Less than 6 weeks to the TCS New York City Marathon: Last week's training

Another week of marathon training is in the books, and I am happy to report that my body feels great! The midweek long tempos are always a struggle as they follow a tough Sunday effort, so the time wasn't particularly impressive, but the effort was consistent and at the level I expect for 70 minutes of running. I decided to move my Sunday long run to a more challenging loop in order to mimic the stress of the ups and downs of the NYC course. The Fairmount loop in Portland is 3.5 miles with constant elevation changes, so it's difficult to get into a rhythm for a long run as you have to push the downhills in order to maintain goal pace. I think it's also beneficial to change the muscle groups throughout a run this long as opposed to locking into cruise control on a flat run. I am considering this challenging course for my last long tempo which will happen in a couple weeks, but I will do one or two more runs first to better learn the layout in preparation. The 3.5 mile distance is very convenient as I can simply leave all my bottles at the start line as opposed to driving around dropping them off and picking them up. It saves me up to an hour for my long run day which I could be using to better refuel and rest.

The next two weeks will likely be the toughest of the training block, and I am confident that my body is ready for it. Despite the scare a few weeks ago that forced me into the pool for a week, I can't remember my body feeling this fresh in a long time. No aches, pains, niggles, tightness, etc. This is about the time that I messed up heading into the Olympic Trials as I used this feeling as a sign to jump the mileage up to 140 per week against my coaches advice, which was likely the beginning of my road to the femoral stress fracture. This time around, I plan to stay the course, keep volume relatively low, continue to stay acutely aware of how my body is feeling, and continue with rehab and recovery. Workouts have been going well enough that I know NYC will go well as long as I'm at the start line healthy. How well it will go will be determined by the next 5 and a half weeks.

Thanks again for reading, and feel free to check out last week's training below. Follow me here on Twitter for more updates.

Weeks to go: 6	AM	PM	Strength	Mileage
Monday	90 minutes aqua jogging	off	1 hour	0
Tuesday	11.5	5.5 + drills and strides		17
Wednesday	14 mile tempo @ 5:02	off		18
Thursday	11	5	1 hour	16
Friday	11	8 x 200 meter hills		18
Saturday	12	1 hour aqua jogging	40 minutes	12
Sunday	25 miles, miles 18-22 @ 4:59, hilly	off		25
TOTAL				106