Week 6 of Disney Marathon Training

Before my boring training report, here's something exciting. Sean ran a 50 mile ultramarathon! Maple and I worked at the finish line while he was running, and we were there to see him when he finished, 12 cold and rainy hours later. When a run seems long to me, I think of the 1000 training miles he put in, and the 50 miles he ran in one day. Amazing. Here's Maple handing him his medal. He's planning to run a 100-miler in the spring.

I ran my first (since college) double yesterday, and I felt amazing afterwards! In the morning, Maple and I did a 5k race with two of my friends from work. It was gratifying running with friends and practicing encouragement for newer runners. Maple rocked it, her first ever 5k; she finished in about 39 minutes. She ran farther than 5k though, because she kept running ahead of us for about 200 yards and then running back, over and over again. Here's Team Pinkettes after the race (I had already taken my pink headgear off):

Then in the evening I ran 5 miles easy, to make my 8 mile total (per my training plan) for the day. It was warm and beautiful out. I love the way everything smells in the fall, and the way the yellow and orange trees look in the fading sun.

The new training plan is going well. I've had some aches and pains as I ramped up the mileage between weeks 5 and 6. The Hansons plan seems to break the rules by going from 24 to 39 miles in one week, but they also prescribe lots of very slow miles, which I think is why it might work. (As you can see below, I didn't quite make the 39 miles in Week 6, opting instead for a more modest 33 miles.)

On Tuesday I did a track workout in my favorite track shoes, Brooks PureCadence. Unfortunately my posterior tib tendonitis (PTT) flared up, probably because the workout was 6 miles total, and I usually do about 4. So no more PureCadence for me on the track. I didn't notice the PTT during the track workout, but two days later I had a painful tempo run. On Friday I cut my easy 4-miler short, and by Saturday the pain was absent, but it flared back up a bit on Sunday. Ice, ice, ice. My feet seem pretty happy right now with my Asics 2170s, so I'm going to stick with them.

Here's what I ran for the past two weeks. (You can see all the gory details on my dailymile site.) I started the Hansons program during Week 5.

Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
5	off	4 (speed - 3x1600)	off	4 easy	5 easy	4 easy	7 easy	24
6	4 easy	6 (speed - ladder)	off	7 (5@MP)	2 easy	3 + 5 easy	6 easy	33

In the Hansons plan, you run 6 days a week (after Week 5). Easy runs are done very very slowly, between 10:30 and 11:00 pace. This sounds slow for me, but the overall mileage is higher than I was doing before, so it doesn't end up feeling that slow because I'm more tired than before. Speed workouts are three miles total, but with rest intervals and warmup/cooldown, you end up running 5-7, and you do them at 5k pace, which for me is around 8:00. Long runs aren't too long so far, but the idea is you go into them tired because you ran all week. Starting in Week 7, you run the long runs a bit faster than "easy" pace; for me it says 9:53. So far this is working out well, and I'm really enjoying all the S L O W easy miles.

Right now I'm targeting a 4-hour marathon, which means 9:09 pace. This is going to be my A goal. As my training progresses, I can reevaluate, but this is what I'm aiming for.

My MS has been pretty quiet lately. I had some minor dizzies during Week 5, but I got some extra sleep and recovered. Running more miles now actually feels great. I'm trying to stay on top of my strength work, doing arms, legs, and core twice a week, and hip exercises 3-4 times a week. The hip stuff is definitely helping my hip pain that I had a few weeks ago. They are sore from doing the strength work, but they don't actually hurt anymore.

Next week will be much like this week, with the exception of the bad footwear choice. My long run stretches to 10 miles, and I'm really excited to see how that feels.