Training Cycle Recap
Ok, my friends, here are the bones of this last training cycle. Maybe you can learn something from it.
The last race for me was the Mesa Marathon in the beginning of February. That’s a long time ago.
The recap for that one is that I went out too fast and crashed early for an ugly 4:06:07 finish. Which averages out to a 9:25 pace. But was a half marathon at 8:30ish pace and a run walk to the finish much slower than that.
After that I took some time to not train for anything specific. But, coming out of that race I felt like I had the pace, but I just couldn’t hold it. I thought maybe I should try to get some more speed and volume to fix that.
I had some really good training runs in the spring where I was running 8-10 miles with a fast finish and my legs felt really good.
So I signed up for this Beantown Marathon with the thought of seeing of I could train better, run better and potentially qualify.
I have run this race before.
It is in a park in Hingham, MA and about 1:30 southeast of where I live. It is a flat, 6-loop course, designed to take the thinking out of racing. There are only 500 entrants, and they launch you in waves of 50, depending on your expected finish time, every minute starting at 7:00 AM.
So I’ll be launching in the 3:45 – 4:00 group, but more on that later.
I ran it in 2019 with the same intentions but couldn’t hold the pace and finished with a disappointing 3:52. It was a classic Chris race where I raced hard until I hit the wall and broke.
Looking at the results I see that there were only 272 finishers overall. It’s concerning that they are now putting 500 runners on the course, I remember parts of it being fairly tight.
I remember it is a runner friendly course. Part paved access roads, a small section of gravel road, and a section of paved sidewalk through the park itself. There are sections where the road is split by cones and there is two-way traffic. Some of this is fairly tight, like I said. Then at the end the finish shoots off of the loop. So 6 loops, that you need to track yourself, and then you turn down a short stretch to the finish line.
It’s a bit of an odd-shaped figure-8 loop with the water tables in the middle, so you pass them every mile. They also provide a row of tables where you can put your own bottles and food, like a pro.
Like I said, designed for people looking to race for a time.
Like we do up here in Boston.
I’m going to need to leave pretty early to get down there with enough time. But that’s ok.
Back to the training cycle.
It was a long training cycle by my standards. The better part of 6 months.
I averaged around 35-40 miles a week across 3-4 runs. I typically did 2 quality tempo runs, with a longer effort on the weekend and maybe a recovery run in there somewhere. On the off days I did core work and yoga. During the big build weeks I also cycled once a week, typically the day before the long run.
I did throw in some specific speed work, mostly because I hadn’t done it in a long time and was curious as to what my pace, form and recovery would be. The answer was that my pace and form was good, but the recovery was a bitch.
I also bulked up my long runs. I got 8 efforts in over 15 miles, and all of those were surge runs with fast finishes. I was able to execute most of those well but the summer heat really got to me and some of those workouts were a struggle.
But, if I look historically, my best performances come after a solid, consistent, 2 years of training. And that’s what I have. I’m in that sweet spot since I came back from the knee injury.
Overall I’d give it a B+.
In the old days I would want to get those peak weeks up over 50 miles and I’d want to get at least 2 20 milers in before the taper. But, it is what it is and I can only do so much. I am constrained by my ability and need to find that tricky balance between training and breakage.
I didn’t focus on nutrition, but I managed to keep weight off with the training and mediocre nutritional habits.
Going into the taper I have a few sore spots. My left knee complains. I’m very tight and feel fragile. My quads don’t seem to want to move blood around like they used to and fatigue easily.
I really need to let everything warm up well before I start to bare down and race. It all comes down to being able to warm up enough before dropping into race effort.
On paper my paces in those long tempo runs are 30 seconds a mile faster than I need. So maybe I’m selling myself short. But I just don’t want to walk the last 10k of another marathon. I’m sick of it. I need to prove I can run smart.
And with that I go into the race.
My goal is to get under 4 hours. I think I can easily do that. I would have done that at Mesa if I hadn’t gone out like a deranged rogue bottle rocket.
What can I say? I get excited.
I’m going to try to manage and backload my effort. Just run a smart race.
Because of the course design I should be able to manage my fluids and nutrition.
Like I said – they send us out in groups of 50 based on 15-minute expected finish time chunks. I don’t think there are official pacers. I’ll get in the back of the 3:45-4:00 group and try to find someone to run with.
My expectations, for me, are low. I just want to run a smart race and get in under 4 hours. I suppose it’s all relative.
That’s my story for this training cycle and the Beantown Marathon.
We’ll have to come up with something interesting to do in the next cycle.