Making Adjustments

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 This week’s marathon training came with two lessons. Make the best of whatever the situation I find myself in and adjust the plan when the moment calls for change. These are tricky lessons to learn when I get hyper focused on training by the book. It's easier to just do whatever the plan says than to improvise based on the real conditions. But these are healthy lessons especially given the nature of the marathon itself where things most likely will not go precisely to plan.


Here is a montage of what brought these lessons about: 


SUNDAY started early with a 14 mile long run through some treacherous snow covered streets followed by a weekend trip across the state where I learned to luge.  A fun adventure, but it added another 37 flights of stairs to the day. 


The following day, MONDAY,I needed to satisfy an easy effort pace run. I thought I’d use the treadmill at the hotel, but couldn’t figure it out. (It turns out running is easy, figuring out a treadmill is complicated) So I ended up running around the parking lots of a bunch of big box retail stores. Not exactly the most inspiring scenery, but it gave me the time on my feet I needed.   


TUESDAY brought Speedwork. 4x1200m with 400m recovery at 5k-10k pace.  Not awful or outside my zone of tolerance, but certainly not wonderful or on par with what I know is possible.I could tell my legs were rebelling against me. 


WEDNESDAY Rest day (thank goodness)


Which brings us to THURSDAY which in theory is Marathon Pace practice day.

Over the past 2 training cycles, each 18 weeks, I can only think of two instances where I abandoned runs (apart from my covid runs). This week I added another workout to this infamous list. 


Overnight between 5pm and 2am the next morning 3-4 inches of snow fell. I made it out before the snow plows so despite my best efforts I simply could not get up to marathon pace. After a warm up mile then 3 miles of effort I called it in and headed for home. I found my limit. There was nothing productive in my miles and I just was needless wearing my body down. 


I still wanted marathon pace practice and on FRIDAY the roads were clear so I did it. 

1 mile wu, 7miles at marathon pace 1mi cool down.
Still not excellent conditions, but a much more fair fight. A bit of redemption run the disappointment of the day before.


All this is to say my cycle of running hard and recovery was slightly off kilter, but so I just dialed in an 10 mile easy effort pace run and called it a week on SATURDAY


I fully expect in the next 10 weeks to have another instance of disruption like this. Not because of my own lack of desire for putting in the work, but factors outside of my control. Weather or otherwise. Thankfully, I’ll have the lessons of this week to help carry me through. 


Remember: Forward is progress. 

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