Progress on progression

Recovery from the 1/2 marathon has gone well with just a bit of soreness in the quads on Monday. My hamstrings which had been bothering my all summer were fine during the race and I don't seem to have any other issues so far. There are a few pictures from the Saint John 1/2 marathon here including one good downhill shot where it looks like I'm actually moving well (looks can be deceiving).

On Monday my schedule called for a 7 mile run with 8x100m strides for good measure. The hour passed very easily with perfect sunny calm conditions in the late afternoon after work. I was feeling great despite some minor stiffness and had to watch myself from speeding up and running below 8 minute pace. The strides were a bit awkward and slow (as usual) but my form improved for the last few (again, as usual).

I almost canned today's 12 miler as I was feeling tired and lazy and was looking for excuses to get out of my mid-week medium long run. It's also was the last one for this training schedule and I'm happy to have them behind me. However, I did make the best of it and ended up getting in an excellent workout that has again left me 'pleasantly tired' and happy to just sit on the couch typing this little summary.

First a little background, back at Wineglass 2 years ago I used a gradual progression start as recommended in Guy Avery's marathon training program which calls for using the 1st 6 miles of the marathon as a warmup. I deliberately tried to go out slower by 30sec for the 1st 2 miles, 20 sec for the next 2 miles, and 10 sec slow for the next 2 before zeroing in to my then 7:30 marathon pace. The 1st 6 miles felt ridiculously slow but I managed to mostly hold back and ending up PR'ing that day and feeling great until about 24 miles. It worked for me then, so why not try it again but 1st you need to do a few practice runs and thus today's workout...

mile 1 - warmup and stretch
mile 2- another easy mile uphill mostly before starting the workout
mile 3-4: 8:10 desired pace (30 sec slower than MP) with actual paces of 8:07, 8:08 feeling very easy
mile 5-6: 8:00 desired (20 sec slow) with actual 7:59, 7:58 still feeling easy despite the rolling hills
mile 7-8: 7:50 desired (10 sec slow) with actual 7:24, 7:45 as I got too excited and misread the watch; starting to feel like I'm moving with purpose now
mile 9-12: 7:40 now at my 'new' realistic marathon pace which will give me about a 3:20. The road pitched up in the 1st mile and really made me work but I then settled in with miles at 7:44, 7:33, 7:34 and 7:32 feeling like the pace was quite manageable.

I was glad that I didn't have too much further to go today but then again my legs do have a valid reason to complain. My mind on the other hand was very happy to complete the practice exercise and look forward to a shorter versions of it over the next few weeks. The scheming and planning has begun! Have a great week.