NYCM Training: Week #2

I had meant to write this entry earlier this week, but things have been very busy, and I haven’t had a chance. 

First of all, thanks to everyone who read and commented on last week’s entry. I thought that Jeff brought up a good point in regards to running the day before the marathon. While I do understand where he is coming from, and I will consider it, psychologically, I think that taking the day off will make me feel more rested. It is definitely something to think about though.

Overall, week #2 went very nicely, and I hit a 40 mile week for the first time since the week of May 21^st. I was relieved when I realized that even with speed work, my body seemed to be handling everything pretty well.

Monday

Scheduled Rest Day

Tuesday

Tempo Run

I had 6 miles with 3 miles of 15K – HM pace on the schedule, but after going too fast during last week’s speed session, I decided to try 2 miles again and make sure to get the pacing down before attempting a three mile tempo run. 

Split Split	Hours:Minutes:Seconds Time	Miles Distance	Minutes per Mile Avg Pace
Summary	57:43.9	6.00	9:37
1	10:50.3	1.00	10:51
2	10:13.4	1.00	10:13
3	8:17.3	1.00	8:17
4	8:17.9	1.00	8:18
5	9:57.5	1.00	9:57
6	10:05.4	1.00	10:05
7	:02.1	0.00	7:48

I felt sluggish the first mile, but I doubt I did a 10:51 minute mile. Since I start my run in the middle of the city streets, the signal can be a bit skewed, which affects what my watch says my pace is. As I did my second mile, I was still a bit tired, and wondered if I would be able to speed it up, but as I heard the Garmin beep, I pulled it together and sped up. At this point, I am still doing most of my tempo runs on the reservoir path since they are short enough that 1-2 loops do not feel too repetitive. Thankfully, the paces were much better this time around and I was only a few seconds faster than the recommended 15K pace of 8:23mm. After a couple of easy miles at the end, I stopped running at the 6 mile mark and walked the rest of the way home to cool down.

Wednesday

Medium Long Run

I know that most people would not consider 8 miles to be a medium long run, but for me, it is, especially since during the week, I rarely run more than 5-6 miles. Unfortunately, I forgot to plug in my garmin, and it died on me, so I don’t have my paces. I probably was within the long run pace range, but most likely on the faster side. Still, the eight miles got done, and after the first couple of miles, they felt pretty good.

Thursday

Easy Run

This six mile run felt good the entire time. As usual, my first mile looks much slower due to signal issues. I probably averaged closer to 9:30 than 9:40, but oh well. Everything felt good, and it wasn’t too hot or humid out.  However, when I got home, I realized that I only had 5 miles on the schedule. Whoops!

Split	Hours:Minutes:Seconds Time	Miles Distance	Minutes per Mile Avg Pace
Summary	58:09.6	6.01	9:41
1	10:32.7	1.00	10:32
2	9:30.4	1.00	9:30
3	9:22.1	1.00	9:22
4	9:28.6	1.00	9:28
5	9:41.5	1.00	9:42
6	9:32.1	1.00	9:32
7	:02.2	0.01	7:13

Friday

Scheduled Rest Day

Saturday

Long Run

Split Split Hours:Minutes:Seconds Time Miles Distance Minutes per Mile Avg Pace Summary 2:32:19.7 15.19 10:02 1 10:19.4 1.00 10:19 2 9:59.9 1.00 10:00 3 10:05.7 1.00 10:06 4 9:55.2 1.00 9:55 5 10:11.9 1.00 10:12 6 9:55.0 1.00 9:55 7 10:37.1 1.00 10:37 8 9:51.0 1.00 9:51 9 10:07.0 1.00 10:07 10 10:19.2 1.00 10:19 11 9:51.7 1.00 9:52 12 9:46.8 1.00 9:46 13 9:55.6 1.00 9:56 14 9:51.1 1.00 9:51 15 9:51.5 1.00 9:52 16 1:41.6 0.19 9:01

Since I had a 14 mile run scheduled that day, I signed up for NYRR’s Long Training Run, which took place in Central Park. One of the local running clubs provided pace leaders for every half minute interval from 7:30-11mm. Even though both 9:30 and 10mm were in my long run range, I decided to be cautious and join the 10mm group.

I ended up in the same group as Wallis and two of her friends from her running club, Rachel and Rich. I found out that it was Rachel’s first attempt at the 16 mile distance. While I was originally going to do 14, I realized that based on how many miles were in each loop, the 15 mile mark was the closest one to my apartment, so I decided to go for it.

Our pace group started out a little slow, but eventually we evened out to almost exactly 10mm on average. We had a very enthusiastic sub-group within our ranks – there was a group of people from Odessey House who were very enthusiastic, to say the least. Although I was annoyed by all of the noise at first, I eventually warmed up to it. In the first loop, there was a chant every mile saying how many miles there were left assuming that people were running the full 20 miles. There were plenty of water stations, and there were power gels and food being served in the regrouping area.

After the first loop, I barely had the chance to use the toilet before my group took off again. I was lucky that I didn’t miss their departure. I think that it was around this time that I saw a certain annoying charity group who wears purple all of the time. They decided that it was ok to have large groups of people running in the opposite direction as the training run. I really don’t get their thought process sometimes.

During the third and final loop (for me), I realized that my friends and I had gotten ahead of the pace group. I started to slow down to let the pacers catch up, but then I realized that my new friends weren’t doing the same so I ran back ahead with them. The last few miles went well, and I exited the park and walked home to cool down. My average pace was a 10:02, which considering we had stopped for water several times, was right within my personal pace goals.

Sunday

Recovery Run

Split			Hours:Minutes:Seconds Time	Miles Distance	Minutes per Mile Avg Pace
Summary			50:59.8	5.08	10:03
1			10:16.4	1.00	10:16
2			10:17.9	1.00	10:17
3			10:03.1	1.00	10:03
4			9:53.7	1.00	9:54
5			9:48.4	1.00	9:48
6			:40.3	0.08	8:51

I originally had 6 miles on the schedule, but since I was already on target to run 2 extra miles this week, I decided to do a 5 mile run to make it an even 40 miles (well, technically 40.27). A recovery run is supposed to be a very slow run. However, this happened…

Yea, that ended up being a progression run. My legs felt sluggish at first, but as I kept going, I felt stronger so that accounted for the speed-up. Top of Form

Week in Review

Overall, this week was very successful in terms of both overall mileage, and in terms of understanding the purpose of and adhering to each workout. Hopefully week 3 will go as well! (Spoiler: It’s been an interesting week. More to come later.)

Thanks for reading!