying this a lot) my Achilles was flaring up and small breaks weren't helping it, so I just decided to shut down for a couple weeks and hope that'll calm it down.

January started with promise, but ended up being a pretty crappy month of training. So now I'm going to see what I can put together for this final stretch. In a weird sort of way, I'm actually kind of optimistic for the rest of training. Here's why:

1. Over the past two years of fighting my Achilles, I've learned that I can sustain decent training for about 8-12 weeks. Any more than that and things start to break down, but any less and I can't get into a decent rhythm. So 10 weeks to Boston? Perfect.

2. I've also overdone marathon training in the past (even just one too-hard workout or race without proper recovery can leave you crashing at the finish). But with such a short time left for training, I should be at less of a risk of over-cooking myself. I'd rather start the race a little undertrained than overtrained.

3. I've done a short build up recently -- I did it in the fall for USATF Club XC -- and I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to get into the same shape as my college PR. And that was even with a fairly conservative approach. Coming off of that, I now know two things:
  • At this point in my running career, I can get into pretty darn good shape even on shorter notice. I'll just put special focus onto race-specific efforts and the workouts that directly support those.
  • I can also be more aggressive in my training than I was in the fall. For that small block I was fairly conservative and my Achilles held up through race day, and even doing so I was able to equal my PR. Let's push the boundaries a little more this time around. Because...
4. After Boston, I'm shutting down my running until I can completely clear up this injury and run pain-free. Sometime in the past couple months I reached a point where I was so frustrated that I've finally accepted having to miss a long block of time for healing -- even if it is a year or more. I've always been impatient with recovery, but I'm finally accepting of the process: put out the fire, heal the root cause, and then build yourself back up a little stronger and better coordinated than before.

So I'm all in for Boston. Check back each week, because I'll be updated this blog with my weekly progress, listing all of my training, and explaining my rationale behind every workout. Oh, and I plan on being totally honest on how they're progressing, whether that's good or bad or somewhere in the middle.

This week:

I ran three times, every other day starting on Wednesday, super easy each time (like 7:00 pace). On Wednesday I ran 7 miles (when you can run in a T-shirt in January you take advantage of it), 5 miles on Friday, and then 6 on Sunday.

The Achilles felt...fine (manageable), but I felt woefully out of shape. I couldn't go much faster than slow.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Base Training the Lydiard Way

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while, but just haven't really gotten around to it. This is for anyone using the summer to gear up for a fall season of racing, whether that's a marathon, road races, or cross country. That said, this is especially for you high school and college athletes. Summer is the most important time of the season. It's when you build your base -- everything that's to come later in the fall is determined by the quality of this base. In fact, some might even say that your end-of-season peak is limited by how well you trained over the summer. Arthur Lydiard believed this. And his philosophies still form the foundation of modern-day distance training. You've probably heard (and maybe internalized) many of the common critiques of Lydiard-style training: it's old and outdated , or it's too hard, or, most common, it's just a lot of long slow distance. And low slow distance makes for long slow runners . The lat...
2 comments
Read more

Why I Love Running At Withrow

One of my favorite places to do workouts and strides and general fast stuff is the track at Withrow High School in Hyde Park. No, it's not because of the newly renovated surface. No, it's not because it's a perfect 10-minute warmup and cooldown jog from my house. No, it's not because I'm a nerd and it has markings for both a 1600 and a mile. No, it's not because the school building forms a perfect "L" around the homestretch and first turn, sheltering the field from any drastic wind. No, it's not because I spent four years during college running workouts there. Actually, wait, that is part of it. The reason I love Withrow's track so much can be summed up like this: it's a true public track. If you've ever been to the track, then you know how packed it can get with people using it. And it's not just Withrow High School teams and random individuals -- the track is also regularly used by many other local high schools witho...
1 comment
Read more

Indy Monumental HM Race Recap; Or, I'm Going to the Trials!

Hey blogosphere, sorry for the month-long hiatus. I got a little-stitious in the lead up to Indy Monumental and was worried that I was doing a little too much talking (well, writing) and not enough training. This is the race report I posted on reddit recapping the race, so I thought I'd re-post it here as well. Hey reddit! I'm mostly a lurker here, but I raced Saturday morning in Indianapolis and wanted to share. The TL;DR: I ran 1:04:33 for the half marathon, which qualifies me for the US Olympic Marathon Trials in LA this February. I also got 3rd overall, which was pretty cool, too. So anyway, here goes... But first, a shout-out to the staff at Monumental Those guys know how to put on a top-notch race. It's so refreshing to here the rhetoric coming out of the organization that says, "we're trying to be a professional event; we understand that most people want a fun event, but we also understand that some people want to come and  race  the damn thing; we...
3 comments
Read more