Really? Twelve weeks down already? DAMN! training is flying by!
Last week was a small step-back week with 48 miles—following an intense 57 the week before—and I was glad to have it. My legs were pretty tired through most of my mid-week runs, but they held up reasonably well, I guess.
Monday was an easy 4-mile recovery run and Tuesday was a rest day. Wednesday’s twelve miles might have been the most painful run of my life. The wind was fierce, 30mph with 40+mph gusts, and kicked my ass. Hard. When I finally finished, I came to a complete stop in front of a random house, doubled over in pain, and started crying. It was awful. My lungs hurt like all hell and I had a horrible side stitch. I felt like I was working twice as hard as I did during the Miles for Music 20k a few days prior, but ran 50 sec/mile slower. Just brutal. Luckily, Thursday’s eight miles were a ton easier.
My second twenty miler, on Saturday, was a little tougher than I would have liked. It was 17 sec/mile slower than last week’s with an overall pace of 8:20 and I worked a bit harder at the end for it. Though, this run was in the rain and with a bunch of hills so I think that evens it out. The plan was to get up early and beat the rain so we could run on the nice and flat Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath. Instead, the wife and I decided to sleep in and snuggle in bed. By the time we got up, it was already raining and there were heavy rains predicted for the rest of the day. There was even a flood warning. With that in mind, we knew our chance to run on a path that’s literally between a canal and a river had passed us. It was no longer a safe idea. So, we were left to running from our house and dealing with the hills. We did the first twelve miles together before the wife broke off to finish her 15-miler with some speed work. I kept trucking on even though I wasn’t feeling it, but I was able to put together a decent negative split and run my last four miles at or below marathon goal pace. I’ll take it!
So that just about wraps up March which was easily my most intense training month of all time! I crushed my monthly PDR with 231 miles (I’m throwing tonight’s four miles in there)! That’s a 28 mile increase over my previous best! And I’ll also hit 536 miles on the year so far which is unbelievable for just the first quarter.
I’m really psyched about running right now and that’s good because this week and next week are my peak weeks with 60 miles. SIXTY! WTF!