Saturday 7/5

Success.

Today was a big big workout for me. With the help of Trev and the book Daniel's Running Formula, I've mapped out an outline of my training up till the day of the marathon. Today was my first "Quality" workout according to the schedule. The plan is specific, but has a fairly simplistic nature. It calls for you to first establish what you want your peak weekly mileage to be before the marathon (in other words, the number of miles you are going to run on your longest mileage weeks). I've settled on 50. Though I feel I might be able to handle 60 at this point, I think I'm going to plan conservatively to give me the greatest chance for success.

The plan calls for two "Quality workouts" each week. (Q1 and Q2). I'm planning on doing Q1 every Sunday, and Q2 every Wednesday (I'm pushing these workouts to Saturday and Tuesday for this week because I'll be flying to Boone during the day tomorrow).

Today's Q1 was written as follows:

2 miles E pace +
2 x 10 to 12 min at T pace
with 2-min rests +
1 hr E pace

E pace is, you guessed it, "easy." Cruising at a conversational pace.

T pace is "threshold running." This is described as "running at a velocity that produces an elevated yet steady state of blood lactate accumulation." In other words, running at the pace right below that which would cause lactic acid buildup. Though experienced runners are supposed to be able to run this pace for about 50 minutes, I'm certainly not at that level yet, and I may not be for quite some time (either that, or today my threshold pace was too fast). The emphasis, however, is on the intensity of the effort.

I completed the Q1 workout in its entirety (almost). I took a short break when I passed the house about 30 minutes into the 1 hour cruise for gatorade, and I stopped the 5 minutes early because I was passing the house again, and my body was starting to shut down a bit.

This was my longest single session run thusfar, totaling for the whole workout 11.3 miles. Had I not done the threshold runs, I'd like to think I would have been able to add a couple of miles to that total comfortably before hitting "the wall."

Today's workout showed a couple things to me. First, I have a long way to go before considering myself ready for the full 26.2. Second, my fitness is improving.