It’s not always the thought that counts...

I’m beginning to learn that sometimes it’s not always the thought that counts, especially when you’re trying to train for a marathon and keep a blog.  I had the best intentions of getting out there and knocking out another 50 miles this week, but it just wasn’t in the cards.  I battled through a cold at the beginning of the week, and life got a little busy at the end of the week, but I did manage to get a couple of runs in AND I also got a chance to hang out at the Respite Center (as you hopefully just read).  

 

Thursday was my first day of running this week and it was fun.  I went up to the MIT indoor track to meet with the Cambridge Running Club.  Our track workout was a little different than the usual track workout that most people think of.  Instead of doing intervals based on distance, we did intervals based on time, and replaced the interval jogging breaks with running drills.  10 minutes at 10k pace followed by 5 minutes of running drills (walking on the top of your toes, on your heels, and then on the side of your feet).  Then 4 minutes at our 5k pace, or in this case an all-out sprint.  Afterwards, we did some ab exercises.  After 4X1 minute intervals with 30 seconds rest, we concluded our workout with a mile at marathon pace.  Overall, I can say the workout was fun and a good change of pace, but probably not the best workout to perform while training for a marathon.  BUT, it sure beat not running at all.

 

Last night, for my second and final run of the week, I did a 9 mile tempo run that I knocked out in 1 hour and 3 minutes.  It’s a fantastic feeling to push yourself when you have fresh legs.  I hope to feel this good at the beginning of the marathon.  Now, my goal is to run myself into the ground for the next 5 weeks.  Afterwards, I’ll have two weeks to recover by significantly reducing my miles, and then I should be ready to go come April 20th.  As I’ve said once or twice before, “here’s to hoping.”

A New Track Workout

Tonight, I just finished a really good track workout (outside!!!!) with the Cambridge Running Club.  After warming up for 2 miles, we ran 4X2000 (4 intervals of 2000 meters or 5 laps around an outdoor track).  Normally, the track workouts I’ve run mostly consist of distances between 800 - 1200 meters, with rare instances of running mile repeats.  Anything longer than this seems to take the fun out of the speed workouts because the intervals last more than 5 minutes.  And if your intervals are longer than 5 minutes, you might as well get out on the road or trails.

 

Our track coach came up with a way to solve this problem.  Instead of running the 2000s at half marathon pace, we broke up the 2000s and ran the first 800 at a 10k pace, the next 400 at our goal marathon pace, and the last 800 back at the 10k pace.  Even though it was still a 2000, we got a little bit a little bit of a break in between the 800s and also got some time in running at our goal marathon pace which is important.  I’ve always been fond (relatively speaking) of doing 800s during our track workouts, so maybe this is the reason I’m such a fan.  In between each interval, you can jog either a 400 or 800.  If you’re training for a marathon and have done track workouts in the past, I highly recommend this workout.  And for those of you that have run with me in the past, I kept the 800s between 3:00 and 3:10.  

 

Now that I think about it, the other part of this workout that made it more enjoyable was the fact that we actually ran the intervals at our 10k or half marathon paces (when prescribed).  You see, when I ran with the Washington Running Club, I feel as though we had a habit of racing every tempo run and track workout we did together.   I feel as though we always raced every interval, and I was spent after every workout with them.  I guess that’s the effort that was required I were to keep pace with the likes of Fast Will, Dan, Naoko and Lance.  They all should be looking to, and probably will, break 3 hours this year in Boston.

 

On another note, I’ve scheduled sometime next week to go out to the Respite Center to meet some of the people there.  I’ll be going around lunch time next Wednesday, and am looking forward to the stories I’ll have to report.  I can’t wait!