Ludicrous Speed!

Week 16: 1/24/10 - 1/31/10 (2 weeks remain)

So I was somewhat lazy/irresponsible/partially done in by a recent snap of inclement weather this week, but overall, I'm actually feeling pretty good about my race preparedness.

Monday: Off day

Tuesday: 8 miles, recovery.

Wednesday: Didn't run. No (good) excuse :-/. (Although it was only supposed to be 5 today).

Thursday: 12 miles, medium-long. Did a 10 mile loop with Karin from her house (Hyde Park) up to the peak of Mt. Bonnell - the hill workouts I've been doing have been paying off. Tacked on an additional 2 miles with an out-and-back from Karin's house along Red River to the intersection of Dean Keeton. Medium-distance, medium effort day.

Friday: Also didn't run - got back from lab late, and it was 35 degrees and pissing rain when I got home :-/. (Fortunately, today was also only supposed to be 5).

Saturday: 10 miles, general aerobic. 10 miles around Town Lake with Karin. Apparently there's a super nice trail running along the south bank of the river beginning at the Congress Street Bridge that I just now found out about? Put in a 1 mile uptempo just because.

A preamble: It just so happened that as I was stretching out last week at the east end of Town Lake before starting my long run (as is my custom), a pretty fit-looking guy comes running past going the same direction I am. Figuring that 20 miles is a fair distance to cover by oneself (especially after having been running long and solo for 15 weeks previously), I suggested that we run together for a while. It turns out that this guy, Matt, had just started training for the Capital 10k (to be held April 11). So we end up running for a good while around Town Lake, and agreed to meet up the following week, as we seemed to be about the same speed and both of us had gotten pretty tired of doing our long runs alone.

Sunday: 16 miles, long run, with Matt. So today was the last serious long run before race day (the "long run" next week is only 13, and hardly merits the title). Apparently Matt has a sister who's also running the Austin Marathon with the goal of qualifying for Boston, and she had mentioned to him that the first 17 miles or so have quite a few rolling hills, but that the last 9 miles is essentially all flat or downhill. Matt suggested that we do 5 miles out along the river leaving from the parking lot at the east end of Town Lake, do a 7-mile loop of hills along the race route, and then back along the same way we went out.

Ideally, I'd like to run the actual race somewhere in the 2:50 to 3:00 range, which comes out to a per-mile pace of 6:40 to 6:52. As it so happens, we were both feeling pretty good, so we started out a little on the fast side, around 6:15-ish. Around mile 2 or so (after having passed the traffic light at the intersection of I-35 and Riverside) we dropped it down to around 6:00...

and then held that pace within +/- :05 for the next 13 miles, including 5 miles of rolling hills (we managed to get turned around up in the hills and somehow cut off 2 miles of the hill workout, although Matt assures me that there was only actually one hill of any real significance in that particular section). Here is a picture of us taken somewhere on the north side of the river:


After getting back to the parking lot, I threw in an additional mile cooldown to try to stretch my legs out (they were feeling pretty stiff, as it was 35 degrees again).

Total weekly mileage: 46

So in light of Sunday's run, I'm feeling pretty good about my overall race preparedness - I won't have to run nearly so fast, and the fact that I can hold that pace for extended periods of time leads me to believe that I ought to be able to qualify come race day - especially when the downhills kick in at mile 18.

Additionally, although I was certainly winded when we got back to the cars, after returning home, I didn't feel the 1 1/2-hour-nap-inducing death-fatigue that I recall feeling when I began doing my long runs way back in November, and even up to a few weeks ago before I really started ramping up the mileage on the long runs. Certainly, this is at least partially due to having been training at higher mileages for 16 weeks now. However, I also tried experimenting with some Gu today, not having tried this stuff before, and I wonder whether or to what extent my lack of post-running fatigue may have been due to that? (For the record, as per directions, I took one of them about 15 minutes before starting the run, and another about 45 minutes to an hour into it.) However, given a time goal of 2:50 to 3:00, this would require taking three of these things into the race with me. Taking one of them doesn't actually consume that much time (I think I timed the operation at approximately :30 from start to finish), but that seems like a lot of gel/fluid to be ingesting while also trying to run fast. Does anyone else out there have any experience with this stuff in the marathon, or any other words of wisdom on this issue they'd like to share?

So, since I'm not dead tired, it's off to some combination of Ehresmann connections and Mass Effect... probably heavy on the Mass Effect :-).