Marathon Thoughts

I got down to the Thursday night run for the first time in long while yesterday evening. The plan was to run the singletrack in Fairmount Park and I was looking forward to it all day at work. Ian, Lee, and Chem Steve were at the Art Museum when arrived at 6:30. Sadly, Chem Steve was not there to run but to just say hi so that left three of us.

We took off for the park and after about 25 minutes we were on the tight, twisty, up and down single track that is all over the park. I think most of these trails were carved out by mountain bikers but they are great for running as well. It really breaks up the monotony of the roads but the trails are gentle enough that it doesn't kill you. They also aren't covered by large rocks that threaten to twist your ankle.

We spent about 25-30 minutes trying to get lost on the heavily wooded trails. When a run here is going well I feel like I could stay on these trails for about 4 hours, and last night was one of those nights. We eventually did have to head back to the Art Museum and finished up somewhere between 9-10 miles in 72 minutes.

During the run we discussed the NYC marathon and who was racing. I find out June 12th if I made it in by lottery and every day I am hoping a little more that I do make it. Heather has also thrown her hat into the lottery, for the second year in a row, and even if I don't make it I hope she does. It will give me a great reason to go to NYC for that weekend to see the spectacle and cheer on all my friends that are running. I am also very interested to see how Heather approaches marathon running.

I mentioned to Heather last night that Ian and Seebo were planning a 100 mile week in prep for a fall marathon and she goes "I've done that a few times" At first I thought she was joking but she was adamant about it. She said she did doubles all the time when she was training for marathons in the past and she is sure she must have gone over 100 miles a couple times. If she does get into NYC it'll be interesting to see how she trains.

If I don't get into NYC I think my fall back is going to again be Philly. I don't think I am going to have much time for travel to a distant city in the fall and I want to redeem myself for two poor performances in Philly in past attempts I pulled out Pete Pfitzinger's "Advanced Marathoning" this morning and was perusing he training programs. I am looking at the 70 miles per week, 18 week schedule.

My training this winter and spring has set me up nicely for the distance covered in the program and following it will hopefully keep me on course for my track and tempo runs. I like that it doesn't contain a lot of track work. Mostly long intervals as you get closer to race day and a lot of workouts with 100 meter strides. It also follows a very up and down distance approach with 13- 20 mile days in most cases followed by 5 mile recovery days and Mondays are off or cross training, a perfect day to go to the pool. I may add a few miles here and there and convert some of the harder runs into hill workouts. On paper I should be in top condition by race day, I just have to turn that into reality.