Week 8 - Marathon Training — The Batesman Chronicles

This was a good week as far as volume was concerned—the first week of 50+ miles in my training plan. And with one day of running to go in the month of December, it appears that I will cover just over 200 miles in the month. For me, that is the point where I start to train with the most confidence. I have a long way to go, but knowing now at the end of the year that I can run a 50-mile week and a 200-mile month, I am certain that my body is ready for the harder work that is coming soon.

Week 8 - Training Record
Monday - 8.0 mi w/ 5k Race
Tuesday - 7.7 mi
Wednesday - 8.0 mi w/ 4 .x Long Hill Repeats
Thursday - Off
Friday - 7.4 mi
Saturday - 13.5 mi
Sunday - 7.9 mi w/ 5 mi @ Marathon Goal Pace

Total - 52.4 miles

Christmas Eve started with a nice 5k race. I ran it with my family, including my kids who are both home from college. While I appreciated racing on a course that was crushed rock, it was also a course that consisted of three one-mile loops, which meant that in the second and third loops we were passing and weaving through the traffic of walkers.

No matter how many 5k races I go to, no matter how often the race director informs walkers at the beginning of the race to leave room for runners, I always see groups of walkers strolling 5-astride and taking up the entire width of the racing lane. (If you are a 5k walker and you are reading this, please do not ever be that sort of walker in a race again. Two abreast is plenty wide.)

The weaving through traffic made for a clumsy second and third mile, but even so my time was still somewhat respectable—21:15. I’m gearing toward a 5k race on January 19, so that is the race I anticipate will be a better measure of my growing fitness. I’m not training hard for that distance anyway, but the 5k races themselves serve as solid speed workouts as I enter the teeth of the training period.

Week 9 - Training Plan
Monday - Easy Run
Tuesday - 1-mile Tempo Intervals
Wednesday - Easy Run
Thursday - Short Hill Repeats
Friday - Easy Run
Saturday - Off
Sunday - 10k Race
Target - 38-42 miles

On Wednesday I completed the first of what will be a staple workout for the next three months—800m hill repeats. I’ll complete them every other week until the end of March. They are brutal, and not much fun, especially in the rain. The hill that I run is just over 800m (840m to be exact) and has an elevation gain of 107 feet. It levels off the last 140m, but for most of the distance is has a slope of 5%. While I don’t like running long hills, I do like what they do for my fitness. Hills serve as both a speed and a strength workout. I ran 4 x repeats with an easy jog back down the hill. I keep track of my splits to measure them against what I will run in the coming weeks.

I was pleased with how the workout progressed. Here are my splits:

1 – 3:53.3
2 – 3:54.2
3 – 3:52.1
4 – 3:49.9
Average – 3:52.4

My day off was Thursday this past week, so that pushed back my long run to Saturday. I ran for an even 110 minutes at a 8:05 pace. That turned out to be just over 13.5 miles.

Sunday’s run turned out to be a 5-mile steady state run at marathon goal pace. Only it turned out to be faster than planned. My target was 7:35-7:38, but I ran fairly even splits at 7:23.

Week 9 is another mileage drop. I have a 10k race that I am geared to run at full effort on Sunday, so cutting back to 38-40 miles is probably a wise thing to do. After that I will consider myself officially on my marathon training plan of sixteen weeks. I will have brought a good base fitness to the beginning of this period, but this is where the toughness is build and the patience is honed. Thanks for coming along with me on the ride.