The Glass is Half Full

One day you won't be able to do this. Today is not that day. ~Unknown

Today marks 50 days out from the Marquette marathon. Come Sunday, we will be 50% through training. 276 miles will have been run; 303 to go.

On tap this morning was 8 miles at MP. Conditions were rough. While the heat wasn't bad at 6am, the humidity was up there; with dew points in the low 70s.

The workout was...tough. Ended up averaging 7:07; but that is a bit misleading as the first 5 were in the upper 6:50s and then mile 7 & 8 were more like 7:25 / 7:20. It was a complete mental game. Really wanted to quit after 6. I saw my pace increasing, thought I may be overheating some, and I was sweating buckets. Post run weigh-in had me down 7 pounds water weight, which is something I'd typically see through ~16 miles.

I saw my wife grinding out her MP's on the Mall and that provided extra motivation to get through it. Overall, I was still surprised with how difficult today was compared to my 7 miles at MP two weeks ago. Today's effort was a 9+; whereas two weeks ago it was more like a 6. We'll see. The only way to get faster is to train faster. Need to keep running that through as I'm out there.

Meanwhile; last Sunday's 17 miler went great. I switched from Water+Gu to Gatorade; and that seemed to make a huge difference. That and the fact that I haven't had any beer/alcohol since the 4th. While I kept the pace easy at MP + 75, this was still my longest run ever. My hamstrings started to get tight around mile 14, but I was able to stay on pace through the rest of the run.

Normally, the training plan calls for a half marathon time trial at the midway point through the program; but Christine and I are traveling to Boston this weekend. I sought input on when would be the latest we could race a half before the marathon; the universal consensus was 4 weeks. So we will be doing a flat trail half down in Fredricksburg on August 6th; which will be one week before the last 20 miler and the start of our taper.

The long run this week is eased back to 12 miles; following the high/high/low model. The next series of long runs are 19/20/HM. Going to keep the pace easy/moderate for this one; but am planning to throw in a few 60 second surges/pickups. Hoping for lower humidity!

-J