I’m proud of myself. Last week was my first 50-mile week EVER.
I tried reading “Run Less, Run Faster” earlier this year but there were too many formulas in there for me. I get confused — same thing with Crossfit Endurance.
So…I said, screw it. I noticed Dorothy posting her weekly training mileage — which is up in the 70s I believe — and I thought to myself, holy crap I’m not even coming near that.
Obviously, I’m not 3-hour-ish marathoner but I know I can stand to run more — or perhaps, I can’t afford NOT to run more if I want to make this thing happen.
I’m realizing that the more miles I run at a time, the less daunting it seems the next time. Now that I’ve run 20 miles before work, I feel confident that I can do it again (and just might be doing so this Friday.)
Yesterday, I ran 8 miles on my lunch break and then — shockingly — kind of wanted to run the 8 miles home just because! Is that weird? It felt weird.
I chose not to run home from work because I don’t want to overuse my legs — as I had an 11-miler planned for this morning. I figured running that without spacing at least 24 hours in between another 16 could be bad news.
The last thing I want is an injury. Speaking of which…my legs have been totally cool this year. Thank you legs for not having any knee problems whatsoever! My legs are magical — as is my back.
Is it a coincidence that I’ve experienced NO injury after doing 6 months of Crossfit? I must say, it seems to be correlated. I’ve NEVER been able to train like this without something going whack. So far, nothing. What can I say? THANK YOU Crossfit for this sturdy foundation you’ve built.
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| I squeezed in a half marathon with Lindsey as part of my training this year, running it in 1:54. |
Anyway, I’m going for another 50+ week this week, which will be easier with a 20-miler in the sched. I considered aiming for 60 but that might be too much. We’ll see how the week pans out. The plan:
- Monday: 8
- Tuesday: 11
- Wednesday: 5
- Thursday: 10
- Friday: 21
- Saturday: 5
- Sunday: rest
I’m SO curious to see if this higher mileage makes a difference in the race. Additionally, I’ve been forcing myself to run a faster pace than I ever have during training. Yesterday’s 8-miler was done at an 8:30 minute mile average (see RunKeeper pic above, it says 8:40 but I didn’t stop the watch for stoplights, etc.)
Maintaining that speed is really hard for me and I find myself getting so jealous when I see other running bloggers logging training miles in the 7’s. I can barely get myself under 8 minutes per mile and I feel like my body is just dragging me down. How can I make this thing go faster without killing myself?
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| Does this look like the stride of a sub-4 marathoner? I think not. Seems like most of my pix never look like I’m really killing it. |
The truth is, I’m scared to hope for a sub-4 marathon. But…in reality, I ran the Baltimore Marathon last year in 4:11. Chopping off at least 11 minutes is SO do-able. I can. I will.
I had originally planned on continuing with Crossfit WODs at home when I paused my box membership. As expected, I’ve barely completed any. When I’m running 10+ miles on weekdays, I just don’t have it in me to add a WOD. Will this hurt me? I’m only concerned about leg and core strength really.
One month out, we’ll see what worked and what didn’t.
*PSST: Check out Glenn’s Full Iron Man recap here!