Famous Trios

Since Gordon has gone AWOL again, I think Ross and I need to step it up this week. Ross, I have some ideas for a Famous Trios piece. See if you can pick up on the recurring theme.

• Rocky, Bulwinkle, and Count Snidely
• Lewis, Clark, and an Indian they slaughtered on the trail
• Hall, Oates, and Oates's mustache that got shaved off when the duo reformed
• God, Jesus, and Judas
• Abbott, Costello, and a wad of used toilet paper

Week 20 Recap

Sam: S(22), M(6), T(6), W(12, 1000's), R(7), F(6), S(10). Total=69. Not a bad week coming off 71. The long run felt easy, and my Wednesday workout went well. Finally, we've reached the 6-week mark for the marathon. Tomorrow, I'm taking the day off for the Phillies game. It's good timing since I haven't had a day off in a while. After that, the focus will be on two hard workouts Tuesday and Thursday, with Tuesday being pace work and Thursday probably being more mile stuff.

RO$$: S(5), M(9), T(0), W(11), R(9), F(9), S(5). 48 miles total. While the total was low, it was a better week than that indicates, because Friday's run was the first run where I would say that I felt "good" since the half-marathon. So I went decently fast through some stretches of that run, and then went for a pretty strenuous bike ride later that night. I'm not sure how long it was, but it was probably something in the neighborhood of 15-20 miles. So I was wiped out Saturday. I knew that if I went 7, I would hit 50 for the week, but I decided it was better to quit while I was ahead rather than shoot for some arbitrary barrier I've exceeded hundreds of times. It paid off, because my run today went well.

Reading Sam's log makes me think that he's going to beat me and Gordon by half an hour, and deservedly so. However, coming up on Saturday for me: An actual race. It's a 10k on a super hilly course. I usually run it with my dad but he's hurt, so I'm on my own. In other words, look out, Mt. Lebanon.

Yasso 1000's

On somewhat of a variation from the traditional 800's (run 10 of them with about equal rest and your average time "equates" to your marathon time), today I did Yasso 1000's. Basically, it's the same workout but a little tougher to make up for the fact that I'm a lower distance guy at heart.

I did 8x1000 with one lap jog between reps (about 2:30 rest). Splits were as follows:

3:20.5
3:19.9
3:21.0
3:18.6
3:19.4
3:17.8
3:19.1
3:16.9

Since 3:20 pace is going through 800 in 2:40, I would be very happy if this equated to anything close to my marathon time. The good news is that my legs are rocks at this point. The only trouble I had with the workout was on the last lap of some of the later reps when I had to breathe a little more heavily than I wanted to. That and some stomach issues. If I had to guess, it will be low energy/GI stuff that does me in if the marathon turns out to be a failure.

Unfinished Biz

With six and a half weeks to go, I am realizing that there are a number of blog items that I need to catch up on, namely a few celebrity interviews and the remaining installments of the course preview series. (As for the latter, for the previous installments, please go here and here.)

We left off at the first relay exchange, with most of the marathon still in front of us. Once they finalize the course, I will attempt, with Ross's help, to examine things more carefully so as to avoid epic blowups. If you take a peek at the image below, you should get a pretty good taste of what will have transpired by the first relay exchange (essentially a walk in the park with brain functioning at 10%), but in case you're an idiot and can't read pictures, and you're too lazy to read the earlier posts, I've typed out a summary for you--in bullet points, no less.

• Older man in glasses challenges Sam at starting line.
• After the gun goes off, le trois move their way into the lead pack, working through hordes of people who somehow thought it would be a good idea to run the first 400 meters of their four hour marathon at 5:30 pace.
• Ricky Lader (who has two heads and breathes fire) makes a go at Wilson Wanjiru Cheseret Kipketer Abugayo, who won last year's race by an hour and a half.
• Gordon realizes at the half mile mark that he's got some distance to go still. He asks his arthritic left knee to give it one more go and pushes onward.
  
• Ross stops for a Primanti Bros. submarine sandwich or "grinder" as they call it in Pittsburgh.
• Sam's kidneys begin failing him. Six minute pace may not be a valid option.

I'll let that marinate for a while and, in the meantime, promise to recommit to getting a Rojo interview up along with some actual thoughts on the marathon course.

