Less than a week to the TCS New York City Marathon: Last week's training.

We are 5 days from the TCS NYC Marathon, and there is really nothing left to do but get to the starting line. Last week was the last of the harder workouts with two threshold type efforts on Sunday and Thursday. Overall, the 12 week build-up has been another step forward. After my first 4 week stretch at altitude in Flagstaff, my threshold efforts, long tempos, and long runs were all slightly faster. I also put more time in on pavement to prep my legs for the extreme pounding of 26.2 miles on November 2nd. These are only small differences in an otherwise consistent block of marathon training. It is very difficult to predict one's exact fitness in the marathon, as opposed to the 10km for example. What I can say for sure is that my fitness and preparation are better than when I ran 2:10:57 in London this year, and that puts me in a position to do big things in NYC this weekend.

Over my short marathon career I have so far proven to be a consistent racer at the distance. Much of that has to do with maintaining a certain comfort level during the first half of the race, this may have to be tossed out the window come Sunday depending on how the rest of the elite field decides to race. In New York, the second half of the course is quite a bit more challenging than the first, so it is very difficult to make up a lot of ground if you've lost contact with the front pack. I would like to be a little more aggressive this year, and put myself in that top 10 group early on and attempt to fight and hang hold on over the second half. With that said, I am not suicidal, and I will make judgement calls on the spot depending on how severe a particular move or push is. I attempted to race intelligently last year by letting the front group go and running with a second pack that ended up dissipating and leaving me on an island on a cold and windy New York morning. I will try to avoid that this year. I do not care what my overall time will be, and I will not try to predict one; I want to compete. The anticipation is building as I imagine the NYC startline, the massive crowds lining the entire course, and the atmosphere of the city. Check out the NYC promo video put together by Startling Line Designs and get excited for 6:45 AM EST Sunday on ESPN2!

While I'll be spending most of the week resting and focusing on the race, you can find me on Friday  at Paragon Sports at 1:00 PM as well as the NYC Expo with Brooks at 3:00 PM, so come by and say hello. I will also be at the opening ceremonies at the finish line at 5:30 on Friday. Thanks again for reading, and follow me here on Twitter for more updates.

Week 11	AM	PM	Strength/Drills	Mileage
Sunday	3 mi warmup, 3 miles (4:43), 2 miles (4:38), 1 mile (4:37) on road + 10 mile run @ 5:48 pace	off		19
Monday	11	5	30 minutes	16.5
Tuesday	12 + drills and strides	off		12.5
Wednesday	10	5	30 minutes	15
Thursday	4 x 2 miles @ 9:24-9:26	off		14
Friday	8	7	30 minutes	15
Saturday	Planned day off			0
TOTAL				92

2 Weeks to the TCS New York City Marathon: Last week's training.

It seems like the taper stage of a marathon training segment should be something to look forward to, but it brings its own challenges. As the volume decreases in terms of weekly mileage and workout length, the training tends to get faster, bringing on a different type of fatigue than the earlier stages. This is planned, but that doesn't make it any easier. The real rest will come the final 10 days when volume and intensity drop significantly. While the rest is certainly welcomed, it also means the start of a little anxiety and restlessness as the race approaches. I'd love to say that as soon as the marathon is over you can finally relax, but the truth is that I spend the next day or two analyzing every detail of the race in my head trying to figure out where mistakes are made. That is why I have made it a habit to travel ASAP following the marathon. It's important for me to completely remove myself from the environment for a few weeks. This year I'll be heading to South Africa 3 days after the NYC Marathon. Our first week will be spent backpacking in the Drakensberg Mountains, and we will then take a more relaxing approach by hitting Cape Town and Kruger National Park. After the backpacking trip, I'll slowly easy myself back into running and take advantage of the summer weather and beautiful terrain. In all, I plan on about a full two weeks away from running. After only taking a week off after London, and a few days off after the track season, I think the break will be overdue.

I'm already getting ahead of myself here. Another great week of training is in the books, and I'm confident that I'm ready for the best marathon of my career come November 2nd. After a successful 4 weeks in Flagstaff at the beginning of the block, my tempos, intervals, and long runs have all been faster, and I've put more time in on hilly roads than before any of my previous marathons. I feel that I am significantly more prepared for the tough New York course than I was last year. I'll discuss more specific goals and race strategy in my blog next week.

I recovered well from the tough 16-mile tempo in Victoria and had a solid workout on the track on Thursday hitting a fairly even pace for all 8 miles of work. The next Thursday will be my last challenging workout (4 x 2 miles) before I enter full rest-mode. Feel free to check out last week's training below, and thanks again for reading. Follow me here on Twitter for more updates.

