Today's 13.1 mile half marathon pacing session wiped me out. This is the end of my third week of a five week half marathon training cycle preparing for the June 18 Seattle Rock 'N' Roll Half Marathon and I am feeling the burn.
I find it somewhat surprising that with such a deep aerobic running base given I ran the December Honolulu and then April Boston Marathon that a trio of 40 mile average training weeks would leave me so spent on a Saturday afternoon, but I am honestly looking forward to tapering the next couple of weeks which is something I would normally somewhat sneer at doing since a half marathon is a relatively straight-forward distance to train for and recover from.
As I look back on the last 3 weeks of training, each six day revolution had three very hard runs of substance. My strength intervals every Tuesday have been 4 x 1 mile in 7:10 pace; 4 x 1.5 mile in 7:20 pace and then a brutal 3 x 2 mile session this last week where I averaged around 7:35 pace (all these runs have been on the Cross Kirkland Corridor trail which is dirt and gravel and adds to the workout intensity). My tempo runs have been 60 minute pacing sessions around 7:25 - 7:30 pace followed by Saturday runs of 14-mile cut-down (average overall pace 8:00 with last 5 miles in 7:30 pace); 2 x 5 mile tempo intervals in 37:30 and 38:30 and then wrapping with this morning's 13.1 time trial in 1:42:15.
The goal of this five week segment was to really bracket my training with time spent at or around 10K to half marathon pace while buffering these workouts with easy runs at 9:00 pace. Given I spent so much time preparing for Boston running much slower times due to my injury, I also wanted to get a little footspeed back; although, I haven't really done a lot of track running nor pressed hard on 5K speed work (somewhat in fear of my tendon injury returning).
I set a goal for this morning's half marathon pacing session of something in the 1:38:00 range which I missed by a full 4:00 running 1:42:15. That being said, I misjudged how warm it was this morning and didn't start running until nearly 8:30 am when it was nearly 70 degrees with little shade on the Lake Sammamish Trail. If I'd been thinking more clearly about morning temperatures we'd have started around 7:00 am. Nonetheless, I could feel the heat and cumulative training fatigue on me right away as we took off and had to work hard to get through the first 6.55 miles in 7:42 pace and 50:25 elapsed time (which was about a minute slower than I'd hoped for). We fought a full headwind all the way running north this morning which added to my slowness -- so I was hopeful as we turned around I'd be able to roll off some 7:30's and dial it in with the wind at my back (but of course the sun now was full on us as we ran back to the south). Opening 6 miles were in 7:40, 7:43, 7:44, 7:44, 7:45, 7:39 and then 4:08 for .55 mile to 6.55.
Turning around with the wind at our back I felt energized and quickly rolled off a 7:28 and was feeling bullish about dropping back below 1:40 based on a negative split on the second half; however my energy started to be dampened as I was really heating up in the sun running 7:40, 7:42, 7:47 and then started to really have to work hard at mile 10 running 7:50 before descending into the pain cave and really struggling over the last 5K running a snail-like 7:50, 8:08, 8:22 and 57.1 final .1 mile. I got through 10 miles in 76:57 and 7:41 pace and then collapsed on the final 5K running 24:20 and 8:06 average pace.
I don't know why it always amazes me how much the heat takes out of us in terms of speed based on our brain consciously slowing our bodies down (as a form of self preservation), but the temperature at the start of this morning was right where it was for the start of the Boston Marathon (about 70) and then was around 75-77 the last part of the race which was warmer than what we endured over the final 10K as we dropped into Boston and it cooled down. It seems like I should have been able to better endure it. But at 50 years old, the heat just crushes me these days. Although, I think a lot of this is simply being from Seattle as we don't spend a lot of time running in moderate heat which is probably the underlying issue. I'm not adapted for warmer running temperatures (many wouldn't consider running in 75 degrees that overly warm in other parts of the country).
So with the half marathon race 2 weeks from this morning, I'm going to work hard to nail my Tuesday intervals (4 x 1 mile), Thursday tempo run (60 minute pacing session) and then a final 10-12 miles easy with a cut-down final 5K at half marathon goal pace for week 4 of this cycle.
My goal coming into this cycle was to run something below 1:36:00 for the race. At this point, today's outcome worries me a bit but I also know I have a lot of fatigue on my legs and with a taper and some sharpening I may be able to pull off a great race. My fallback goal is anything in the 1:38:00's which will leave me in good shape to resume marathon training in mid-July with some decent speed under my belt.
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