PORTLAND MARATHON TRAINING UPDATE

Progress so far. Green=run/action completed. Blue=vacations. Orange=races.

Marathon training has been going great. Since my initial post about my marathon training plan I tweaked the plan quite a bit, however, the current plan has been in place since I started training back in late April (I even bumped the start of training up). The main change was the reduction in amount of days running per week from five to four. SO glad I did that! In return, I bumped up the acceleration in my long run distances, so I'd hit the "upper distances" sooner and hopefully adjust quicker.

I've tweaked things once or twice, mostly to accommodate doing activities that would take place during my normal runs. However, each week I've hit four runs, three weekday and one long weekend. That will change this week however... I'll only do two weekday runs. After my 18 mile run on Saturday I felt very worn and sore. I ran 7 miles at group Monday and another 6 on Wednesday. I took yesterday off. I needed it... I was still very sore and worn down. I hadn't felt very good at all since Saturday and was hobbling around like an old man. I feel much better today (Friday) and I think the time off, coupled with an easy 12 miler tomorrow, will get me back to being fresh!

In addition to hitting all my runs each week, I've been incorporating one "fast" run into my routine most weeks. Some weeks this is booking sub 8 minute miles the last few (clocked a 7:14 the final mile of one six mile run) after starting at 8:20ish; other times it's just averaging a solid 8:05/mi over the whole six miles. I kind of like the unstructured nature of these runs... I just do them when I'm feeling like it so they aren't necessarily scheduled on a specific day. I think feeling obligated to run fast on a day when I'm not feeling like it could burn me and affect other runs, so I'm just going to keep doing this. I do need to start speedwork at some point (aka 8 x 400s) but that can wait until after the marathon. At this point it's about finishing 26.2 miles at a decent clip without flaming out.

To the right you can see the cart of my weekly run totals. The yellow star signifies where I started my marathon training. For the most part I just added one weekday run and increased my long run distance. I wasn't doing too bad of a job before that though minus the two week Vegas soon. Last week was actually the most miles in a week I had ever run at 37. That, plus the 18 miler, is one reason why I felt run down. Anyways, I've been proud of how consistent I've been at keeping to the schedule. I've found the race and training plan very motivating for getting out there and preparing myself for the Portland Marathon. Whenever I feel like crap during a run (fairly often), I just remind myself it's all for Portland and how amazing it will be to cross that finish line.

Things will get much harder in the coming weeks. I have four 20+ mile runs on the schedule plus summer heating things up. I'm going to have to get out the door early on some of these runs if I don't want to wilt away and die. The Corvallis Fall Festival Run is poorly timed and that will be interesting to see how I run that... probably shouldn't book a 5k a week before my marathon. Otherwise the challenge is just trying to stay fresh despite the long runs and hot days. Is it October yet?