Week 10	AM	PM	Strength/Drills	Mileage
Sunday	3 mi warmup, 16 mi tempo (4:56 avg) on Victoria Marathon course, 1 mi cooldown	off		20
Monday	10	Off – drive from Victoria		10
Tuesday	13.5 + drills and strides	4.5		18
Wednesday	5	10	30 minutes	15
Thursday	4 miles @ 18:53, 2 x 2 miles @ 9:23, rest = 4 min, 2 min, on the track	off		15
Friday	12	5	40 minutes	17
Saturday	5	10 + drills and strides		15
TOTAL				110

Less than 3 Weeks to the TCS New York City Marathon: Last week's training.

I'm getting this post out a bit late due to the travel surrounding the Victoria Marathon this past weekend. I made the short trip up north to play the athlete-support role for my wife's first marathon. Based off her training, we both thought a sub-2:50 was possible, even in her debut, but her 2:45 finish was quite a surprise to both of us! Those kinds of surprises are quite rare in the marathon, especially in a debut. It was also good enough to place her as the 2nd female in a competitive and established field. Most importantly, it was a positive experience, and Eva is already looking forward to her second marathon. While I did put together a training calendar for her, she was independent and took most of the training into her own hands. It is a dangerous game to coach your wife, but fortunately for my sake, training went without a hitch and the race exceeded both our expectations! The experiment can continue.

The trip to Victoria was also a great experience on my end as the elite athlete coordinator allowed me to do my final long tempo for NYC during the marathon. I started the first few miles with my wife as a warmup in order to give the leaders plenty of space, and I then started the 16 mile tempo in which I averaged 4:56. The course was more challenging than I expected. It has rolling hills the entire way. There aren't any long sustained hills like the bridges in New York, but it is definitely enough to mess with your rhythm each mile. I actually thought it was a great simulator for the NYC course, so I'm very pleased with my average for the tempo. I was also allowed to place my fluids on the course which made for an excellent race-day simulation. Since I ended up stopping my workout a little after 20 miles, I was left quite a ways from the finish, so I carried my credit card in my gel pocket and grabbed a taxi in order to make it back in time for Eva's finish.

There was one small snag the evening before the race. I was placed in charge of packing the PowerGels which my wife and I would mix into our bottles for our race-day fluids. Somehow, I left them by the door on our way out, and I did not realize this until Saturday evening as I began to prepare our bottles. What an amateur mistake! All the local running shops were closed, and I didn't know anyone there with extra gels. Since my wife had been practicing with these fluids for her entire build-up, I obviously did not want her to experiment with something new on race day. I got up very early on Sunday morning hoping that there would be a booth setup near the start line selling nutrition products, but there was none. I then looked up the 3 running stores in town and starting running towards them in the hope that one of them may open early for race day. The first shop, about 2km from our hotel, was shut, but my second attempt was successful. Not only were they open, but they carried the Tangerine, caffeine enhanced, Powergel that we had been practicing with! A big thank you to the Running Room in Victoria for saving the day and potentially my marriage.

November 2nd and the TCS NYC Marathon is closing in, and the volume is consistently dropping. Last week marked the end of my longer marathon workouts, and I will now finish the training block with threshold workouts of approximately 6-8 miles in length. Feel free to check out last week's training below. Thanks again for reading, and follow me here on Twitter for more updates.

Week 9	AM	PM	Strength/Drills	Mileage
Sunday	22 miles in 2:02:42 w/ 3 mile push from 17-20 (4:57, 4:54, 4:55)	off		22
Monday	14.5	5	30 minutes	19.5
Tuesday	12.5 + drills and strides	6		18.5
Wednesday	12	5	30 minutes	17
Thursday	3 mi warmup, 4 miles @ 4:46, 4 miles @ 5:50, 4 miles @ 4:46, 4 miles @ 5:40 continuous on road	off		19
Friday	12.5	Off – drive to Victoria	30 minutes	12.5
Saturday	12	4.5 + drills and strides		16.5
TOTAL				125

Less than 4 weeks to the TCS New York City Marathon: Last week's training

We're down to just under four weeks to the TCS NYC Marathon, and I've completed my last big week of volume for this marathon build-up. With last week being at 140 miles, each week from now on will drop by 15-20 miles per week heading into the race on November 2nd. I still have several hard workouts in front of me, but they will ideally be getting progressively faster as I drop the volume and start to freshen up.

Sunday's long run consisted of my pace job in Berlin, which I discussed in last week's blog. The other workout for the week was a 6 x 2km repeat workout followed by an hour of moderate running (averaging around 5:40 pace) with a 200 meter jog recovery. While the 2km repeats were slightly faster than I have run before, the hour run preceding the workout was significantly faster than my last attempt at this workout in the spring and the recovery shorter. It's fair to say that I recovered from the pace job and travel from Berlin very quickly.

