4 Days to Boston
by Robert James Reese » April 15th, 2010 » 10 Comments
This morning was my last real workout before Boston. I was calling it the "dress rehearsal" even though I didn't go so far as to wear the same shoes or clothes that I'll be wearing on Monday. The biggest thing was that I wanted to get in 5 miles at 6:45/mile, a.k.a. marathon pace. It went well, but not quite as well as I'd hoped.
Helen and I didn't get to bed until almost 10 last night, then the neighbors' dogs were barking loudly for what seemed like hours, and then I kept having these dreams that raccoons were chasing me through Central Park. So, when 5:15 rolled around this morning, I was not at all ready to get out of bed. We got up, though, and did our little 1.4 mile loop over to the East River. My legs were sore and tired and we ran almost two minutes slower than the same run yesterday.
After dropping Helen off at home, I headed back outside and met up with Antonio. My legs were so stiff and sore on our way over to the park that we ended up running eight-minute-miles. We decided to start our tempo up the Harlem Hill and it just felt really tough – we were both pushing but ended up with only a 6:54 mile. After seeing that split, we both began to over-compensate a bit. Antonio dropped down to a six-twenty-something pace and it took a serious effort on my part to fall back and not do the same. Still, my second mile was too fast at 6:36. My legs were finally relaxing at this point and I was able to settle into a bit of a rhythm, hitting 6:45, 6:42, and 6:42 for the last three miles in the park. I met up with Antonio about halfway up Harlem Hill (he had finished almost a minute before me) and then we jogged back to the neighborhood, excitedly talking about Boston.
So, good news was that I was really close to hitting the splits I wanted. Bad news? Doing so was a lot tougher than I wanted it to be. Today should have been almost a cake walk and it was far from that. I ran too fast this week and am a little scared that I don't have enough time to make up for it. We'll see. Super easy 4 tomorrow, Saturday off, and then 4-5 easy on Sunday. 4 more days...
Helen and I didn't get to bed until almost 10 last night, then the neighbors' dogs were barking loudly for what seemed like hours, and then I kept having these dreams that raccoons were chasing me through Central Park. So, when 5:15 rolled around this morning, I was not at all ready to get out of bed. We got up, though, and did our little 1.4 mile loop over to the East River. My legs were sore and tired and we ran almost two minutes slower than the same run yesterday.
After dropping Helen off at home, I headed back outside and met up with Antonio. My legs were so stiff and sore on our way over to the park that we ended up running eight-minute-miles. We decided to start our tempo up the Harlem Hill and it just felt really tough – we were both pushing but ended up with only a 6:54 mile. After seeing that split, we both began to over-compensate a bit. Antonio dropped down to a six-twenty-something pace and it took a serious effort on my part to fall back and not do the same. Still, my second mile was too fast at 6:36. My legs were finally relaxing at this point and I was able to settle into a bit of a rhythm, hitting 6:45, 6:42, and 6:42 for the last three miles in the park. I met up with Antonio about halfway up Harlem Hill (he had finished almost a minute before me) and then we jogged back to the neighborhood, excitedly talking about Boston.
So, good news was that I was really close to hitting the splits I wanted. Bad news? Doing so was a lot tougher than I wanted it to be. Today should have been almost a cake walk and it was far from that. I ran too fast this week and am a little scared that I don't have enough time to make up for it. We'll see. Super easy 4 tomorrow, Saturday off, and then 4-5 easy on Sunday. 4 more days...
10 Comments
I'm very excited. :)
I have been having marathon dreams for weeks. Usually in them I forget my shoes, clothes, etc.
Other times they're so banal that I'm visiting the expo to pick up my race packet.
Maybe try some strides at the end of those easy runs? There was a good blog post by Steve Magness about how muscle tension plays a part on how you feel come race day. And incidentally, how just doing easy running can leave you feeling flat.
And the article was really interesting. The tension thing makes a lot of sense. I'm going to take the remaining runs super easy still, but I like the idea of adding a few light strides to the end of them.
Leave a Comment