This turned out to be another great week of training. I am really satisfied with how things have gone lately. The weather warmed up a little this week and I took advantage by getting some quality miles in on the bike. The good news of the week is that my favorite bike/hike path re-opened. I mainly use it for my long runs and it had been closed for the past 5 weeks while new bridges were installed. I also had my last swim lesson this past Thursday. Having private lessons helped a lot. I still have a lot of work to do and i'm looking forward to focusing more on swimming while I taper for the marathon.
This past Friday, the Cleveland Marathon announced a partnership with Coca-Cola. They also announced that they electrolyte to be provided would be Mountain Berry Blue Powerade. My first thought was, thank goodness for no more lemon lime. Lemon Lime flavoring has always made me sick to my stomach while exercising. My next thought was Mountain Blue Berry?? What an odd choice. I went to the store on Friday and stocked up on it and began training with it on Saturday. Immediately, I could see why it was chosen. It is a real light flavor and is actually nice while running. I think this flavor will be appreciated on race day. The best news is that it does not give me any stomach issues. It will be nice to finally be at a race that I can take in more electrolytes. In the past, I've taken in more GU and water to compensate.
Saturday was a lighter long run for me. My plan called for a 15 miler to help recover from last weeks 20 miler. I was excited to get back on my long run route, but not excited about the weather forecast. Rain and cold temps had been forecasted all week. I ended up getting lucky as the hard rain had stopped by the time I started and was only misting through the morning. I felt really good through the first 7.5 miles and even ran in too fellow #Dirtyrunner
Christian. He is currently training for the Indy Mini Marathon and Cleveland Half Marathon. At the half way point my average pace was 9:08 per mile and decided to push the pace a little as I felt good and wanted to work on running my race pace. I continued to run well and picked up on speed as the miles went by. I finished with an average pace of 8:56!!! I've done half marathons under 9 minutes per mile, but I've never done a long training run that fast before. I couldn't be more excited with how it went.
This week is the beginning of the end as my miles during the week start to taper off and I have my last 20 miler this Saturday. The weather is looking pretty cool again and they are focusing for 2-4 inches of snow tomorrow. So, I doubt I will be able to get in a lot of bike miles this week. My plan does call for 2 off days this week. I can't remember the last time I had 2 days off in a week. It will be nice to rest up the legs a little before Saturday.
Monday
Rest day
Tuesday
6.10 mile run at 8:52 pace
4 mile recovery ride at 16 mph average
Wednesday
26 mile ride at 17.6 mph
Thursday
Swim lesson
5.00 mile run at 8:52 pace
Friday
25 mile ride at 17.4 mph
Saturday
15 mile run at 8:56 pace
10 mile recovery ride at 17.2 mph
Sunday
8 mile run at 9:22 pace
Miles: 99.50
Calories burned: 7,982
Time: 9:23:29
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| The marathon shoes. I began breaking them in this week. |
