And so it was, at long last, October came to pass. And not a moment too soon, that's for sure. Another weekend of great weather made for an interesting long run. At this point, I no longer consider these results getting carried away, but rather the norm. After running 6:45's or better as an average for all 3 of my 22 mile long runs in the month of October, it was clearly never a fluke.
Splits: 7:31, 6:52, 7:00, 6:57, 6:54, 6:56, 6:50, 6:32, 6:36, 6:33, 6:32, 6:25, 6:22, 6:17, 6:23, 6:22, 6:21, 6:12, 6:22, 6:20, 6:23, 6:21
Temperatures were in the high 50s, with a rather annoying wind blowing North to South. I start out on the NCR trail running Northbound, so the wind was not fun. By around Mile 8 or 9 I was not really feeling so hot. I felt a bit tired, and my legs were too sore considering how short I ran. Of course, being that I run out and back, if I gave in and stopped, it meant a very, very long walk back to my car, and I wasn't having any of that.
Even though I felt less than stellar most of the time, it never really got any worse after mile 8. And overall, I'm still better than I was last week. It seems that at this point, my body has just given in and won't put me through anymore agony. Of course, the level of agony I'm in already is more than enough! Alternatively, I might just be getting used to running this much.
Though I'm a bit sore, nothing specific hurts, and overall, I feel about the same I did after my 22 miler the previous week. This completes my 90.5 mile week, the longest of this cycle, and my longest week ever by 10.5 miles. I didn't end up cutting any mileage from this week as I had originally planned. Furthermore, it completes a month of October in which I ran 364 miles, 97 miles further than my longest month in the first half of the year.
I ran 77, 75, 79, and 90.5 miles for each week in October with no step back weeks. My long runs were 22, 26.2, 22, and 22. The three 22's were done at 6:45/mile, 6:45/mile, and 6:36/mile. The marathon was done at 8:00/mile pace, one of only 2 Long Slow Distance Runs in my training cycle. Overall, I am redlining, but I'm not overtrained or overreached. I am certainly very close to all I can handle, which was my goal going into this month.
I am now 27 days away from my goal marathon. On deck is a 75 mile week with no long run. My longest will be 13, and I'll be racing in a 5k and 10k this weekend. I'll also only be doing a tempo run, with no speedwork. The change of pace should be welcome, and I never thought I'd say that I'm looking forward to running "only" 75 miles.
In the hole...(coming up)...the taper begins in earnest the following week with a ~70 mile week. That will be followed by a 60, and then the week of the race (including the race itself) will be a 55. I'm still considering tweaking, but my overall goal is to avoid over-tapering. I think that is one of a couple mistakes I made back in May. My goal is to only feel ready a day or two before the race, rather than a week in advance. I run most of my races on tired legs that "wake up" just a few hours before the race. So at most, I only want "strong legs" for a couple of days. Essentially, I am treating my marathon just like all other races, because ultimately, that's all it is, just another race (one that happens to be twice as long as the next common race distance...). After the race is when I'll go into recovery mode to let my mind and body heal up from the absolute torture I have put it through.
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