There are less than 3 weeks left until the Virgin Money London Marathon, and the hardest work is in the bank. I've still got a few more tough workouts left, but with the volume easing down, my legs are slowly starting to freshen up. The marathon taper process is always tricky because you don't get to practice it often enough. Obviously there is no single way to taper; people have run very fast with drastically different approaches to the taper. Some drop their mileage to a mere fraction of their peak from the training block, and others prefer just a slight drop in mileage the couple of weeks before the race. This has been written on extensively, so I'm not claiming to have any new information on the process. I basically try to shoot for the middle ground. I will spend the last 4 weeks of training easing the mileage down a little bit each week until I land at somewhere around 80 miles for the last week. 80 miles may sound like a lot the week of the race, but this counts the marathon day, which easily adds up to 28 or 29 miles. That doesn't leave much for the rest of the week. Coming down from 150 miles, that week feels very mild. At this point, most of my dropped mileage is coming by shortening or eliminating the second run while maintaining a decent primary run for the day.
This last week consisted of tempo work on Thursday and a 22 mile long run on Sunday. The Thursday workout added up to 19 miles (3 mile warm up, 4 mile tempo, 5 mile moderate run, 3 mile tempo, short cool down). The tempo runs were on the track at a decent pace (18:57 for 4 miles and 14:07 for 3 miles), and my 5 miles between the reps was in the 5:30s. I came back with a smooth long run on Sunday. The weather finally held out for us on Sauvie Island, and I felt the best I have during the entire training block. I wasn't supposed to push it much during the run other than a 3 mile push from 16 - 19, but running in the mid 5:30s felt like a breeze. We ended up at 2:03:40 for 22 miles including a pretty slow first few warm-up miles. The time itself isn't impressive, but I was happy to feel so relaxed doing it. Feel free to check out the entire week below, and follow me here on twitter more updates. Thanks again for reading.
This last week consisted of tempo work on Thursday and a 22 mile long run on Sunday. The Thursday workout added up to 19 miles (3 mile warm up, 4 mile tempo, 5 mile moderate run, 3 mile tempo, short cool down). The tempo runs were on the track at a decent pace (18:57 for 4 miles and 14:07 for 3 miles), and my 5 miles between the reps was in the 5:30s. I came back with a smooth long run on Sunday. The weather finally held out for us on Sauvie Island, and I felt the best I have during the entire training block. I wasn't supposed to push it much during the run other than a 3 mile push from 16 - 19, but running in the mid 5:30s felt like a breeze. We ended up at 2:03:40 for 22 miles including a pretty slow first few warm-up miles. The time itself isn't impressive, but I was happy to feel so relaxed doing it. Feel free to check out the entire week below, and follow me here on twitter more updates. Thanks again for reading.
| Week 11 | AM | PM | Strength/Drills | Mileage |
| Monday | 9 | 5 | 40 minutes | 14 |
| Tuesday | 14 | 6 + drills and grass strides | 20 | |
| Wednesday | 14 | 6 | 40 minutes | 20 |
| Thursday | 4 mile tempo @ 18:57, 5 mile run in 5:30-5:40, 3 mile tempo @ 14:07 | off | 19 | |
| Friday | 11.5 | 5.5 | 30 minutes | 17 |
| Saturday | 13 miles + drills and grass strides | off | 13 | |
| Sunday | 22 miles in 2:03:40 with 3 mile push from 16-19 (4:57, 4:56, 4:54) | off | 22 | |
| TOTAL | 125 |
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