As I mentioned in my last post, the main goal of my current cycle is the sub-65 half-marathon standard required to qualify for next February's Olympic Marathon Trials. My first 4 weeks have gone surprisingly close to script with a little bit more mileage than planned, but I am feeling good so far.
Right after the Garry Bjorklund half-marathon I took some "down time" and ran mostly easy miles for the next 3 weeks with some unplanned farleks/pickups thrown into my runs here and there. The 3 weeks right after the race were 102, 102, and 120. I was also an idiot and ran a downhill half marathon a week after Garry Bjorklund that started at around 10,5000 feet and dropped 2000+ feet. I walked (or limped?) away with the W, but the damage definitely stayed in my legs for the next 3-4 days. Then, about 10 days after the Garry Bjorklund Half, Maureen and I left for a 9-day Caribbean cruise. We did a lot of the excursions available, but with so much time at sea while traveling between ports I was able to put in about 159 miles in 16 runs during our 9 days on the ship, with all except 5 miles of this done on the treadmills in the gym, Most of the runs were steady/easy effort, but occasionally I got bored and would throw in 2-5 minute pickups here and there at tempo/MP effort. I came back from the trip feeling recharged and ready to start my training cycle.
Without further ado, below is what I have been up to since the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon.
Active Recovery Week 1 - 102 miles.
Quality Session: Slacker Half Marathon - 1:10:21 (1st place)
Active Recovery Week 2 - 102 miles
Active Recovery Week 3 - 120 miles
"Chasing Sub 65" Cycle Week 1 - 133 miles
Quality Session 1: 25x400s with 60s rest. I got carried away early on and had to take 3 min rest after the 20th (jogged 500 meters) and ended up averaging 70.59 for the 400s with an average rest of a little under 63 seconds. This still compared favorably with the last time I did this session in early May where I averaged about 0.2s/400 slower for 20 repeats.
Quality Session 2: Lake Atwood 10-miler in 53:24. This was a nice money grab with Kenny Foster and Robby Young, unfortunately some Boulder guys and Kenyans showed up so we didn't make as much money as we were hoping for, but I still ran a solid progression in some pretty humid weather. I went out in about 5:25-5:30 and worked my way down, came through halfway in 27 flat or so and slowly grinded the pace down into the 5:17-5:18 range til the finish.
"Chasing Sub 65" Cycle Week 2 - 131 miles
Quality Session 1: 5x1 "mile" at MVP. I think my sense of pace/effort was still rusty after the weeks off even though my fitness has apparently progressed a bit. I ended up going 4:50, 4:50, 4:52, 4:56, 4:48 with 2:30 rest in between. Last time I did this workout was 2.5 weeks before the Garry Bjorklund Half, comparing the two efforts I averaged about 1s/mi faster than last time while taking about 15s less rest on average for recovery. I just wish I had started a bit more controlled and didn't "bonk" a little on the 4th one.
Quality Session 2: I set out to do 3x2 "miles" at MVP, and again had to alter the workout slightly. I made it through the first 2 2-mile repeats feeling okay but taking 2-minute recovery instead of 2:30-3 minutes like I usually do with the workout was a bit tougher than expected. I wanted to come through the first lap of the last rep relaxed before picking it up, but when I looked down and saw I had run a 5:06 I temporarily lost it mentally and decided on the spot to take a 2-minute rest. I then came back with a 4:55 for my last "mile". Workout ended up being 10:02, 10:03, 5:06, 4:55 with 2 minutes between everything.
"Chasing Sub 65" Cycle Week 3 - 121 miles
Quality Session1: 10x800s with 2:23.54 average. The last comparable effort was 12x800s @ 2:24.97 back in February before the Phoenix half. I had 2 minutes average rest both times, but felt that the conditions for this workout was slightly worse due to it being a bit warm/humid, but not by much. Splits were 2:25.7, 2:23.9, 2:23.9, 2:22.2, 2:21.5, 2:23.7, 2:23.2, 2:24.2, 2:24.5, 2:23.0. Again, I started rolling a little bit too early into the workout and had to hang on for a bit before closing somewhat decently at the end.
