As we get closer to the halfway point of this 15-week marathon training plan, it is always the hope that it’s plain sailing. But as we all know, that’s very rarely the case.
After discussing the highs and lows of marathon training in my last post and hoping that the lows were behind me for the remainder of the training plan, it didn’t take long to see that there would still be some bumps in the road between now and race day.
Were these new lows any better received when they happened? No.
Did we move on any quicker and put the low behind us? Also, no.
The truth is, as much as you don’t want it to happen, not completing a run as planned shakes the confidence. And when it’s a long run about half way through a training plan, it makes you question everything.
Pacing. Fueling. Rest. Everything.
In my mind, that’s how I felt after some of the lows earlier in the training plan, but once we hit crunch time these feelings only seemed to multiply after any run that didn’t go to plan.
Then, we regroup and make some adjustments, if necessary.
With some slight changes to workouts or paces, the confidence starts to come back, but seemingly much slower than it went away.
At least that’s how it is for me!
So, as we got to and passed the halfway point of the training plan, and continue through some of the tougher workouts of the plan, I’m trying to remind myself that running is meant to be fun and even having to make some adjustments isn’t the end of the world.
There’s still time to get everything right, finish the training plan strongly and have a great race in Chicago!
If you’re interested, here’s what I got up to the last three weeks of the training plan:
Week 7 (66.6km; 41.4 miles)
Monday Easy 10km – An easy run after de-loading last week was a great way to ease back into the full training.
Wednesday Intervals 15km Total (6 x 1km @ 3:55-4:05/km (~6:25/mile) 2 mins rest/jog; 10 mins @ 4:25-4:30/km (~7:15/mile) – This workout looked tough on paper even with the slightly adjusted paces, but I was more than determined to complete it and get the training back in full swing. It felt relatively comfortable and had me feeling ready for whatever came up during the rest of the training plan!
Thursday Easy 11km – Just as planned, easy running in the cooler temperatures.
Saturday Easy 10km – Another Saturday morning, another straightforward 10km. No issues here.
Sunday 20.5km Completed (28km Planned with three tempo blocks at Marathon Pace) – Similar to the long run in Week 5, where I felt good starting out and then quickly faded away at about the halfway point, the conditions today were tough – humid and muggy. The only difference here was that I had prepared water and a change of shirt at home. I tried to keep everything close to my house by running loops and then stopped at home after the 2nd tempo block (which felt really tough).
After a few minutes drinking water and changing my shirt, I headed back out to try to finish the run/distance. Initially, I felt good and thought I would have a decent chance at finishing out the remaining 12km. However, just like in the first part of this run, I struggled to maintain the pace. So after 1km of the 3rd tempo block, I stopped running and started walking home.
Honestly, I was feeling pretty defeated at this point. Not necessarily about the training overall, but just at my seeming inability to complete a long run in the heat and/or humidity. I know that sometimes it’s just not a good day and it can be tough to accept that.
Hopefully, in the end, this run as well as the long run at the end of Week 5, are just blips on an overall great training cycle.
Week 8 (67km; 41.6 miles)
Monday 30 minutes easy – The initial reaction to yesterday’s long run was to adjust the plan for this week and make sure we got back on track before the final few weeks of the plan. But I didn’t feel wiped out at all, my legs weren’t bothering me and I felt like it was just a bad day yesterday. But 30 minutes easy for today was probably a smart way to make sure everything was feeling ok.
Wednesday Easy 10km – Over the first couple of days of the week, the weather cooled off quite a bit and this was probably one of the better feeling runs I’ve had, especially in the last several weeks.
Thursday 28km long run (3 tempo blocks @ 4:50/km; ~7:45/mile) – Originally, this run was meant to be done on Sunday to close out Week 8, but with the weather forecasted to be nice and cool, and my last two long runs not going according to plan, we decided to move this up to today. It turned out to be a great decision.
In the cooler temperatures, I was able to just focus on the running rather than how much I was sweating or how hot it was. We slowed the paces down to give myself the best chance of completing the run and distance as planned. It was a mostly comfortable run, where I felt like I could have gone a bit faster in the tempo blocks, but I actually stuck to the script for once and ran at the planned paces!
The feeling of finally completing a long run as planned – my first since the end of Week 4 – was incredible. And it was a great way to mark the exact halfway point of the training plan. Hopefully, it will provide the necessary boost to get me through the tougher weeks of training coming up.
Saturday Easy 11km – Yes, my legs were a little heavy from the long run on Thursday, but with the long run for the week now behind me, it felt good to get out for a nice, easy run.
Sunday ~12km total (15 minutes warmup; 6km Tempo @ ~4:40/km (7:35/mile); 15 minutes cooldown) – To make this as straightforward as possible, I decided to return to the track for the tempo portion and continue to repair a very broken relationship with the track. A nice warmup running to the track was followed by a comfortably-paced 6km tempo block. We slowed the paces down overall for this week to make sure that I was completing the workouts, so hopefully as we continue to move forward the slightly faster paces will return and feel just as good as this did!
Week 9 (62.8km; 39 miles)
Monday Recovery 10km – The trickle down effect of completing my long run in the middle of last week meant that my legs felt fresher today than they typically do on a Monday morning (when I had a long run on Sunday). All in all, a great start to the week!
Wednesday Intervals 17.6km total (4 x (1200m @ 4:20/km (7:00/mile) with 2 minutes rest/jog, 800m @ 4:00/km (6:25/mile) with 90 seconds rest/jog; 400m @ 3:40/km (6:00/mile) with 60 seconds rest)) – With the heat and humidity back, I initially pushed this workout to Thursday thinking it would be better. But late Tuesday night, I was looking at the forecasts for both of the mornings and Wednesday looked slightly better, so I switched back to the original plan. While the forecast proved true, it was still very muggy and just as on a few of these interval sessions in this plan, I found myself drenched in sweat after only completing the warmup.
As the workout got underway, the 1200m reps felt somewhat comfortable, but each time I started an 800m, it felt very difficult to hold on to the pace and eventually I fell off by a few seconds on the final two reps. The 400m reps never felt comfortable from the first step and similar to the 800s, I fell off the pace by a few seconds on the 3rd rep and then crawled to the finish of the final rep.
I know these workouts are intended to be hard. That’s kind of the point of them! But I definitely have a feeling of wishing I could hang on to the paces for a little longer or a little further into the workout. It’s impossible for me to ignore the factor that the humidity plays during these workouts because it feels like it sucks everything right out of me.
Thursday Easy 11km – Once again, it felt good to get out for a nice easier-paced run after a much harder workout yesterday. Still with the humidity, I was completely drenched by the end.
Saturday Easy 12km – The humidity is back the last couple of days, but no problems at all on this run.
Sunday Easy 12km (planned 29.5km Long Run) – Due to some (hopefully) more favorable running temperatures/conditions tomorrow, we moved this week’s long run to tomorrow. So, you’ll just have wait until the next update to see how the long run went! But this 12km was just fine!
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