Betsy and I were talking yesterday and agreed it feels really weird to be coming into the home stretch of marathon training so early in the season. We’re both so used to training for the NYC Marathon – about a month later than Wineglass – when taper doesn’t start until mid-October. The plan is still to run New York in November, but Wineglass is The Goal Race and it is now in less than 5 weeks. Gulp.
The one downside to hitting the higher mileage and longer runs earlier in the season is (duh) the weather. It has been oppressively humid in NYC this week, which paved the way for a hot mess of a 20 miler on Saturday. I’ll get to that, but in the meantime here’s a rundown of the rest of the week:
Wineglass training, week of 8/26
Monday – 8.25 miles easy in Portland
Just ran along the water and found my way onto a cool path frequented by runners, didn’t see as many out as in Central Park, so it was quiet and peaceful.
Image may be NSFW.
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unrelated Portland photo: duck fat fries with truffle ketchup and beer from Duck Fat. The best ever.
Tuesday – 12 miles, 4 @ tempo pace in Boston
Super excited to have the chance to run longer in Boston along my old Charles River route, and since Tuesday is workout day decided on a tempo. It was really humid when I left my sister’s apartment and after a few miles warm-up I got to work on the tempo miles. The goal was to do five, but I felt a little off and think the humidity got to me for a while. I miscalculated the distance a bit (i.e., was planning on more like 10 miles), but was running pretty quick by the end of the run and felt good.
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love this route!
Wednesday – 9 miles easy, strength (abs, arms)
Thursday – 10 miles with 5 x 30 second strides, strength (abs, legs)
Friday – 6.25 miles, yoga for runners
Saturday – 20 miles in 3:00:40, 9:02/mile
Not going to lie, was kind of dreading this run due to the humidity. Kept trying to think about last week’s successful 18 miler and that really, we can’t control the weather on race day. Sometimes you just got to get ‘er done. The goal was ~6 miles at marathon pace, and I started them around mile 7. Felt fine at first, but knew the pace was a bit slower than MP and couldn’t really push it much further. I tried to just not look at the Garmin and keep a good effort, which worked for a while but I started feeling pretty crummy by about mile 14. I was sweating a lot more than usual due to the weather and even though I had taken one gel around mile 10 I felt really close to “the bonk.” I saw Betsy around mile 15 and wanted to crawl to the next water fountain. We parted ways quickly because I was heading back up to Central Park and more importantly, Duane Reade for the Gatorade I had begun fantasizing about.
After chugging almost the whole thing, I felt 900x better and able to finish the run, albeit slower than I would have liked. I thought a million times about quitting early and throwing in the towel, but knew I’d feel better once I got some carbs and electrolytes in via the Gatorade. There are some tweaks I’m going to make to my fueling plan because I think I could have prevented such intense bonky-ness by fueling a bit earlier (also think it is hilarious I just wrote a post on fueling).
Sunday – 7 miles easy, strength (abs, arms)
Total: 72.5 miles
My highest mileage week ever! Despite the less than awesome long run, I ended the week feeling pretty good and quite positive for the final stretch of training. The reason I was adamant about not bagging the long run and stopped early is because I knew that if I pushed through to the end, I could channel that mentality for the last miles of the marathon. Those are going to be just as tough if not tougher to get through.
The good news is that this awful humidity promises to go away by tomorrow and leave us with much cooler, seasonal weather. I like summer, but fall is my jam and I can’t wait for the crisp air and changing leaves.
Hope everyone had a good Labor Day! I spent most of it (working) in the hospital so am celebrating a day late tomorrow Image may be NSFW.
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Question: Bag a terrible long run or push through it?