Quality Session 2: Nielsen 2-mile (9:58!) followed by 6x(2min on, 3 min off) about 15 minutes later. The original plan was to run the Evergreen Town Race, which is a fast downhill 10K but it starts around 8600 feet and there was apparently no prize money this year. I don't mind the lack of prize money, but it pretty much guarantees lack of competition as well so instead of paying for a race and driving 2 hours both ways I just stayed home and took a crack at the Nielsen. I was pretty much solo after 600 meters and cruised a bit from 1-1.5 miles, which was the toughest 1/2 mile segment of the course but I was able to come back and close hard the last half mile to become the 9th runner to dip under 10 minutes on this course. I averaged around 4:54-4:55 pace for the 2-minute pickups so I was happy with this.
Quality Session 3: I rarely run 3 quality session a week nowadays, but since Jason has been helping me out on the 400s/800s the past couple of weeks and I ran a relatively short workout yesterday I ran his marathon pace workout with him. 2x4 miles with about 2:30 rest and we hit 5:45 pace on the nose. This felt comfortably fast to me, I would estimate this to be about 95% of MP effort right now.
"Chasing Sub 65" Cycle Week 4 - 130 miles
Quality Session1: This was supposed to be a down week with one long quality effort scheduled for the end of the week. However, I called an audible midweek and decided to try to do a midweek downhill tempo to get my legs for the my downhill half-marathon this weekend. I warmed up 3 miles up a route with some climbs and planned to do a 10K tempo at somewhere between HMP and MP effort. I came through 3 miles in 15:32 after approximately 330 feet of elevation loss according to Strava. Shortly before I hit the 4 mile mark I hit a substantial uphill that killed my momentum and I ended up running a 5:29. I temporarily pulled the plug on the workout, but then after a half mile "float" at around 6:16 pace I threw down a 4:58 mile. (Yes, I'll confess to doing this on a 1-mile Strava segment to get the CR :)) I did another 85-90s float and then closed out the workout with another half mile at about tempo effort. Summary of workout 4 mile in 21:01 (5:08, 5:13, 5:10, 5:29), 0.5mi float @ 6:16, 1 mile in 4:58, 85s @ 6:44, 2:39 for 0.5mi. (Total = 33:30 10K)
Quality Sesson 2: Georgetown to Idaho Springs HM - 69:41 (1st). Going into this race I had two goals, win and run sub-70:21 (beat my time from the Slackers half). I feel like this is a slightly slower course than Slackers with about 1000 feet of elevation loss at slightly lower altitude. My plan was to run 5:25-5:30 for the first 4 miles or so where the course seemed to be flatter and start picking it up to the 5:15-5:20 range for the second half of the race. Although if somebody faster showed up I felt like I was ready to run 5:15s or even 5:10s to try to win. Luckily, the gun went off and I was pretty much alone after the first 2-3 steps so I could focus on doing my "workout". Below is the data:
1. 5:25 (+10 ft)
2. 5:25 (-9 ft)
3. 5:15 (-80 ft)
4. 5:13 (-60 ft)
5. 5:24 (-22 ft)
6. 5:14 (-135 ft)
7. 5:19 (-80 ft)
8. 5:27 (-88 ft) <- this mile was mostly dirt trails and not very even at all, so I backed off a little so as not go kill myself
9. 5:17 (-109 ft)
10. 5:16 (-96 ft)
11. 5:20 (-69 ft)
12. 5:10 (-73 ft)
13. 5:12 (-68 ft)
0.13. 36s (4:42/mi)
Most of the effort felt like it was right in between marathon pace and true half-marathon effort, although with all the miles in my legs I honestly didn't know if I could run much faster if I had to. Although around mile 11 I started feeling pretty good and closed the race with my fastest two miles despite the fact that course was starting to level off a bit. Given that the course has about 400-500 less feet of elevation loss than the Tucson Half (where I ran 68:04 last December) and the average elevation for the race is about 4000-5000 feet higher (worth about 10s/mi in my book) this was definitely a much better "half-marathon race/tempo" than I did last December in Tucson, possibly by 60-90s. Either way, training is going well and I am really looking forward to the next 7 weeks before I take my first shot at the sub-65 standard.
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