The last long run workout will be coming up next weekend in Victoria, BC. My wife will be running her first marathon at the Goodlife Fitness Victoria Marathon, and after writing her training for the last three months, I will have to be there to see how it turns out! The course will be flat and scenic, it will be very well organized, and the weather will be exactly what we're used to; it's the perfect place for Eva to debut in the marathon. I have a 15-16 mile tempo planned for that weekend, and Jonathan Foweraker, the Elite Athlete Coordinator, has generously allowed me to enter the marathon in order to practice my fluids during my long tempo. He has been extremely accommodating, and I'm looking forward making the short trip north and being part of the race weekend.

As the mileage slowly starts to wind down, I have more time and energy to think about the TCS NYC Marathon. My coach, Dave Smith, and I are chiseling away at a race plan based on the various scenarios that my be presented. My travel is sorted, promotional material is being put together, and I'm beginning to slightly feel the reach of the pre-race jitters. These next few weeks will fly by, and I'll be jogging around in Central Park before I know it. I've got to make the next couple of weeks of training count in order to take another big step forward in my marathon career. Feel free to check out last week's training below, and follow me here on Twitter for more updates. Thanks again for reading. Big shout-out to Starting Line Designs for the new Blog, Twitter, and Facebook artwork!

Week 8	AM	PM	Strength/Drills	Mileage
Sunday	Warmup + pacemaking Berlin @ 5:19 pace	off		27
Monday	Off – travel from Berlin to Portland	14		14
Tuesday	15	6 + drills and grass strides		20
Wednesday	14	5	40 minutes	19
Thursday	1 hour moderate run, 6 x 2km (5:54, 5:52, 5:52, 5:52, 5:52, 5:52) w/200 meter jog recovery	4 mile shakeout		23
Friday	12.5	6	40 minutes	18.5
Saturday	10	5 + drills and strides		18.5
TOTAL				140

Less than 5 weeks to the TCS New York City Marathon: Last week's training

Last week was a planned down week in terms of volume and workouts. The down week was originally planned for a week earlier, but after committing to pace Shalane Flanagan at the Berlin Marathon, we decided to swap weeks for obvious reasons. We had a 2 x 4 mile workout planned for Wednesday, but I could tell during the warmup that my body was not ready for the prescribed pace of 4:40-4:42, so I opted for a fartlek instead. The previous week was probably the toughest week of marathon training I've ever had (see previous post), and I felt it for a few days. I backed off the intensity and volume for the second half of the week, and I bounced right back. I generally have one or two brief points during my marathon training blocks when I push a little too hard and am forced to recover for 2-3 days. I have learned not to become frustrated when these come up. I simply give myself the required recovery, and then I am ready to continue where I left off.

While Shalane did not meet her goal of setting the American marathon record, she did achieve a huge personal best as well as a top-3 finish at another Marathon Major. She requested an aggressive pace through the half-marathon (69:36), and she gave it everything she had the last 10km to try to hold on. She was hurting so bad at 20 miles, I am astounded at the mental toughness she showed to power herself to the finish line. I was thankful to have Rob Watson by my side for the pacing. While I was confident in my ability to hit the pace, having a partner really helped take some of the pressure off.

My original workout planned for Sunday was a 3 mile warmup, 4 x 2km @ 4:40-4:42 w/200 meter jog recovery, 10 mile moderate effort run, 4 x 2km, 3 mile cooldown. Even though pacing for 41km was a tough day, the planned workout would likely have been more challenging and added up to almost the exact same volume. I handled the travel very well in both directions, so overall I think it fit right in with my NYC training. I do hope to run the Berlin Marathon at some point in my career, so it was beneficial to get a feel for the course and meet the organizers.

On a side note, I hope you will all take the time to check out this video from Matt Llano and NAZ Elite. Matt came out as an openly gay athlete in December, and he has now given a touching and in-depth interview regarding his experience. I was able to spend some time with him in Flagstaff during my altitude training last month and he is a phenomenal runner and a fantastic person. Matt is looking to help other athletes in the LGBT community with his story. You can help by watching the video and sharing it with others.

Thanks again for reading. Feel free to check out last week's training below, and follow me here on twitter for more updates.

Week 7	AM	PM	Strength/Drills	Mileage
Sunday	24	off		24
Monday	14 + drills and strides	6.5		21
Tuesday	14	6	40 minutes	20
Wednesday	Fartlek 4 x 10 minutes hard	travel to Berlin		15
Thursday	travel to Berlin	7 miles easy post flight		7
Friday	12.5	6		18.5
Saturday	10	5 + drills and strides		15.5
TOTAL				121