Last of the Long-ish Runs, and Marathon Goal Setting

Two weeks left (well, less as I am typing this because by 6:10pm of two Sundays from now I plan to have already celebrated the end of my first marathon with frosty beverages and copious amounts of empty calories of the sweet but useless variety) until I try and run, stagger, stagger, crawl, stagger, roll, roll, stagger through my first marathon. And so today I ran my last long-ish type training run, and it was good.

Good to have run a distance that once seemed impossible.

Good to have run a distance that once seemed impossible and do it without bottles full of sugary drinks.

Good to have run a distance that once seemed impossible and treat like any other training run; a rather ho-hum pedestrian event.

Despite the fact that my groin is sore as heck from that one session of leg weights I managed last week (still can't get over how two weeks of vacation and out of the weight room makes me feel like a weakling loser upon returning and leaves me hobbled like it was my first time after years of inactivity) I set off in the late morning and felt pretty good. I had golfed all day yesterday and, uhhmm, my "diet" was not all the "good". Didn't bother setting my alarm, woke up and watched the Djokovic-Federer match that I'd recorded the day before (dumbass Federer), and then loped around the house trying to find socks.

Once out the door I had a pretty good time of it. I ran my familiar route down to the Beaches and out along the boardwalk, but on the way back I decided to run the section of the marathon course that goes down to Cherry Beach along Commissioners. It was good to have checked out this part as I noticed that at the roundabout at the end of Cherry Street there was a massive puddle left over from the rain that fell last night. If marathon day is wet I will have to remember to take an inside line around the circle of be forced to run through a foot of water.

After this I ran back along Commissioners to the Don Roadway and hit the Don Valley trails back home. I walked up Pottery Road to save the right heal (still an issue, but I'm conveniently ignoring it while running, icing it while resting). At the top of the hill I started up again and ran the rest of the way home to complete a good 24km in 2:09:22 of total running (ie. not counting the walking). That amounts to a pace of 5:23/km (8:40/mile) and would put me on track for about a 3:46-ish marathon.

Looking forward I think that running somewhere around 3:45 is a totally achievable goal, and so here are my first impression goals for the race:

1. Shitty Day: >4hrs (5:42/km, 9:10/mile)
2. Decent but somewhat crappy day: sneak under 4hrs (ditto)
3. Realistic Day: 3hr45min (5:20/km, 8:36/mile)
4. Optimistic Day: 3:38:25 (5:11/km, 8:21/mile) (that's exactly one second faster than my Around the Bay 30k of 2009 where I ran on one good hip)
5. Dreamy and Sparkly Day Where Even I Question If I Was Doping: under 3hr30min (4:59/km, 8:01/mile)

So, two weeks of low mileage and intensity that will likely drive me nuts and leave me somewhat under-confident with my training. Reminder to self: verify the mileage completed during this training cycle to calm jangled nerves and (hopefully) bolster fragile belief in ability to run the whole distance.

Registering and Planning

I've decided to change my original plan and register for the 5k during the Ottawa Marathon Weekend races in May instead of the 10k. I figure that variety is a good thing, and my time from this race will also allow me to better use the FIRST Run Less Run Faster program to train for the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in September since all of their training paces are based on your best 5k result (I find this a little puzzling because throughout the book they keep repeating that the 5k is the worst predictor for marathon finishing times, for obvious reasons). I also think that running a 5k will be a blast - just giv'r and it's over so quick!

Also, I reworked my training plan based on a Monday-Sunday week. I've always thought of weeks as starting on a Sunday and ending on a Saturday, but apparently running plans do not view calendars the same way I do. Now I have a training plan that is taking shape for the entire calendar year based on this more acceptable convention. If all goes well I will run over 1600km this year, which translates to just over 1000 miles. That will be a good milestone for sure on top of any racing achievements.

And lastly, I am rethinking my original goal for this year (that being to run a sub 45 minute 10k). Now that I am trying to (slowly and carefully) increase my mileage I can't concentrate on both distance and speed all that much as that would likely lead to more injury. If I happen to run that fast in one of the two 10k races I've signed up for, great! If not, I won't worry about it since it is more important for me to run healthy and long this year. I'll think about my goals a bit more, but it's looking more and more like my main goal will be to finish a marathon and not to run fast(ish) in a 10k.

Oh yeah, my wife has registered for the 10k in Ottawa, and I've also registered Owen in the Kids Marathon (which traces the last 1.2k of the marathon route and lets the kids finish in the same spot as the main event, making for some exciting times to be sure). This should be a fun weekend for all of us, though it is still a bit of a ways off.