2020 Marathon Training and relevant COVID 19 discussion echo chamber (Read 700 times)

(Insert Mills Lane ‘I'll allow it’ meme here ) 

 

I thought he was the "Let's get it on" guy.

This thread looks like it could get interesting.

My week: 49.9 miles, mostly easy; one little hill workout during an 8-mile run, and a 13-mile "long" run yesterday.

 

This was supposed to be an easy 50-ish mile week to reacclimate to being a runner and start ramping for Boston. All was going quite well until I rolled my left ankle yesterday about 7 miles in. I debated stopping several times but figured if I did it wouldn't hurt any *less* today. At about 9.5 miles I loosened my shoe and it didn't feel any worse so I kept going.

 

This morning it's the size of a grapefruit and quite colorful and painful. Fecks sake. Running is stupid.

That sucks. Do you have low foot arches? I'm asking because I have almost never rolled my ankle in my entire life, and I have high arches, and people I know who have a tendency to roll their ankles a lot have a very low arch. I realize my sample group is much too small to draw a conclusion, but I'm curious.

DP - Amazing you run as much as you do having to pick between ice and treadmills. I hate both. I don't have much experience with ice, but a few years back it got down in to the low 20s here. Someone hadn't turned off their sprinklers along my normal path, right by a turn. I ate it so bad. Two years later, even when it's 80F and I pass that spot I get nervous.

DW - Two weeks from taper time??? Seems like that went quick! That's a big block F-Sun. Having that much before your 7 miles at MP has to have had an effect. I'd expect that pace to come down a bit. Hopefully it all ties together for you.

Welcome, Cyberic. What's your goal marathon?

JT - I agree that posting the summary of the week--both detailing the runs in an easy to read format and the description--is great. It really helps me see what other people are doing and whether it seems to be working or not. It seems easier to decide whether to try things out or not. But at the same time, I'm happy to have other people jumping in, even if they don't want to do that. Mikkey has dropped the habit quite a while back, but I'm still happy he's participating!

Cal - I kinda ended up deciding that the long runs were not much of an issue. I do respect DW, OMR and JMac's knowledge of training, but don't really think that there was some deep underlying fatigue issue going on and that I ran too many long runs. I've felt beat up in training before, and didn't feel that at all this go around. I felt quite fresh most weeks. Ultimately I think I was just slightly off of what I expected--I should have gone for 2:52 or so instead of 2:49. And I should have seen that. Since October, when my training really started turning serious, my half/tempo paces remained more or less the same. I convinced myself that I had just been more "marathon" focused and was bridging the gap from my HMP to my MP. But I don't think that was actually the case. Or not nearly as much as I thought. There was still a larger than average gap between those two paces.

Wow.  3 pages behind looks like I'm in for some entertainment.  Solid week for week 2. Legs feeling some fatigue so I changed the 2nd workout from hills to a GA10.  My legs were pretty dead so I'm not sure i could have completed it.  Tempo on Tuesday was nice and the long run felt solid.

DPS- Thanks for the input.  I'll try to throw some doubles in over the next few weeks.  My problem is getting up that early.  Most of my runs are mid-day so the early ones hurt.

Fish- even a 3-4 mile run in the evening to flush out the legs is good. Keeps things loose and not growing stiff. The key is though to make sure you take it very slow and easy. Mostly about keeping things moving and repairing themselves

Cal: Solid week and I have the same question as DW about your LR today.

 

Nimmals: Cain did not have the race she wanted but I hope she can get back to previous fitness. Donovan had an awesome race; that 600m looked easy for him. I'm really excited to see what he does in the 800 outdoors. I could see him closing in on King David's WR eventually.

 

So sad about Kobe and his daughter (and the others in the helicopter). I was a huge fan of NBA basketball from the mid-80's through the late 90s, the Lakers-Pistons-Bulls era, but appreciate the greatness of the later subsequent generation of Kobe, Shaq and King James.

