A Change of Pace

Runner. Math teacher. H.S. Wrestling/XC coach. Boston 2016.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Boston Week 14

Week 2 of 3 of my final phase before the taper.

Day 1: 11 miles @ 6:55 pace. 

Smashrun says there was nothing notable about this run, I trust them.

Day 2: 10 miles including 4x1600 with goal pace of 5:26. 

Results: 5:27, 5:25, 5:26, 5:24. 

Works for me. All told 6:32 pace for the 10 miles. 

Day 3: 11 miles @ 6:55 pace. 

Smashrun says there was nothing notable about this run, I still trust them.

Day 4: 20 miles @ 6:55 pace. 

Smashrun says this was my fastest 20 miler ever, they would be correct. This was a non labored 6:55 too, I wasn’t coasting by any means but I definitely didn’t feel like I was pushing myself. I have another one this weekend in which I plan on working a bit harder, we shall see how it goes.

On a related awesome side note, this 20 miler put me at the 5,000 mile mark since my return to running in 2012. I wish I knew how many miles I had run between high school, college, and the on/off training post college. Oh well.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Boston Marathon Week 13

My training program this time around is built on 4 week cycles; three weeks of increased mileage and workouts with one week of backing off. Week 13 is the first week of the final cycle before the taper begins.

Day 1: 12 miles @ 6:55 pace. That’s it.

Day 2: 11 miles @ 6:30 pace, including a 6 mile tempo. Goal pace for the tempo 5:56, result 5:57. I warmed up with 4 miles, ran the tempo, and closed with a mile cooldown. Mile splits below...

Day 3: 11 miles @ 7:00 pace. I made a conscious effort on this one to hold myself back a bit. Most of my regular training runs have been in the mid/high 6:40s to low 6:50s of late. Last year this run at this effort would have been 30-40 seconds slower, if not more.

Day 4: 16 miles @ 6:53 pace.  My focus on this one was to work on falling right back into pace at the top of longer stretches of hills. I ran a 5.3ish mile loop with a 1/2 mile stretch of uphill around the 4 mile mark. I felt tired and out of rhythm for the first two miles and wasn’t thrilled with the prospects of the remaining miles but eventually everything fell back into place. I closed the final 6 miles at 6:44 pace without much noticeable change in effort relative to the rest of the run, so I’m happy about that.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Boston Updates

I’m currently wrapping up Week 12 and haven’t updated since Week 6. Oops. Here are week by week updates. Week 10 was my low point of training, I missed two runs and just wanted nothing to do with training for a marathon. Eventually I kicked my ass back in gear and my last week and a half of training has probably been some of my best yet.

Week 7:

Day 1: 9 @ 7:13

Day 2: 5 mile tempo @ 5:53 (2 mile warmup)

Day 3: My first missed workout of training. I pushed back my earlier runs and never was able to make it up.

Day 4: 16 @ 6:59

Week 8 (recovery week):

Day 1: 8 @ 7:08

Day 2: 8 @ 6:59

Day 3: 8 @ 6:56

Day 4: 9 @ 6:48 

Week 9: 

Day 1: 8 @ 6:56

Day 2: 5 mile tempo @ 5:53 (2 mile warmup)

Day 3: 8 @ 6:52

Day 4: 15 @ 7:13 This was done on the treadmill and was supposed to be 20, I was absolutely miserabe. I had not run indoors in 7-8 months and my body wasn’t prepared for the change in air/temperature. 

Week 10:

This was a disaster. I finished week 10 with zero desire to continue training. Long runs were just completely unappealing to me. I was over it. And the fact that this is the best my training has been going to this point didn’t matter. I was set on completing this Boston Marathon and being done with marathons.

Day 1: I missed my 11 miler due to my nephew having a rough day and me hanging out with him. Planned on bumping it back a day and it just didn’t work out.

Day 2: 4 x 1600---> 5:26-5:28-5:28-5:29. 800 recovery in between with 3 miles split between warmup/cooldown.

Day 3: Missed my 10 miler

Day 4: Cut my 16 miler back to 10 @ 7:02

Week 11: 

Day 1: Forced to run on the treadmill. The 10 miler was stopped at 4.5 because of my lack of desire to continue training stemming from week 10. Not feeling distance and then being forced onto a treadmill is never fun.

Day 2: 9 @ 7:01 pace. This was supposed to be my workout but I swapped days out because I still needed to get my head straight before attempting a 6 mile tempo.

Day 3: 6 tempo miles @ 5:54. I decided before this run I was going to stop being a whiny bitch. It worked.

Day 4: 20 miles @ 7:04....7:09 for the first 10, 6:59 for the back 10. This was the day after the 6 mile tempo (my quads were burning). The hell that was week 10 and part of week 11 was over.

Week 12 (recovery week):

Day 1: 10 @ 6:53 with ease

Day 2: 9 @ 6:51 with ease

Day 3: 10 @ 6:41 with somewhat ease. Probably ran this a bit harder than I should have but I felt great so no complaints from me.

Day 4: Tomorrow

[mcdonnellbrian]

Boston Week 6 Recap

Run 1: 6 miles @ 7:02 pace

Run 2: 4 x 1600, goal pace of 5:31. Happened to fall on my 30th birthday and had one hell of a workout. Full detail here:  http://mcdonnellbrian.tumblr.com/post/137786942290

Run 3: 6 miles @ 7:51 pace. This one was a mess, that big snow storm hit my area pretty hard, but I made two decisions before Boston. No treadmills, no skipped runs. The footing wasn’t awful, but the wind, continued snowfall and being stuck to a fairly busy street forced me to slow down a bit.

