Less than 5 weeks to the Olympic Marathon Trials: Last week's training

There's less than a month to go until the big day, and training is still inching forward in the right direction. I would be lying if I didn't admit that I wouldn't mind having one more month to train, but my sacrum didn't ask my opinion when it fractured. This will be an interesting experiment moving forward with my training in future marathons after assessing the outcome next month in Los Angeles.

The biggest difference in this training block, outside of it being shorter and starting from cross training, has been the lack of faster intervals early on. In the past I have spent the first 2-3 weeks with 6-8 mile repeats that would typically cut down below 10km pace. I feel like this set me up well in later threshold and tempo efforts and allowed me to cut those down well below half and full marathon pace. I am now having trouble cutting down on these efforts and feel that I'm missing out on this background work. With that said, the long runs and steady state efforts are feeling nearly back to 100%. I am hoping that while getting through slightly lower quality interval and threshold sessions, my long run and marathon pace training is more significant at this point and is more indicative of my marathon fitness level. The next two weeks will be the most intense and will provide a great deal of feedback as to my progress. I continue to be optimistic, and I relish the opportunity to train and compete at all after my summer scare. 

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

Week 7	AM	PM	Strength/Drills	Mileage
Monday	12.5	6	50 minutes	18.5
Tuesday	22 mile progressive long run	off		22
Wednesday	12.5	6 + drills and strides		18.5
Thursday	12	1 hour aqua jogging	40 minutes	12
Friday	4 mile, 3 mile, 2 mile, 1 mile @ 4:50 pace	5		21
Saturday	12.5	6 + drills and strides		18.5
Sunday	14.5	5	40 minutes	19.5
TOTAL				130