9 Weeks to the ING New York Marathon: 150 mile week

Below is last week's training log. It was a high volume week for me, but the intensity of the workouts was brought down a notch from the week before. Throughout the whole buildup I only plan on having a few weeks reaching 150, but many more between 130 and 140. While I'm obviously quite exhausted, my body is handling the training well.

My coach put together the training calendar based on a decision to do a half-marathon tune-up on October 6th. The plan was to race the San Jose Rock and Roll. I was originally considering the Philadelphia Rock and Roll but decided that I'd like a little more time. It was taking my agent a long time to try to sort out the details for San Jose, and now it is obvious why. Competitor has announced that they are immediately cutting funding to elite athletes at Rock and Roll series races in North America. This puts me, and many other athletes, in a tough position, and my coach and I are trying to come up with a plan. I would definitely like to run a half-marathon before New York, but not under conditions that would jeopardize New York in any way. We will see what we can come up with by the end of the week. I hope The Competitor Group will reconsider its decision in the future.

On a more positive note, Destination Races put on a fantastic Oregon Wine Country half-marathon this weekend. It was a beautiful course, the race was well-organized, and the elites were looked after. Hopefully my schedule will allow me to do this race next year. My wife, Eva, was racing, so it gave me an opportunity to do my long run in wine country and provide an excellent change of scenery. With little traffic, it was easy to set up my bottles and practice using my marathon fluids each 5km. I was finishing my long run just as my wife was finishing up the race in 2nd place, snagging some cash and a magnum of wine in the process. If Destination Races is putting on a race in your region, I highly recommend checking it out: http://destinationraces.com/

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to throwing up my log again next week.

Week 5	AM	PM	Strength/Drills	Mileage
Monday	15	6	40 minutes core	21
Tuesday	12	8x200 meter hills		21
Wednesday	Tempo, 3.5, 2.5, 1.5 miles (rest: 3 min, 2 min) @ 4:50, 4:45, 4:40	7	1 hour	21
Thursday	12	9		21
Friday	90 minute run followed by 8x200 meter hills	4.5		21
Saturday	14	7	40 minutes core	21
Sunday	24 miles, pushing miles 17 to 20 (19:48 for 4 miles)	off		24
TOTAL				150