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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.
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