71 Days, 20 hours to go...
Of all the training updates during this marathon build-up, today probably constitutes the best so far in terms of weather. While still humid, the air temperature felt cool to the skin. The sky was clear and bright, except for a few rippling clouds that looked like ocean surf. Dew clung to the grass all about, and cicada-song rippled over the adjacent forest. On the whole it was a fine morning.
With that said, today was also the lightest I've been before a workout, coming in at 154lbs even after eating a banana and drinking some water. This was a bit concerning, since I've had problems in the past trying to run a workout at a low weight. Since today marked the beginning of a new training-cycle, I wondered whether a dud workout was in store. That wouldn't feel good, though sometimes it happens. As it turned out, however, my fears were overblown. The workout came off well, and I finished only two pounds lighter (152lbs, or a 1.3% decrease).
Following some debate, I elected to do 4x1200m at roughly the same pace I'd been doing the Yasso-800s. Having found some success in earlier workouts, it seemed like a good idea to try extending that pace another 400m to see what happened. In this way the training stress would be different, and thereby yield new adaptations.
The first one was poorly paced, going out at 1:44 for the first 400m, 3:24 through the 800m, and finishing at 4:59 for the 1200m. The second one was almost as bad, going out at 1:36, coming through the 8 at 3:16, and finishing with 4:55. After that, however, I got a better sense of rhythm and finished the last two in 4:54 and 4:47 respectively, both with relatively even splits for each lap. Following that, I ran a hard 400m in 81 seconds. So the final splits for the workout went as follows--4:59, 4:55, 4:54, 4:47, 81.
This was a good workout, and it's encouraging to feel strong even when my body-weight was a bit low at the start. Having a capacity to run fast when under one's usual weight could prove valuable during the marathon, since I'm liable to lose a fair bit of weight throughout the race. Adapting to that circumstance may help me maintain a faster running speed throughout the final third of the distance, where last year I really tanked.
One final point I might make about this workout is that 1200m is likely to be the longest interval I do during this marathon build-up. Some people like doing mile repeats, but I will not likely go that far. The reason for this based on the advice of two coaches. The first is Jack Daniels, the exercise physiologist who wrote Daniels' Running Formula (1998). In it he suggests when doing intervals not to go shorter than 2-minutes or longer than 5-minutes. Granted, the intervals I'm doing are all slower than what Daniels would typically call "Interval Training," for someone of my ability, but given that I think this general rule is useful in avoiding overtraining (repetitions on the other hand, which are designed to improve running speed, should take less than 2-minutes). The other coach who mentioned this was Andrew Alden at the coaching seminar I attended in March. While discussing Daniels' training theory, Mr. Alden described how some years ago he decided to stop using mile-repeats with his cross country team, and found as a result that they tended to have better seasons in general.
This is anecdotal, but isn't entirely surprising. It seems possible that for people running slower than 5-flat miles in workouts that 1200m repeats may provide nearly as much benefit as mile-repeats without as much stress. This may come closer to maximizing the balance between training gains and training stress, and therefore be more optimal than doing mile-repeats simply because one's coach did them when he or she was in high school or college. Something to experiment with and consider perhaps.
In any case I'm pleased with how today went, and look forward to another week of preparation and recovery. We're just about 10 weeks out from race day, and with the weather getting cooler and the seasons starting to shift, things seem to be coming together nicely. How everything goes on race-day is anyone's guess, but I'm feeling happy and fit, and that counts for quite a lot at day's end. 71 days, 20 hours to go...
Happy Friday, friends :)
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