A 62 year old's journey to qualify for the Boston Marathon
Today is an off day. Rather then be strictly “off,” I was thinking about taking the racing bike out for a not-too-intense ride. Well, when I got up at 4:15AM it was 25 degrees. That’s just too cold. It’d probably be a real-feel (“wind chill”) of around 15 degrees.
I still think adding a bike cross-training day in once and a while is a good idea, but not until it gets a bit warmer.
Today was a speed day. Run the following with a 400m jog in between each: 400, 800, 1200, 1600, 1200, 800 and 400. I felt tired before the 2 mile warm-up and definitely spent after these. It was about 30 degrees and around 18 with the wind chill.
It was fun figuring out a route to run these! Fortunately, I have a nice, rather flat and wide road not too far away with plenty of side streets to use as start/end points.
Target pace: 7:50, average was 8:19. Weight target was 149.86, actual was 152.8. I think the weight issue is due to a lack of getting around (pretty much) during the day since we’re all stuck at home. I plan to try to do some stretching and things like that each hour to nudge the metabolism up.
A week ago the run on the day after a long run was a real struggle. I felt very tired. Today’s 6 mile run was also after a long run (15 miles) yesterday and it wasn’t as bad.
Target pace: 9:50, actual: 9:47. Weight target: 150.0, actual: 153.0 (ouch!). Weight is such a variable number. Just keep at it ….
Whew. A 15 mile run on a rolling hills course. Pace was about 10:06 and the target was 9:50. Weight was 150.0 and the target was 150.14.
Everyone agrees that there’s a mental aspect to running. Including long runs in a training plan is as much mental training as it is physical. On a long run, you need to mentally sit back and be patient. You’re going to be out here a while. We all need to train our brains to relax and stop asking “how much longer.” And to also stop focusing on each step and “how we feel.” Feel? Doesn’t matter. We have 10 or 15 miles left. Shut up and relax.
I’m trying out doing some cross-training on the bike rather than just taking a day off. We’ll see how it works (or doesn’t). Cycling is a good workout for the legs and avoids the impact stresses of running. I put in 7.75 miles and when I got off the bike my legs felt like lead.
Today it was 29 degrees and a bit breezy. Not an ideal day for cycling. Note to self: warmer gloves and a wind-proof jacket are definitely needed.
Got out early (4AM) so that I could both avoid traffic and also avoid the snow that moved in a few hours later. As I type this at 7:35AM it’s snowing. It’ll probably 90 degrees next week. Go figure.
Today was a speed workout day. 4 x 1.25km at a target pace of 7:50. Actual pace was 7:52. Weight target was 150.7 and actual was 151.0.
As I ran, it occurred to me that there are a few components to “going faster,” or “speed,” for a longer distance:
From what I’ve read, we should have a tempo of around 180 steps/minute. OK, don’t increase tempo to increase speed. I also don’t think that increased stride length is a good idea at all. It changes your foot impact angle and puts a strain on your upper legs, e.g., hamstrings. Sounds like a recipe for injury. No, thanks.
I remember at the beginning of a half marathon last year a person running at about the same tempo and stride length as me but going distinctly faster than me. Ah! She was pushing harder with each step. As I ran each rep this morning I was trying to focus on pushing harder more than increasing tempo or stride length. We all seem to have a “default” amount of force we push with on each stride. The “default” feels like a natural, “steady state” amount of effort. The “steady state” feel changes a bit each day. To push harder I had to really concentrate — if I mentally veered off to something else I’d catch myself after a few seconds settling back into the “default” force.
It was a very tired run this morning. It’s what I expected after a 12.5 mile run the previous day. Good weather — 50 degrees, some wind, sunny.
Target pace: 9:50, actual pace: 9:56. Target weight: 151.0, actual: 153.4. 88 days until the Mad Marathon.
12.5 mile run, 52 degrees, windy and raining. I try to run early in the morning. Since it’s dark, it’s really hard to tell where the potholes are — they all look like puddles. I stepped into a deep one that (obviously) was filled with cold water.
Weight: 150.6, target is 151.1. Running pace: 9:44, target is 9:32.
It was warm enough to switch to cross-training on the bike. Put in about 5.25 miles on one of my hills routes. I’d like to work in a cross-training day on the bike each week.
It’ll be interesting to see how my leg reacts, since it isn’t a running/pounding type of workout. I moved the long run (12 miles) to tomorrow.
13 weeks until the Mad Marathon. Weight: 153.1.
6.2 miles on a rather flat route, a 9:26 pace (faster than the 9:50 “easy” pace), on a nice, sunny morning.
One of the things I’m also targeting is to get some excess weight off. Aren’t we all, eh? It’s interesting how much our weight varies. Two days ago it was 153.0, yesterday it was 155.2 and today it was 149.6. My goal is to get to 140 in time for the Mad Marathon on July 12th. 95 days an counting.
As others are experiencing, I’m having a hard time getting to sleep at night. All the COVID-19 impacts are not easy to stop thinking about late at night. It makes getting up at 4AM or 5AM to hit the pavement a bit challenging. Hopefully I can get the schedule back to my early morning normal! After all, one of these days we’ll all be commuting back to the office during rush hour.