Thursday, August 12, 2010

Training Update: Halfway to Chicago

Thank you all for your supportive comments on my less than stellar race. I am still at a loss for why I gave up in the middle of that race but I suspect it has less to do with my fitness/training and more to do with environmental, life and stress factors that were outside of my control. I am proud of the way I fought back to run my fastest in that last mile though so there is some encouraging signs for me to take away from that relatively mediocre performance.

Although many would use this race as a sign that I haven't been running well or am slowing down (perhaps because of my old age), I refuse to indulge in such negativity because in all honesty, up to this point in my marathon training, I've been running more consistently and training harder than I ever have before. Through week 7 of this training cycle (which ended this past weekend) my average weekly mileage has been just a shade under 53 miles per week, which is the most I've ever done up to this point. If I did a comparative analysis of how this volume compares to my three previous training cycles, it'd look something like this:


I'm not sure what of all this will translate to on race day and I know there's still many more hard weeks of training left before I get there. I'm merely throwing this out there to show you all that I haven't been slacking and to give myself a little perspective on how my training has been going so far. Given that the majority of these miles were compiled outside in the hottest summer we've ever had in the Northeast, let's just say that the thought of quitting long distance running has almost become a daily ritual. Still, because I have learned so well not to listen to my own thoughts while running, I have to constantly remind myself to be cognizant of overtraining especially now that my training volume has increased. Physically I have no injury concerns although this week I am suffering from a virus which will force me to step down my training for the next few days. Overall I feel confident that my endurance, stamina, and speed is on par for a good run in Chicago on 10/10.

I apologize for the lack of posts recently as my work and running obligations have taking a toll on my blogging life. I will have one coming up in the next couple of days dealing with the aftermath of the shift in running shoe paradigm and my proposal for where I think the running shoe industry as a whole needs to go, so look out for that.

I hope everyone's running, training, and life is going well. We will all survive and make it through this crazy summer yet. I know we will!

10 comments:

Julianne said...

You still have so much time left for Chicago! You're going to do great, I know it. Have you run it before? The course is relatively easy and crowd will carry you. You're going to kick ass I know it!

Greg Strosaker said...

Lam, maybe you said the issue best when you stated that you have averaged (at 53+) more miles / week now in your training than ever before, and it has been the hottest summer in which you have trained. Maybe all that just caught up with you a little this past weekend. We all have bad training runs, maybe yours happened on the race day.

We all have our doubts, I've been concerned that my interval times really aren't much better than they were in the spring, despite a lot of hard work. I'm confident that you'll still deliver a stellar Chicago performance and ultimately reach the sub-3:00 marathon goal we both share.

Aron said...

you've still got a lot of time to go too and your training is going great! just think of when the temps start to fall, all that heat training will definitely pay off. i heard somewhere the other day that its inline with altitude training? anyways, so excited for the next half of your training and to see it pay off on 10/10 :)

Anonymous said...

i agree with the others who said that you've got a lot of time before chicago. and you'll rock it. most definitely :)

hope life calms down a bit for you!

Lindsay said...

summer 2007 was one of the biggest excuses for my awful, awful chicago '07 performance. i'm probably the only person thankful that it was cancelled mid-race so i don't feel as guilty about my sucktastic time :) so yeah, definitely tough to train through the summer.

you don't need to prove or explain to me that you haven't been slacking. lazy & lam are two words that belong verrrry far apart from each other!

Unknown said...

Lam, nicely written, but as someone else said, you have increased your training quite sharply, so mabye it has caught up with you. One of the signs is a weakened immune sytem, are you sleeping extra? All the best and don't worry about your target, you have time and a good foundation. all the best, alunpg :-)

J said...

I don't think it is age or that your training is slipping. I have had races where I have lost it all the time. Running is so mental sometimes and I think we forget that! keep working hard!

mizuno wave said...

seems you are doing great. keep up the good training and you will get good result.

Unknown said...

My sister forward me your Blog which I thought was very interesting. First we have the same first name and secondly I am also training for the my debut marathon in Chicago this year. Unfortunately after completing my longest run to date(13 miles) I ran into a little snag/injury. I haven't ran in 2 weeks and I'm scheduled to get an MRI next week. I hope it's nothing serious and looking forward to continue my marathon training as soon as possible. I hope to share the race course with you on 10-10-2010!!!

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