Following that race, it was time to up the miles again after two consecutive weeks of pretty low mileage. The week immediately following the race, the 24th, I opted to put some work in, both volume-wise and mileage-wise. I was feeling good, and really needed to get the ball rolling on some solid training.
Tuesday night called for a 2x2400, followed by a 2x1600. I deleted the splits from my watch before writing them down, but recall the 2400's in the low 5:30s for pace, and right on top of each other. The 1600s had one in the 5:20s and the second just under 5:20. Rest was of moderate length. Overall, a pretty solid workout only shortly removed from a race.
With some more easy runs out of the way, by the weekend I was set for a 12 miler on Saturday and a 20 miler on Sunday. I would end up missing that Saturday run however, due to (yet another) bike incident. I had ridden from Baltimore to the BWI airport loop to take part in a bike charity ride in which myself and other "experienced" AFC riders led groups of kids on bikes around the BWI airport loop trail. After 26 miles of really soft pedaling, I headed back.
Once back in the city, while pedaling northbound on Charles St in Fed Hill, I got out of my saddle to try and pick up some speed. Next thing I know....my right speed play cleat disengages from my pedal while I'm pushing down on the right side. Disaster was imminent. I was saved by a few things, one of which being the shear luck that there were no cars in either direction on the road. My right foot hit the ground and the bike fell under me. I was moving fast enough before loosing control that I continued sliding upright with the bike under me. Through the course of this, my rear tire tube exploded, my rear wheel bent out of true, and my chain fell off the front cranks, getting pretty badly tangled. The exposed front crank teeth hit my right calf at least 6 times, leaving some nice cuts that still have my calf marked up.
Did I mention I just got the bike tuned up and had a new chain put on it? My left foot eventually unclipped too and I stumbled away from the bike as I and the bike came to a stop. I never actually slid on the ground. A few people came to check on me and we quickly discovered I had no road rash (sweet!). I was more mentally shaken that actually physically hurt. I had minor scrapes on my left knee and right side. My knee, right side and left side all felt pretty beat up, since it would seem the bike saved me from hitting the road by repeatedly slamming into me and keeping me upright (thanks bike!).
My poor bike didn't fare too well , as my rear wheel was visibly bent out of true. Regardless, I fixed the flat, realized my cleat was still good enough to clip in, and soft pedaled the last couple of miles home.
Needless to say, my 12 miler did not happen that day. On Sunday, I ran a hilly 20 around 6:58 pace in what turned out to be a pretty hot afternoon. My various bike injuries still hurt, but only after I stopped running. My right side actually still hurts occasionally as recently as my writing this post a few weeks later.
I haven't been on any bike since this incident, and won't get on one until after Richmond.
Overall for that week, I only ended up running 5 days, but still got mileage in the low 50s.
For the next week, my Tuesday workout consisted of a 1600, followed by a lap jog, a 3200, a lap jog, and another 1600. Each 1600 was supposed to be nearly all out with the 3200 at tempo pace. I nailed the workout, hitting 5:13 and 4:57 for the two 1600s, with a 5:33 average per mile pace for the 3200. That 4:57 was the first time I've run a sub-5 in training, and it felt pretty good.
By Saturday, I was all set for a 21 mile progression long run. I started at 7:00 pace and by the second half, was railing off miles anywhere from 6:10-6:20, ending up with a 6:32 pace overall, on flat terrain. A little cool down walk, and a very short, but nonetheless important quarter mile run in at 7:50 pace rounded off that awesome morning.
I hit mileage in the low 60s for the week.
Enter the week of the Baltimore Marathon. I had been looking forward to this race for a while. This would be my third year in a row as an official pacer, and my first at this race as a 3:10 pacer, a goal of mine for a while. I took Thursday and Friday off to work at the pacer booth at the expo (and filled those days with some other non-running stuff), so it was quite the running holiday weekend. I have to give a shout out to the Falls Road Running store for what was essentially a Thursday night dinner at the quite expensive Woodberry Kitchen. With $50 worth of gift certificates provided by FRR thanks to some luck and race volunteering, that dinner for two wasn't nearly as much a burning hole in food budget as it would have been.
My Tuesday workout consisted of 5x1600 with 200 meter jog in between. I progressed from a 5:35 to a 5:24, steadily taking time off with each repetition. It was hard but manageable, and felt like a good workout.
By Saturday morning, I was all set for an easy 7:15/mile long run through Baltimore, the one time of year I get to run down the middle of the street and not have to stop for any traffic lights! You can see from the following picture how ridiculously happy I was to be doing this...
There were three official pacers in our group including myself, and probably 15-20 people that started with us. By Mile 20, we had lost our pace group leader to a balky hamstring and all but 6 people in our group. After rounding Lake Montebello, we had but 3 left, and they all went ahead. 2 of them hit big PRs, so we did our jobs well. Overall, the other surviving pacer and myself came in at 3:09:31, 29 seconds under.
Another cool experience I had out there was all the crowd support I had/runners I recognized. Back in 2009, I had been living in Baltimore for a little over a year, barely knew anyone and still didn't know the city very well. 3 years later, I couldn't go more than a mile without someone cheering my name, without seeing someone I knew, or without someone I knew running alongside with us (not in the race) just to talk. I also knew every single yard of the course, and had probably run on each section of it countless times (except for the Zoo...I joked I've been to the zoo twice since living in Baltimore for 4 years, both during the marathon when the course started going through it last year).
So overall, it was a really, really awesome four days.
I took Sunday off, because well, I ran 65 miles in 5 days, crushed a track workout, and had too much fun on Saturday to slog through some crappy recovery run that I didn't need.
The following week (finally caught up!!), became a bit of a step back, with no tentative hard work scheduled, and a slight reduction in miles back to the low-mid 50s.
On Tuesday I did some pacing for 1200 meter repeats at ~6:50-7:00 pace. Outside of official pace groups, you've got to be pretty convincing to get me to pace you in a workout; thankfully this particular person had no trouble doing that.
Fast forward to Saturday, and I had done just easy runs, none exceeding 9.5 miles in length. I was feeling good running easy, and decided to try and push some marathon pace miles on a flat 17 mile long run to see how I would respond. About 5 miles in, 6:50 pace felt like shit, so 6:20s were out of the question. I opted just to cruise the rest of the way, finishing in around 6:55-7:00 pace.
It's tough to call that a failed long run since I was coming off of three weeks of pretty tough work both volume and intensity wise. If this was my worst long run of the cycle, I'll take it. After a little bit of extra distance, I closed with 17.5 miles for the day (something about waiting on the 1.25 mile bridge of the NCR trail to run someone in).
For the week, on 6 days of running, I managed 55 miles total, pretty solid post marathon pacing.
With Richmond drawing ever closer, I'm going one more week hard-ish, then spending the next two weeks tapering. I don't do well with long tapers, and should get this one last week with a good workout and good long run to sharpen the blade one last time.
I'm considering getting a 5K in sometime between now and the race. I really, really want to take a shot at sub-16 on a flat course. I'll do a freaking time trial on the track if I have to, but I feel like it's possible and worth at least a shot. I had two goals for this year...a sub-16 5k and a sub-2:40 marathon. I think the sub-2:40 may be a stretch, but I know I can at least give the sub-16 5K a reasonable shot.
We'll see. 3 weeks to go!!
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