The beginning of March marks a few things in my training. 8 months since the start of the Sea to Sea Bike tour. One month until my first marathon, 5 months until my main race of this season (Ironman Calgary 70.3) and 18 months until Ironman Canada 2010 (Penticton).
The past 8 months have been quite successful in terms of keeping the volume in. Since my shoulder allowed me to basically do whatever I wanted again I haven’t let my 7 day rolling average drop below 1 hour per day except for a few down weeks during periodization in the fall and just prior to Christmas when I sprained my neck. I my pseudo-taper (partly planned – partly lazy) coming into the Birkebeiner I hardly got below 10hrs/wk in comparison.
This weekend is 4 weeks away from the marathon I’ll be running in the Yakima River Canyon in Washington state. I’ll have run 70 kms this week by the end of the weekend and expect to run 84 (two marathons) next week. I will continue with the sustained run volume through half of the next week and then begin a 2.5 week taper. My long runs still planned are a 28 and a 32 km each weekend and will also be aiming to run a 10 mile and 12 mile run at sub 7:40min/mile pace. Those 4 key runs remaining actually constitute a good portion of the run volume I have to fit in and based on how they go I will be deciding upon what my planned marathon pace will be come race morning. I’ve been training with the hope of trying for 3:20 which is a 7:38 min/mile pace. I will have to decide if I feel prepared to tackle that before race morning. When the gun goes I need to know if I’ll be aiming for 3:20 or aiming for 3:30 I cannot decide mid-way and so that’s what some of the focus with these runs is for, determining what I will decide to bite off. Of course I’m hoping that I feel confident through these runs and can do the 10 and 12 mile runs at this pace but if I end up with a bit of a reality check I am ready to have my reality checked.
A plot of the last 8 months rolling average is available here if you’re interested.