Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Impending Doom

Last week was a major mental and physical confidence boost for me.  I haven't had a strong high-mileage week (for me) in 3 or 4 weeks.  I tied my highest mileage week ever of 38 miles; however, this time around I averaged a much faster pace.  The last time I hit 38 miles in a week my average pace was 9:39/mi, and this time I managed 8:58/mi.  The most surprising run for me was my last run of the week, following my Saturday long run.  I did 8 miles at an average pace of 8:40/mi.  That's like a tempo run for me, but I felt great during the run!

I've got a 42-mile and a 46-mile week scheduled for this week and next week, before I start to taper down for the Marine Corps Marathon.  Once again, I'm in a spot where I feel like I haven't trained hard enough, I haven't run enough long runs, I haven't pushed myself hard enough on tempo runs, yadda yadda yadda.  I felt the same way for my last marathon, well technically I came to that realization during my last marathon, but I thought for sure that this time around I had a better training plan in place.  For the most part, I've stuck to it, but I still have a shadow of doubt in my mind about my fitness level for the upcoming race.  Maybe that will always be the case.  Perhaps I'll be preparing for my twentieth marathon years down the road saying, "Man, I should have trained harder for this.  I'm not ready.  This is going to be a disaster!"  Do all runners feel this?  I'd love to hear any stories about pre-race jitters, or how people deal with feeling like they're going to fail miserably on race day :-P

Regardless of all the doubt, I'm still incredibly happy with my performance last week and I'm excited to see what I can do this week!  I'm committed to my race now and I'm going to see it through.  I really just hope to see an improvement from my last marathon time of 4:22:00.

Weekly Running Summary:

Monday:       Off
Tuesday:       6.00 miles; 53:50; avg. pace 8:58/mi
Wednesday:  6.00 miles; 53:45; avg. pace 8:57/mi
Thursday:      6.04 miles; 55:35; avg. pace 9:13/mi
Friday:          Off
Saturday:      12.00 miles; 1:48:30; avg. pace 9:02/mi
Sunday:        8.00 miles; 1:09:20; avg. pace 8:40/mi

Happy Running!
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownSeptember 25, 2012 at 9:10 AM

    Is this your first or second or some other number marathon? I'll venture to say that if it's not your first, AND you're doing more miles, you're probably better off than you think!

    I DEFINITELY felt this way during my last marathon, though I had an injury and a deployment that kinda put a damper on my training. I think my highest mileage week was around 40 miles, and that was only once. Now I'm dealing with that Extensor Tendintis (self diagnosed, though I'll be heading to the doctor this week) that led me to your page :) I'm hoping I can get it to go away before Philly in November QUICKLY... I'm currently dousing it in DMSO, which in two days has taken me from struggling to walk to very little pain. I'd love to go into this next marathon feeling like I had an adequate amount of training...

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousSeptember 25, 2012 at 9:56 AM

      Thanks Nina! This is my second marathon, and I'm pretty sure my training mileage is substantially greater for this marathon. I did all of my training based on time for the last marathon and never knew my actual mileage for a single run prior to the race. That seems crazy to me now, but it got me through the Seattle Rock 'n' Roll :-P

      It's good to hear that my mileage is similar to yours. Hopefully I'll have a good experience at MCM. Best of luck with your ET recovery. Of course there are varying degrees of tendonitis, but I was completely off running for about 2 weeks and it was probably close to 6 more weeks before I felt 100%. Tendons just take a really REALLY long time to heal.

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