Getting back to Boston

Weird night's sleep. In bed just after 9, asleep by 9:30, awake at 11:30, couldn't go back to sleep thinking about my race, got on the computer, up until 2, went back to bed, still couldn't sleep (brain still wired, cold, and sore). So I took a hot bath at 2:45, which addressed all three issues well enough that I fell asleep pretty quickly. Then I slept until 9 when Max the cat woke me up. Pam the wife was in Camden visiting her friend Debbie, so she was not involved in all this.

Still no official results on the 20K, unless they were posted within the last hour. Nope, I checked; still not there.

One of those five-mile recovery runs where the legs were fine but the rest of me was half asleep. I think sometimes I could snooze while running, and maybe have from time to time. Kept the pace around 10:00 to give the legs a little break. I'll do another easy run tomorrow to recover from the 20K before I get back into GA runs and strides and stuff. 

 Do have one more race result from this weekend. My long-run partner Pat was doing the Omaha Marathon this morning as basically a training run before Detroit next month. Pat ran a 4:13:44 on his training run. Attaway Pat! If he can do better than that in Detroit, more power to him. Now I have one more target to shoot for -- if I can't break 4, I still have to beat Pat. Unless he breaks 4 in Detroit, which he just might.

Having been duly chastised by Coach Sasha, tonight's run changed from five miles recovery to eight miles GA-progression, winding up at MP for the last half-mile. (Sasha didn't suggest a progression run; what he did suggest is more miles, less speedwork). I threw in the progression on my own. I've got ten weeks to get ready for a BQ, and if more miles are the ticket, then I'll do more miles. Tuesday night was supposed to be a nine-mile run with VO2 intervals. I'll probably do 11, no intervals, but maybe some strides.

Anyway, the run went well. I again seemed to get more comfortable as the pace increased; whether that's because I finally got warmed up or just run better at a more aggressive pace (or both) is uncertain. The weird distance is because the TM refused to let me shut it down when I finished the run for a few seconds, hence an extra .01 mile.

Now I need to find time to sit down and tweak the schedule for the next few weeks to reflect the change from speedwork to miles. Under pure Pfitz, this is when the heavy speedwork starts.

Scrapped the VO2 max run tonight in favor of more miles, with strides thrown in at the end so my legs don't forget how to move fast. :) Ran the 11 miles in almost the exact time Saturday's 12.4 took me, including strides and recovery jogs at the end.

September ends up with a training PR of 232 miles. I figure October will be closer to 300 before I start the prerace back-off. Intuitively, I know I need more miles; what I have to do is spice up the extra mileage to prevent complete boredom. I figure I'll leave in some of the speedwork in October just to add variety, although I have to be careful that the variety doesn't put me on the DL. To work this hard, this long, and get a stress fracture in late October would REALLY suck. Thus, I'll really have to be aware of what my legs are trying to tell me about the load I put on them in the next seven pre-taper weeks.

Eight-mile progression run, ending the last two miles at MP + 6%, roughly. Averaged 9:05 for the whole run. Legs felt pretty good overall.

Looked at the schedule tonight: ho-hum, another eight. Hmm, what can I do to spice this up?One word: Fartlek.

So I warmed up for about a mile, then started throwing in bursts. Two laps. Three laps, accelerating into four laps even faster. A few 200 m strides thrown in, then the last mile and a half at about GMP.

Which meant a very interesting run, no boredom, and less than 69 minutes needed to cover eight miles. And the legs feel better now than they would have if I had jogged the eight in 78 to 80  minutes. I think fartlek is going to be a key for me in the next nine weeks as I try to boost my volume and keep things interesting at the same time, plus improve my speed without injury or burnout.

Back with the Crackheads this morning, all 150 or so (first day of the LRM training schedule). Pat was back too, and I ran with him for the first four miles at a nice slow pace. Picked it up from there, and finished my 14 miles at a nice 9:25 clip, even with a couple of breaks. Weather was great -- about 60, a little bit of breeze, clouds. Didn't even go to the third headband until the final two miles, and probably didn't have to do that. I definitely feel stronger now that I'm not getting crushed by the heat and humidity on every run. If the goal of running Benton was to build my confidence, well, mission accomplished. It's just a matter of taking it to the house now over the last nine weeks and getting ready to hammer Memphis.

 Off for a shower and a nap now. Might even wake up and watch the football game. Or might not.