 

DW: Funny about the non-integer weekly total; that does not phase me, but I do tend to like even numbers for an individual run. Not even sure why, though most of my runs are out and back so turning around at a whole number of course always gives an even number total. Takeaway: runners are weird in many ways.  I somehow missed that you are targeting a March 1 marathon; that puts your training in better context. Excellent quality LR today.

 JT - Mary ran essentially the same time as she did @ TNR,  she didn't engage early. Bogale also dropped out the mile. I was very please with Lipari's results looks like she will have a stellar season.

Finally watched the NB Grand Prix,

Brazier smile is infectious I hope he gets the record but Nigel Amos is still always dangerous he ran 4th fastest time ever as an under 20. if he ever gets it together he could break the record before Donovan. He is always the closes to 700M then its like he hits quicksand when he figures it out he can be the greatest ever. Pete has the Oregon project squad still relevant.

I so wanted to race the Masters Mile but the race director never got back to me and my friend had a hip injury so he didn't compete.

Still need to back and catch up on this thread for the past few weeks, but it is so nice to see so many folks on this new 2020 version!

After my lowest mileage week (post-marathon) in about 4 years took a much needed cruise vacation 2 weeks ago.  Other than some EZ treadmill running on the cruise didn't do much of anything structured that week and spent most of last week building my volume back up.  Then on this past Thursday decided at a whim to see where my legs were and ran a 20 minute tempo at right around my HM pace. This felt really good so decided to run a HM yesterday at right around Marathon PR pace effort in order to help a few friends try to break 1:20.  After a few miles my legs felt really good and we were able to run mid 1:18 which was a big PR my buddy.  Still ran I believe my 4th fastest HM!  This was also my longest and hardest effort since the marathon 3 weeks ago.  The weather was ideal as we had calm winds and temperatures of 43 at the start.  Easily would have been the best race conditions of my life and if it was another week or two later I would have gone for the PR.

Next up: I'm kind of thinking of going after a HM in about a month as that sub 75 is hanging out there.  I feel like I might be very close based on my previous races and timing some good weather.  I also have a 10K targeted mid-month by that includes 2 pretty hard bridge repeats so a PR might be tough to squeeze out there.  And yes I am running Boston this April, but not sure I have the desire to go all out there considering my recent training block, big marathon PR, and the fact that Boston just never seems to get good conditions.  I've always said I would love to soak in the experience of simply running that race and the last 3 years have been tough ones both mentally and physically. 2017 was warm and I was fighting a bit of an injury, 18 was the cold/wind/rain hypothermia adventure, and 19 was the best time, but I struggled with some legs cramps for about 8 miles.  Other than that I'm pretty much committed to CIM as my next big full at this point so I feel like I could go after some shorter distance PR's in the meantime.

PS JMac huge congrats on the pregnancy.  That's awesome!!

Me - first real week of Boston training. I am not as out of shape as I thought, which is great. I thought my 2.5 full weeks off and honestly 5 weeks of barely any running was going to make it a long trek back. I guess we'll see when I race in 2 weeks where I'm really at. For those of you who have known me for a while, I kept saying I'm getting near the end of wanting to run this intensely, and I think this Boston will be it. My wife and I are now expecting our first kid in July, so that pretty much put the nail in the coffin as I will have to take on a pretty big burden with the child vs. my wife who works a more demanding job. I'm also not a morning person as you people know, so there's no way I want to run 70+ MPW and wake up at 5 am to do so.  I want to train hard for this Boston and go out on top. Maybe I'll run marathons in the future, but I think this will be my last attempt at a lifetime PR. As I said with CIM though, if I end up with a 2:36 lifetime PR, I will be happy. I probably will be willing to keep attacking shorter PRs given the training is much less of a time suck.

First of all, congratulations! That's awesome! But I wouldn't rule things out in the not too distant future. I didn't take running seriously until my 3rd child was born. The first one is definitely an adjustment, so it seems like you can expect to have things thrown off for a bit. But then you get in a routine and things become easier. I don't think I could have trained as hard as I do now before having kids. We certainly went out way more back then than we do now, and that would've made things hard. My wife's job is also quite a bit more demanding. My flexibility allows me to shift things around quite easily. That helps a ton.