Marathon Training Log: Week 5

Week 5 mileage: 54.0
Current marathon pace: 6:55 (3:01 marathon)

Weekly Summary
Monday, Jan 30, 2017 thru Sunday, Feb 05, 2017

Day	Miles	Pace	Description	Link
Tue	10.1	7:37	10 w/ 3 tempo (6:22, 6:14, 6:11)	strava
Wed	14.0	7:49	MLR	strava
Thu	5.8	8:23	Mini taper	strava
Fri	4.9	9:37	New Orleans shake out pt 1	strava
Sat	4.7	9:35	New Orleans shake out pt 2	strava
Sun	0.9	9:22	Morning Run	strava
Sun	0.4	8:32	Morning Run	strava
Sun	13.2	6:36	New Orleans Rock and Roll Half Marathon - PR!	strava
	54.0	7:53

Mon 1/30/17
Workout: Rest day
Notes: Felt relatively fine after 20 miler FF yesterday.

Tue 1/31/17
Workout: 10 miles w/ 3 tempo
Notes:  Cold. Breezy. I strongly dislike going to bed and not being exactly sure what my workout in the AM will be; but I forced myself to see how I felt this morning. If I recovered well from Sunday's long run, I would do a tempo, and if not then I would do easy miles plus strides and switch out the tempo for next week. I didn't think I would feel as good as I did this morning seeing as it is taking me extra time to recover from some of these workouts, but the legs were good to go for a tempo. Going into the NOLA half this Sunday, I am planning to do a mini taper. so anything quality early in the week I planned to cut by 25% making this a 3 mile tempo effort instead of 4 miles. Did 4 easy, then 3 tempo @ 6:22, 6:14, 6:11, then 3 easy. I know this effort won't help for this weekends half, but I think it validates that I have a good chance of going sub 1:27.

Wed 2/1/17
Workout: 14 mile MLR
Notes: Cold. First 7 easy effort, next 7 aerobic/steady (7:38, 7:29, 7:31, 7:32, 7:24, 7:25, 7:18)

Thu 2/2/17
Workout: 5.8 recovery miles
Notes: Cold. Easy recovery miles. Start of 3 day "mini taper" before the half on Sunday. Planning to do easy miles Saturday and hopefully Friday if I can (6am flight), though I won't be too bummed if I can't get miles in tomorrow since I'm due for a cutback week anyway. Starting to feel optimistic for NOLA. I think my ABC goals are 1:25:30, 1:26:30, 1:27:30

Fri 2/3/17
Workout: 4.9 mile shakeout
Notes: NOLA. Cool. Windy lake front miles with Christine.

Sat 2/4/17
Workout: 4.6 mile shakeout
Notes: NOLA. Warmer. Easy miles around City Park. Ready for tomorrow!

Sun 2/5/17
Workout: New Orleans Rock and Roll Half Marathon
Notes: Perfect race conditions - mid 50's, no humidity, no wind. I will post a race report this week, but I finished officially in 1:27:06 (1:26:40 for 13.1 per strava fwiw), good for 68th out of over 9,200. Overall, I'm very happy with the effort and result. I settled in at 6:30 pace from miles 2 - 9 since I felt great at the start and decided to go for sub 1:25. I knew since I was working pretty hard already by mile 7, the last 5K was going to be tough... and it was. I ended up fading a bit the last 3 miles. But, all positivity here; I nailed a 5 minute + PB, and this reaffirms the shape I thought I was in.