Marathon Training - throwing down the gauntlet

After last weekend’s PR half marathon run on less than idea training and race conditions I have decide to try and put together a fast half and full marathon run. Maybe I can actually run a full-all-out half run this next weekend – I have signed up for the Ole Man River Half in New Orleans. This race is Sunday, December 20th. That is only two weeks since the last half in Baton Rouge and I do not expect to make great gains in running speed but I have more speed in me. I only hope to be able to run the entire race with race intensity (not lollygag and talk and stuff) and see where the time falls. Looking at the race calculators, according to my fastest ever 5K time I should be running these half’s nearly 10 minutes faster than I am. I think that calculator is pushing it but I would like to see how close I can get.


So the goals for the first quarter of the year are set – they will be running goals with cycling base building in between. Yes I still want to push the pace on the bike. I have read many articles that state a fall marathon will not help an ironman time. And I can only image that a spring marathon will in no way whatsoever help sprint and Olympic triathlons. That being said I am finally pumped about my training!

Jim and I met up at campus on Wednesday morning for mile repeats. The weather was warm and humid. We did a campus run with a 1 mile warm-up and cool down with the 4 one mile runs in the middle. We were not killing ourselves but clicked off the following – the rest interval was 3 minutes:

1. 6:42
2. 6:54
3. 7:05
4. 6:52

This was a good effort but the times will be dropping in the coming weeks. At lunch I did the STADIUMS. It was getting cooler and there was a strong wind. Having done the mile repeats I decided to be a follower and just kind of go through the motions. I still felt strong and performed well but I was not giving it everything I had. We pulled up short on the STADIUMS (10 X on 1:45) because I had a new challenge in mind. There is a LARGE staircase on the back of the Thad Cochran building. No one uses this stair case – it is like 3-4 flights of stairs – this is longer than the STADIUMS. So after 10 sets of STADIUMS we went to the back of the Coch. I had wanted to try out 5 sets on 2 minutes. The first set took 22 seconds up and a full 40 seconds to run down/recover. This was a damn hard workout – at the bottom we rested 1 minute. Vic and Richard were with me for the next two but were sucking wind at that point. I did just one more set at intensity and called it a day with 4 x the back of the Coch. This is tough stuff - when the heat hits it will be EPIC.

I had an exam on Thursday morning so I studied instead of exercising. I would have rather rode the trainer and watch a movie but… priorities. At lunch I played around in the racquetball courts to let the legs rest a bit. But after work it was back on the bike trainer. I got a good 45 minutes in a sweat-fest.

On Friday morning Jim was supposed to meet me at the campus for a tempo run. Something came up and I ran alone. It was a good run in the cold. It showed that I am not in position to meet my running goals at this point. I am going to need some solid training to run the paces that I want. I love a challenge.

TEMPO run:

1. 8:29 Warm up
2. 6:41
3. 7:02
4. 6:51
5. 6:57
6. 7:48 Cool down

I have been working on which races I will do next year and I have put together a list.  This is not set in stone (except for the races up to the Mardi Gras Marathon).

Tentative Race Schedule (first half of 2010):

12/20-Ole Man River Half – New Orleans
01/01-Stream Whistle 12k – Hattiesburg (on the trace)
01/17-Louisiana State 25K Championship – New Orleans
01/31-"The WALL" Louisiana State 30K Championship – New Orleans
02/XX-Run for Love 5K
02/28-Mardi Gras Marathon – New Orleans
03/19-St Thomas 5K
04/18-Ironman 70.3 New Orleans
06/05-Heatwave Classic Triathlon
07/XX-Sunfish Summer Triathlon
07/24-Heart O’Dixie Triathlon