Almost Time

Recap

With Chicago only a couple weeks away my training has been winding down, though still a far cry from taking a break or sitting on the couch.  So although these last few weeks do see a decrease in mileage, its mostly from doing shorter weekend miles, and the mid-week runs are not much shorter.  Your taper weeks should go something like this:

• 3rd week out: 75 % of peak mileage
• 2nd week out: 55% of peak mileage
• last week out: 30 % of peak mileage

That being said, if you are peaking at around 90 miles, you are still looking at 65 miles and 50 miles respectively for the first two weeks of taper, and like 30 miles the week before the Marathon.  I have also been trying to work some more Marathon Race Pace runs in there to help me "dial in" my pace.  This Saturday's workout will be critical, 12 miles total, with the middle 10 at Marathon Race Pace, using the first and last mile as warm-up/cool-down.  It will also serve as a "dress rehearsal", as any smart marathoner does, and wear the outfit I plan on racing in just to make sure everything feels "just right".

I figured this would be a good time to recap my summer training, along with some metrics, highlights, and key workouts.  I feel this is important for any runner to do - once your goal race is over you can look back on this to figure out what to fine tune for next time.  Whether your race goes great or not-so-good its important to have data for analysis.

I started my official training 18 weeks out, though I already had a good base of fitness down from regular spinning classes and probably about 50 miles per week on average last spring (after coming back from those pesky injuries).  I kind of kicked things off in July with that Northface Trail Marathon.  I tried to space out my peak weeks, which usually had a little extra miles distributed throughout the week and then a bunch of extras on the weekends.  Sundays were usually all trail running, and Saturday would be road unless I was getting more than like 18 miles, in which case I would run the rest of trails that day.

Peak training week totals:

Mileage	Weeks out	Weekend Miles (Sat+Sun)
72	16	39 (28 + 11)
70	12	30 (20 + 10)
92	7	46 (18 + 28)
94	5	40 (30 + 10)
78	3	38 (20 + 18)

I had first wanted to start doing back-to-back long runs in prep for the JFK 50 miler, as I have read that these are the best way to prepare for ultras, but I feel it has really benefited me for marathon fitness as well.  All these added miles meant less speedwork (and slower 5k times) but I kept up with track work and tempo runs at least bi-weekly.  After Chicago I will take a few rest days, and then get back at it very slowly over the next 10 days.  I would like to work back up to around a 14 miles road run and a 2 hour trail run the week before Marine Corps Marathon (3 weeks after Chicago).  Then I am set to do a [small] 50k Trail Race the next weekend.  Should go fine as long as my legs aren't too sore or injured from Marine Corps.  Then, finally, a true 2 week taper down to JFK50 Miler 2 weeks later.