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Week-to-Week, this blog may seem pretty boring, but I am hopeful this will become meaningful to me (and maybe others) once I work though this training cycle and see what Dave and I can do. I am sharing the workouts we decide to do, showing where we are starting from (the bottom) and anticipating that we will create momentum all the way the leads to Dave and I having some great marathon experiences together. This is my real life training. It is the good, the bad, and the ugly. Maybe someone will be inspired. Maybe not. Maybe I will simply enjoy seeing how far I can go in a few months of training. We shall see. :) So week three is done. Another week down and I am happy to have completed the three hard workouts on the schedule. The plan underwent some revisions based upon how Dave and I were feeling. It is so easy to write out an entirely too ambitious plan when you are writing one for yourself. I am alway more conservative and more realistic with my athletes than I am with myself. This is because I know that I will absolutely revise the plan to set me up to succeed without self-judgment, whereas my athletes often experience a revision as an indication of failure... which is never the case. So this week Dave and I decided: (1) The long runs I had hoped to do were clearly too ambitious. The heat/humidity was too much for me (Dave probably too) to tolerate without any acclimation under us. And I haven't run long in a long time. So Dave and I decided we would take a few weeks to build up to 20 miles LR without any pressure to run any specific pace. After we reach 20M, we will take a rest week and then start working on Fast Finish long runs from there. Here is the week mostly in pictures.
Tuesday Speed Alternates: For those following along, I meet Dave on Tuesdays for speed. I developed a new systematic progression for us to torture ourselves with. They won't get truly hard for a while, but right now we are laying the foundation for that hard work. This week we ran 9M with 6M of them speed work consisting of .3M hard/ .7M Recovery. This was a bump up by .1M of the hard running from last week with a decrease of .1M of the recovery. We will repeat this on week 4 as well. During the hard run, we try to run as fast as possible. I don't have any window to target. I don't even look at the pace, I just run as hard as possible until it is time to stop. I am happy to see that our speed is getting faster. Last week during .2's we were actually slower. Lap 13 was our last hard burst and I am so happy to see a sub-6 pace there. I went home and did some Resistance Training. Just body-weight stuff at home.
 Wednesday is my Rest Day. I just walk the dogs. I need to get in some flex work but this is always hard to feel motivated to do. I don't know why. I know it is not just me. I know many people who would rather do anything else but stretch or foam roll. I did make green soup. This is awesome. I have been buying bags of greens faster than I can eat them (clearly I have good intentions but I buying without checking what I need). I blended a few bags of greens into chicken stock with sautéed mirepoix and some quinoa I added some Enzo olive oil and red pepper flakes at the end. This stuff is amazing. Thursday is Hill Day. The one rule of "The Tour of Morristown" Hill Day is no one is allowed to turn down a hill. If we can go up, we choose up over down. It is like the rules of improv comedy, you are not allowed to say "no"... no matter how ridiculous the idea.
Friday is another day with Kim. We do her LR on Mondays, so Friday will be a little easier. Today was a 6M run/walk day. It was hot/humid and it slowed us down. But we got it done.
Saturday was my 16M Long Run (any way I could do it). It was so freaking hot. It "felt like" 90 degrees on my weather app but in real life it felt like I was running in Hell. At mile 12, I contemplated calling Sidney to come get me. But I decided I could get myself home even if I was slow. I knew pace didn't matter and starting my run at 11:00 am meant I was going to suffer, so I wasn't shocked it felt so bad. I lost 7 lbs on this run from dehydration it was that hot. But it got done and I know I will be better off for having done it.
Sunday is my standing 8-12M run with Alanna. We drive 45-50 minutes each way to meet to run. We don't care really what we do, we just know that if we are getting up early to meet it needs to be between 8-12. Sometimes we do more but not today! Today I felt like I was run over by a truck. I needed to keep the pace easy. I added a lot of walking. I carried water which I rarely do but no calories. By mile 8 I was so incredibly hungry. I hit the wall hard. This is such a great sign for me. I know it means I am changing. This is how it starts. I chase after this bonk. I want to look it in the face and tell it that I am not concerned. If I can get used to feeling this way in training, when I show up on race day, well-rested, well-fueled, well-trained, "The Wall" just doesn't exist. Today it existed and I was actually happy to run into it again. I haven't run into that wall in a long long time.
Stats and prediction for the week: Apparently STRYD believes I am getting slower. Thanks! Garmin has me the same. I did my own calculations, which my athletes can tell you that I am quite good at. Based upon our speed work, I believe we have the speed for a 3:20... but only once our LRs are up over 20. So right now, we aren't in 3:20 shape. I hope to be by August.
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Shannon McGinn, JD, MS, MA, EDS, NBC-HWC, ATR-BC, LPAT.
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