Run 4: 20 miles @ 7:07 pace. This run was awful. I don’t think I have ever wanted a run over with so badly in my life. As mentioned earlier my area was slammed with snow, so I was stuck to the roads that were cleared well enough to run on. There really is only one street near me that is cleared well enough, and is wide enough for me to run alongside traffic and not be at risk of being hit. I wound up running the same 3.5 mile section 6 times (plus the other 5 miles at the beginning and end). Out and back, out and back, out and back. I was bored out of my mind. My general rule on long runs is to never run the same street twice. The snow accumulation made that impossible. Oh well, it’s done with.

[mcdonnellbrian]

4 x 1600 on my 30th

So today is my 30th birthday and I just so happened to have a 4 x 1600m workout scheduled for Boston training. The goal for each 1600 was 5:31. Consider it done.

I feel like I have been absolutely locked into my runs lately. A 5:54 5 mile tempo last week, a 6:59 average pace 18 miler this past Sunday and now these gems. The actual splits were the times on the left (5:29.8, 5:29.6, 5:27.8 and 5:23.3). My Garmin registers a mile on my local track as anywhere between 1.06 and 1.10 for whatever reason.

I definitely felt like I had something left after the first two, by no means were they easy but I definitely feel like next time around I can shave a few seconds off the early repeats. Sitting on my porch afterwards I was smiling like a fool; knowing this is just the start.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Boston Week 5 Recap

A little late on this but it’ll do. As usual 4 runs...

Run 1: 6 miles, relaxed

Run 2: 5 mile tempo within a 7 mile run. I hit tempo pace of 5:54 for the 5 miles. Pretty damn excited about that

Run 3: Relaxed 6 miles

And finally, the long run of the week. 18 miles at 6:59 pace, and it was damn comfortable. 

That is all.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Boston Week 5 Day 2

2 mile warmup, 5 mile tempo @ 5:58 goal pace

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Boston Week 4 Summary

This week was a cutback week, which means no workouts and no long run. Just mileage. Four 7 mile runs.

24 degrees. I layered up a little more than I needed to for this one, turned out to be (thankfully) completely void of wind. I actually had to roll up my sleeves a bit at one point because I was so warm.

The first mile was a lot slower than I have been running as of late. Not sure why but the rest of the miles were pretty much in line. I’ll just take it that my body needed to loosen up a bit more than usual.

I changed up the route a bit on this one, which accounts for the mile pace variance with up/down hills.

62 degrees on this one. In one week I ran in temperatures nearly 40 degrees apart. 

That is all.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Boston Week 3 Recap: 35 miles

Day 1: 6 miles @ 7:00 pace. I had no intention of running the last two miles as fast as I did. Not quite sure what happened but I’ll take it.

Day 2: 7 miles including a 5 mile tempo @ goal pace 5:59. Result 5:57 pace. Without question one of the best workouts I’ve ever had. Ran into a half mile pocket of headwind on that 6:21.

Day 3: 6 miles @ 7:04 pace. Not much going on here. Felt solid. No complaints.

Day 4: 16 miles at goal pace of 7:07. Result 7:02 pace. Felt really good on this one today. Looking forward to the 18 miler two weeks from now.

Week 4 is a cutback week, no workouts, no long runs. Just four 7 mile runs, each at goal pace of 7:06.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Boston Week 3 Day 2

Well this is one hell of a way to start the new year. 7 mile run with a 5 mile tempo at 5:59 goal pace thrown in there. I honestly wasn’t expecting to crack the 6:00 mark. Two weeks ago I did a 3 mile tempo at 6:14 and it beat me up. But this happened today:

Mile 3 was rough, decent amount of headwind but once I broke out of that miles 4 and 5 were well under goal pace.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Boston Week 2

Day 1: 7 miles @ 7:33 pace, ran this one with a girl I used to coach, was nice and relaxing and good to hear about how her training has been going in college.

Day 2: 3 x 1600 as part of a 6 miler. Goal pace for the 1600s of 5:34. Results:

Ignore the distances as they are all above what they actually were. My garmins have always measured the track I run on as longer than it is.

Day 3: 6 miles @ 7:00 pace. Nice and comfortable. Not much fluctuation in pace.

Day 4: 14 miles at a goal pace of 7:08. Actual pace was 7:06, and the mile splits decreased as the run went on. So thrilled with the results.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Week 1 of Boston training. 

Day 1: 6 miles comfortable

Day 2: 7 miles with a 5 mile tempo included (6:14 pace)

Day 3: 7 miles comfortable. I messed up on my watch and had to break it into two runs.

Day 4: 12 mile long day. Comfortable pace.

In the past I have run 6-7 days a week and burned myself the hell out. I run hard and I run often, and I wrestle, and I lift, and I play any other sport I can. So its time to rest the body a bit. What I have decided this time around is to run only 4 days a week BUT keep my mileage up. So no more 4-5 mile runs, minimum is 6 and most will be 8+. I have one week of 11, 11, 12, 20. Should be awesome. The goal/plan is to give my body more rest between runs while not sacrificing mileage or quality. Hopefully this time around I shatter the 3 hour mark.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Boston: Week1 Day4

Week one complete. Tomorrow I will have a more in depth write up of Week 1.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Boston Week 1 Day 1

And it begins. Feels weird going out for runs mid December in 50+ degree weather. Overall solid run, pretty much the paces I was aiming for. 5 mile tempo on tap for Thursday.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Comfortable 6. First mile felt sluggish but everything after that was right in range with the past few weeks.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Planned on ten. Stopped a bit early because of some stomach problems. Such is life.

[mcdonnellbrian]

Relaxed 7 this afternoon. Ten miler on tap for tomorrow.