Matthew Jordan
| Programming, Running, and ThingsThis week was going to be a challenge. AstriCon.
I don’t usually get a lot of sleep during AstriCon, and I typically work my liver out more than any other part of my body. Not exactly the best set up for marathon training, particularly when one’s training plan is based on cumulative fatigue. Going in, I came up with the following plan:
Get to bed early Monday night. I wouldn’t get in until nearly midnight, which actually worked a little bit in my favor: less time to get pulled into whatever conference vortex was forming. I planned to move quickly through the hotel lobby and get to bed immediately.
Get my speedwork day in on Tuesday, as per plan. This was the first of the hard runs.
Move my Friday easy-ish day to Wednesday, as opposed to taking it off. I had an early flight out on Friday, and this way I didn’t have to worry about running before the flight.
Suck it up enough to get up on Thursday. Wednesday night is usually the most active night, so this would be a challenge.
Monday (5 miles easy)
I did my five miles easy downtown. A few hours at work, and it was off to the airport for an evening flight to Orlando. I had to wait for a few other folks once I landed. Combined with the taxi ride over, I didn’t get to hotel until midnight, and fell asleep about 12:30.
No worries. Six hours of sleep is enough, right?
Here we go.
Tuesday (5x1000m speed work)
The alarm went off at 6-ish. Groggy, I got myself up, out, and going.
As I got going, I noticed that it smelled a bit. Kind of sulfurish. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised; Florida is kind of one big swamp. It was also hot and humid. Knew that the route was mostly a big square, figured I’d run to one of the far ‘corners’ and turn around. Out and back. Went fine until I saw the hill. WTF?
That’s a 100 ft. elevation change, and it goes up a lot faster than the chart shows. By the time I hit the last interval I was sucking wind, and sucking wind hard, but I did it.
FU Floridia. You stink, literally.
Wednesday (6 miles easy)
On Wednesday I woke up and ran with a group of fellow AstriCon attendees - one a coworker who was also training for the marathon, and another who is a longtime Asterisk community member and all around great guy. He was training for his first marathon, so the two of us who had done the insanity before had a nice chat with him as we ran the same route I had the day before.
I don’t usually run with groups, but when you’re running with good people, it’s quite enjoyable. Good conversation when needed, quiet when we’re all heading up that silly hill. I can see this would be a bit weird on a tempo day or other substance day, but easy days are great for group running. I did have to them to slow down a bit, no faster than 9:40-ish for me please. Luckily, both of them were will willing to humor me.
All together, we finished up at 9:50 min/mile. Nice.
Thursday (8 mile tempo Sleep)
Guess what happened the night before?
Conference Matt. Conference Matt happened.
Really, it wasn’t a lot of boozing, but way too much talking. I didn’t get back up to the room until 12:30 or so, and wasn’t really asleep until 1. When I woke, there was just no way I was getting out there. Could I have done it? Maybe, I wasn’t hung over. But running after drinking with no sleep didn’t sound very smart. Rationalizing it to myself, I thought, “I know, I can juggle it again - we’ll run Friday evening when I get home. That still gives me Saturday for an easy run, with my long on Sunday. YAY.”
As it turns out, this was not the best of plans.
Friday (8 mile tempo 6 mile tempo)
My flight was early in the morning, so there was no chance of getting in the run early. The plane trip back was uneventful, getting me back to good old HSV early in the afternoon. I don’t like running in the evenings, but damnit, I was going to get all my runs in this week.
Got home; talked to Katie.
“You know it’s going to rain all weekend, right? I don’t see you doing 15 miles on a treadmill on Sunday.”
“Shit.”
Stupid hurricane Nate.
If I moved the 15 mile run to Saturday morning, I should’t do my tempo run; no back-to-back substance runs. Or else I could cancel my long run. I didn’t like either of those options, so I went with a compromise:
Drop the 8 mile tempo to a 6 mile tempo. Still a substance run, but slightly easier.
Do the 15 miles tomorrow, but don’t set a 9:20 min/mile pace. Instead, do 5 at slow pace, 5 at long pace, and finish it up with 5 at slow pace.
And so I went and did the tempo run and did not enjoy it. How do people run in the evening? All during the run my lunch wanted to come out and regale me with tales of my intestinal tract. Maybe those burger sliders with chili weren’t a great idea. Somehow, I got it done with a solid ~8:32 min/mile pace. No pain in the knees at least.
Saturday was going to be fun.
Saturday (15 mile long)
WHoooooooooooooooooooo boy.
Getting up before the crack of dawn, I drove down to Whitesburg Elementary to start the loop of transcendence. Bailey Cove. 5 miles or so of flat, straight-to-only-slightly-curved road, before you loop and head up the interminable Chaney Thompson for more of the same.
Y.A.Y.
Even without the Garmin warning me, I quickly got up to long distance pace. “What the hell,” I thought, “it isn’t hurting.” I kept it at that pace for the whole 15. Unlike previous long runs, I never had to stretch out the legs to keep the knee from hurting.
Training seems to be working. I’m pretty sure my knee pain was from weak quads, and the Hanson plan appears to be fixing that.
Finished well on it, 9:25 min/mile.
Sunday (6 mile slow)
Hurricane Nate was a bit of a soggy mess. Lots of rain that seemed to alternate between sprinkling and spattering. The real stuff, with the wind, was still several hours away, and I hate treadmills. Running in the rain it is.
No big deal, finished at 9:44 min/mile.
Totals
Distance: 47.95 miles
Time: 7:28:43
Calories: 6794
Rules broken: 1