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Week Of 2/05-11


  • Monday: 3 w/u; 2 x 6 x diagonals (4 min jog between sets), 1k in 3:02, 2 c/d
  • Tuesday: Easy hour of running
  • Wednesday: Planned off day
  • Thursday: One hour of running with 5 surges by feeling in the second half
  • Friday: 10 min up, 57 min marathon effort tempo, 1 mile c/d
  • Saturday: Very easy 8 recovery
  • Sunday: Planned long run, but sick in the chest so no run today
  • TOTAL: 48 miles on 5 days
Well, for my first week back in a while this was...passable. I was almost really happy with it until I got sick over the weekend, but there's nothing you can do about that. Better to miss a day or two than to have a cold just drag on. Usually a head cold is fine to run through, but a nasty cough is something not to mess with.

Monday's workout was exactly what I needed, both mentally and physically. Diagonals are a popular mid-distance workout in Kenya, and it consists of running diagonally from flag to flag across a soccer field, with a jog across the baseline for recovery. They're basically just a fancier way of doing strides. I did 2 sets of 6, and then afterwards I tacked on one kilometer at a 5k effort -- just something to stimulate the system, but not stress it too much. The whole point of this day was to get my legs moving again without being too stressful of a workout, and that's exactly what happened. I left it feeling better than I went into it.

Thursday was just a normal run, but as a pre-workout day I added a slight bit of faster running. Most people do strides before a workout or race, but I've found that I feel better doing 15-30 second surges (fartlek-style) inserted whenever I feel like into a normal run.

Friday was a great day. This one-hour marathon tempo is a staple for building marathon fitness which I'll repeat a couple times before blending it into long runs. I have no idea what pace I ran...I could figure it out, but at this point I prefer not to. The point of the workout is to feel the tempo and ride that line; putting a pace target on it ruins that. I want to be responsive to my body, not my watch. I threw on some KT Tape before heading out, and WOW did that make a difference. It didn't completely cure my Achilles, but I was able to run with significantly less discomfort. All told, everything about this was promising.

The weekend ended with disappointment, though. I've actually been lucky not to be bad sick yet this winter, but I've finally felt a cough coming on. It's a nasty thick cough, which is the kind of thing not to mess with in training. Better to take a couple days off. Oh well.

So that's my update for 10 weeks 'til Boston! Let me know what you think.

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