My Training and Sept. 11th

As I mentioned previously I am in the late stages of training for the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon in October. My expectation is for a PR. Probably in the 25-30 minute range. My training has gone well and I have about 14 months of consistent running under my belt. This summer I added some twists to my training routine. I began a weekly speed workout with the Rush Running crew. In the span of a few months I have dropped my average mile split time at the track by a full minute. Mike Rush knows how to push folks. I also embraced the idea of back to back (B2B) long runs that some ultra runners use. I decided to do these in blocks of two weeks on and two weeks off. For example, my first B2B week consisted of a 17 mile road run followed by an 11 mile trail run the next day. On the following weekend I logged B2B 15 milers. I also incorporated a couple of "tempo" weeks. During these weeks I ran everything at or below race pace. Of course I cut down on my mileage for these weeks, about 20% or so. The result is feeling that I am in the best shape of my life. With the cooler weather setting I find myself having to slow myself down on training runs. With that said I think I could have followed almost any routine and improved over the last year. Why? The real key, in my mind, was being consistent. The B2B runs, speed sessions and tempo weeks are icing on the cake. The foundation is the mileage and time I spent on my feet the last 14 months. My confidence was boosted by my performance at a 5k in August at which I ran a flat 7:00 pace. On Labor Day I finished a 10k at 7:23 pace and this week, on a solo training run, I beat my best half marathon time by 1 min 18 seconds. And for those of you local that was with running Crystal Bridges twice on my course.
Tomorrow morning is my last long run before the marathon. A 22 miler with a couple of buddies. Always nice to have some company on a long one. The weather looks pretty good and we should really be able to gauge things by the outcome. I need it more mentally than physically even though I know the distance is not the issue. I still have some lingering doubts about being able to finish 26.2 strong. If I feel bad at the finish line in Minneapolis I want it to be from pushing the pace and not from the distance itself.
In closing I wanted to share a great line from an article I found at Running and Rambling about September 11th, for the full article click the link below.

Before you go for a run on September 11th, and every day after, make sure you are running toward something and not away from it. And hug your family before you go.






http://www.runningandrambling.com/2011/09/honoring-september-11th.html