April 14, 2010
Run: 10 x 400m Fast wu/cd (7.29 mi)
5 days to go...hang in there!
Last hard run before Boston per the plan. Another set of quarter mile intervals. They were prescribed at 10k pace but I didn't pay attention to that and ran them harder. Did them on a hilly loop so that I had a mix of uphill and downhill intervals. Had a headwind on the downhill. I was out the chute on the first one and felt great. Through the next few my quads felt mushy up high. On the last few, my hamstrings were tight on the kick. Nailed all the intervals and met the average goal time for each of 1:21. This was lower than this same workout last week which is what I was after. This is about 5:30-ish pace. 1:21 for a 400 is the McMillan fast time for a long distance runner. That lines up with where I am supposed to be. So from here, I only have a few short easy runs left. My HR should not go above 140 again until Monday.
Getting some good comments lately on strategy and encouragement. Thanks. Keep them coming. Wrapping my head around this.
Got woke up by the dog last night because he had to poop. He was out there forever, so I started working on mile by mile splits for Boston. Found a good web site that helped plot out course adjusted splits based on goal finish time and effort level. It also offset the times based on corrals so you get a good spectator cheat sheet. Its helping give me an idea of where I should gain time and where I will lose it much better than an elevation graph does. Most of the books and resources talk about not trying to bank time at the beginning of the course but these various charts that show real numbers do not agree. The story seems to be that the crowds are thick at the start and finish miles so those are hard to run so you may lose time there. Overall, there is no way I will remember this come race day but I should have a feel for the trends. 6:40s early. 6:50s till 17. Low 7s through 21. Back to 6:40s. Bring it home in 6:50s. That a lot of 6 in the front. Wish it was more 7.
Called JV today to wish him well on his R2R2R attempt for Saturday. That's "his Boston" and I know he is going to put down a solid effort in the Canyon.
Weight was 140.5 this morning. Back in "normal" range. I never got consistently under 140 this cycle like I had hoped. Only hit it after long runs or back to back tough days. Trying to eat what I need right now but not overdue it. This is a full 5 pounds less than race weight at Denver 2009. The Daniels Tables say that's good for a 11 second improvement in pace for close to a five minute jump in marathon time.
I went 7.29 miles with an elevation gain of 250 feet in 01:03:40, which is an average pace of 08:44. Heart rate average was 138. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.
