WEEKS 10 & 11

As TCM draws closer, I’ve been trying to come up with a goal time. I’ve been thinking somewhere in the 3:06 – 3:10 range would be nice. That got me thinking about the last few marathons I’ve done. I looked back at my results and found that my best time since 2008 is 3:05:41. It sure would be nice to run my best time in 5 years.

Week 10 of this training cycle had me feeling confident about reaching that goal. After my solid 15K on Sunday I used a 7-mile trail race as a tempo workout. Then I closed out the week with a 22 mile run along the TCM course. Every time I run TCM I try to do this long run where I start at the St. Paul Cathedral and run the course in reverse to Minnehaha Falls and then turn around and come back. This allows me to run miles 15 to 26 of the course, including the hills, when I’m tried. This run went great. I ran the first half just a hair under 8-minute pace, before dropping to 7:40s until I got to the hills, where I dropped down to 7:30s.

WEEK #10
Sunday: 15K race – 1:01:31 (6:36 pace), 12 miles total
Monday: Day Off
Tuesday: 5 miles
Wednesday: 7 mile trail race at tempo effort (7:09 pace), 10.5 miles total
Thursday: 5.5 miles
Friday: 37 miles of bike commuting.
Saturday: 22 miles

Total: 55 miles, plus 37 miles on the bike

As I looked at the last 2 weeks of training or so, I knew I was cranking things up and that I needed to be careful. I still haven’t been running a ton of miles, but the intensity has kicked up a notch; 4 x 1K on the 7th, 15K race on the 11th, tempo run on the 14th and 22 miler on the 17th. In addition, after that 22 miler I ended up volunteering to help set up a local triathlon from 1-5, so I was on my feet for 4 more hours. And I was up the next morning at 4 AM in order to help with parking and a water stop.

It turns out, all that combined to be too much. By Tuesday afternoon I had caught a cold. Normally, when I get a cold, I feel the best when I can get out for a run. However, this week I was just exhausted. So I took a bunch of days off and didn’t worry about my mileage.

WEEK #11
Sunday: Day Off
Monday: 14 miles of biking at lunch, plus 2 miles with x-c kids
Tuesday: 4 miles
Wednesday: Day Off - COLD
Thursday: Day Off - COLD
Friday: 8 miles
Saturday: 11 miles

Total: 25 miles, plus 14 miles on the bike

The good news is I’m feeling a lot better. The bad news is that is supposed to be brutally hot and humid this week. I’ll get some runs in, but I don’t see anything being fast or long.

6 weeks from today!