Thursday, January 28, 2016

Less than 3 weeks to the US Olympic Marathon Trials: Last week's training

The bulk of marathon training is now unfortunately behind me, but the next couple of weeks will be used to sharpen up before complete rest begins. I was fairly nervous heading into last week's long tempo as I felt it would be a big test of my marathon fitness after a short and condensed marathon build-up. Fortunately it went better than expected as I was able to average 4:58 for 16 miles in less than ideal conditions. This effort also came at the end of a 140 mile week, so to be able to pull that off with tired legs was a big confidence booster. There is only time left now for a couple more hard threshold efforts at lower volume, but the faster running should help knock the final bit of rust off.

I head to Chula Vista tomorrow for a couple weeks at the Olympic Training Center, and I'm looking forward to leaving the Portland rain behind. It will also be an excellent setting to relax and focus on the little things over my last couple of weeks. There is not a great deal of fitness to be gained from this point out, but it is an important time for risk aversion in terms of diet, sleep, and not over-training. I plan on checking out the Los Angeles course while I'm there so I can start visualizing each aspect of the race. The list of participants is nearly finalized, so it is also time to start making a more concrete race plan while I have a lot of down time in California.

Thanks again for reading, and feel free to check out last week's training below.

Week 9 AM PM Strength/Drills Mileage
Monday 14 6 20
Tuesday 14.5 6 + drills and strides 40 minutes 20.5
Wednesday Fartlek: (1 min, 2, 3, 4) x 3, 17 miles total 5 22
Thursday 14.5 6 40 minutes 20.5
Friday 1 hour run + 8 x 200 @ 30-31 6 19
Saturday 11 5 30 minutes 16
Sunday 16 mile tempo @ 4:58 avg. off 22
TOTAL 140

5 comments:

  1. Dude your a freaking machine! Welcome back! #rio2016

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  2. Dude your a freaking machine! Welcome back! #rio2016

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  3. Thanks for posting on your blog. You are an inspiration to many of us. I'm certain you will do well in the Trials. Enjoy the break from the rain.

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  4. Hey Ryan, After the trials because your very busy and need to stay with your routine because it is working very well, could you please think about posting the actual times you complete your workouts in. If you don't like to I understand and sometimes I get a lil greedy I guess and want too much. By the way, alot of sites are not mentioning your chances in the trials because they are not aware of how well rest can help a young runner. You ran a 2:10 marathon and have dealt with injuries. You will have plenty of speed because those injuries gave you plenty of time for other parts of your body to heal and that is a good thing. The timing of those injuries could possibly be perfect. Tim Ritchie was injured and ran the half marathon of his life after not a lot of training. I see it happen a lot and actually have good success in prediction even without extreme knowledge of particular runners. People are saying Rupp, Meb, Ritz, ....it sounds nice but it doesn't work that way!

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