It's hard to believe that I'm starting week 12 of my marathon training schedule. It's been a gruelling 12 weeks but the finish line is within sights now and my race is just over the horizon.
That being said, my last two workouts might have been my most difficult ones I've had. On Saturday I ran 35.5 KM's and on Monday I did a ladder workout at a local High School.
The long run was done early in the morning but the temperature was still very hot and humid. I was happy that I really slowed down my pace for this run and managed to complete the run in 3 hours and 30 minutes. This included 2 stops at Tim Hortons for some water. It also included a very mind challenging last 5.5 KM's.
The first 28 KM's were actually pretty good and I even saw some familiar faces at teh lake where I run. It was the last quarter of the run that really tested my mental ability to focus and finish.
I think I actually hit that famous "wall" around this time. Once again I purposely designed my route to go past my house which forced me to really dig down deep and keep going. I had lots moments where my mind would tell me to stop short of my goal and just head home. It would have been easy to do that but I knew that would have eaten me up all day. Instead I pushed on. The last fourty minutes I literally had to take it step by step and made my goals very small. My longest run had been 32KM's so this was a true test of how far I had come. The temperature continued to climb and climb and my pace slowed considerably but I kept telling myself not to quit. It really is amazing how the mind and body work together to accomplish or derail a goal from happening. If I hadn't stayed positive and thought about what the marathon will be like, I know that I would have stopped and walked the rest of the way. I would have been able to rationalize that decision somehow and would have tried to convince myself that it was the right thing to do. The mental battle between running and stopping is what makes running so exhilirating and frustrating at the same time.
I'm happy to say that this time I won that battle and I finished my run. It took me several hours, though, to recover and I knew that this run needed to be bookmarked for future reference. As tough as that run was, my Marathon run will be even tougher. Running 35.5 K's on a hot humid day will give me confidence on Marathon day.
Instead of running on Sunday, I decided that it would be better to take an unscheduled day off to rest. This decision was also a little difficult but I know that my body appreciated the chance to recharge my batteries.
I had to juggle my schedule a little bit this week because the kids are back in school. As a result, I did my speed workout on Monday instead of Tuesday. I had been doing 800M repeats for the past 3 weeks but decided to try something called a Ladder workout instead.
This consisted of the following:
10 minute warm-up
400M, 800M, 1200M, 1600M, 1200M, 800M,400M. The goal was to run these at 5K race pacwe or slightly faster.
Here's the breakdown:
400M - 1:40
800M- - 3:30
1200M- 5:15
1600M- 7:00
1200 M- 5:15
800 M- 3:22
400 M- 1:30
To say that I was gasping for air towards the middle of this workout would be a huge understatement. I really had to push myself especially during the middle portions of this training program. My goal is to an average about an 8:10 minute mile for the marathon. These speed workouts will allow me to gain the confidence necessary to at least attempt a fast marathon. Whether I accomplish my goals are yet to be seen but this is an encouraging sign for sure.
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