Week 19 Recap

RO$$: S(9), M(8), T(11), W(0), R(11), F(0), S(17). 56 miles total. Really not a great week, although it was my highest daily average for one week so far. Today's long run did not go well. I drove out to a trail where I could do a relatively flat, out-and-back run. My intent was to run out nine miles at whatever pace I felt like, and then see what I could do on the way back. Well, on the way back I had a side stitch that I couldn't shake (which is my fault since my only pre-run food was a cinnamon bun and a blueberry muffin), and eventually my legs started shutting down. Once I hit mile 17, I decided to just walk it in rather than do further damage. That probably sounds worse than how things actually played out, since most of the way back I was going around 6:50 pace (which felt slow), and I never went slower than 7:20. Still, I certainly wasn't blazing in around 6:00 pace as I had hoped I would. Lesson of the day for the race: respect the distance.

And, Sam, I loved your last post. I laughed out loud when you said you were trying to hit 90 this week. I admire the ambition. Apologies to the readers for my recent silence. (The flood of emails can stop now.) Maybe I'll write a post of my top fifty least favorite things that kill the excitement in the last minute of college basketball games.

Sam: S(20), M(6), T(14), W(5), R(14), F(6), S(6). Total = 71. In the scenario where I ran 90 this week, Friday would have been 10 and I would have logged a second long run today (Saturday)--the old fake long week that Robert and Bruce used to rave about during long-short summer mileage training. Alas, it obviously didn't happen. Oh well, probably for the best.

Pace Work

This morning, Natalie was up and out the door by 5:30. She's been periodically going to Ithaca to oversee a test panel at IC for her upcoming book. I slept. In fact, I usually sleep as long as I can, generally 8-9 hours a night. I think the biggest reason for this has been the running.

This week has been good but rough on the legs. My quads have a deep-seated sort of fatigue that disappears when I take an easy day but returns mid-workout. A lot of last week's work has carried over into this week's, I think.

I felt it at the end of my long run on Sunday. Tuesday, I did a workout where I did 4x Barry Park, which is, at this time of year, a super muddy 1.1 mile circle near our house. Splits there were 6:39, 6:34, 6:34, 6:36 for an average pace of about 6 minutes per mile. I then went to the SU track for 3x mile but ended up running 2x 1.5 miles since it felt easy. These were at 5:48 and 5:50 pace, respectively. When I got home, quad time was back with a vengeance.

Wednesday I dropped an easy 5 miles with Natalie and was feeling good, but then yesterday, I foolishly did another workout: 3x 8 minutes at 5:40 pace with a mile-pace 400 after each rep and a 5:40 mile at the end.

My initial plan for this week--driven by the allure of logging a ridiculous 90 miles on singles thanks to sandwiched long runs and long midweek workouts--was to bump my long run to Saturday. The other idea was to run Saturday's 10 mile Mountain Goat training run at marathon pace. But come on. That would be stupid. The new plan is to run as easy as possible for two days before doing another long Sunday.

Post note: I suppose I could have waited until tomorrow to post all this workout drivel. Oh well.

Week 18 Recap

Sam: Good rebound week. S(14, race), M(9), T(off), W(6), T(10), F(8, back on the trails!), S(10, Mountain Goat training run closing the last few miles around 6 minute pace). Total=57. It took me until Thursday or so before I was clear of the residual half-marathon fatigue. Today's run, I felt great. It's nice to have the feeling that I've got my legs back under me. The Hal Higdon plan calls for pace work the day before a long run. Tomorrow I'm going for another 20 miler, so we'll see if I pay for it.

RO$$: S(14), M(8), T(7), W(7), R(9), F(8), S(9). 62 miles total. This ended up being my highest week yet, but it didn't feel like anything special. The fact that it's light out now and a little warmer has made a world of difference. I will say that I still don't feel fully recovered from the race, which surprises me since I didn't feel all that taxed afterward, but from Wednesday of last week through Monday of this week things were pretty hectic, so I'm probably just wiped out in general. Those two seven mile runs were sheer hell. On Tuesday the plantar fascia of my left foot hurt so bad that I thought it might legitimately set back my training, but on Wednesday I started wearing my Superfeet shoe inserts again and now my foot feels normal. I'm sure my legs would feel better if I took a day off, but I'll rest when I'm dead.

Gordon: S(14), M(5), T(5), W(8), R(5), F(5), S(11) 50 miles total. Looks like I'm the turd in the punch bowl, here, but I was tired this week. I am aiming for a 70 week here and I'm going to try and cap it off with a 20 miler on Saturday.