Getting close

Each buildup I do is significantly different than the last. This buildup really emphasized long workouts.

18 miles with two twenty-minute sessions of tempo. 18 miles with 12 miles at marathon effort.

While I've run up to 110 MPW in the past, I decided to stick with high-quality, consistent weeks of 95 to 100 MPW in 7 to 8 runs.

After New York, my Dad made one observation that really stuck with me: He noted that the guys running up front (meaning more the sub-elites than professionals) tended to be either crazy thin or crazy jacked. As for me, I fall somewhere in the middle; despite being told often how skinny I am, indeed, as I have seen with African runners and elite American/European runners, there is in fact another level of skinniness one might aspire to.

I am 6'3, 158 pounds. Legendary Kenyan runner Paul Tergat is the same height and 15 pounds lighter. The thing is, I really don't think it is possible for me to get much smaller (and I like to eat ... a lot). So, instead, I joined a gym near my office and hit the weights a couple times a week, doing both strength and core work. After a few months of this, my weight has not increased and I am physically much stronger; it seems to help me in workouts when I start to get tired.

Another change I made to my training was incorporating regular strides and uphill sprints (which I can accomplish rather easily on my street), doing these at least three times weekly.

You see, it has dawned on me that years of higher mileage can begin to have negative effects. The immediate gains from phases of 80-100 MPW is huge. I recall how amazing it was after college (2004) to run consistent 75-80 mile weeks (something I had never done) and to see my times for 5k drop down at a time when I was doing less speedwork than I ever had.

Part of the reason this happened was that I was giving myself fresh stimuli (pumping up my aerobic edge after years of over-pumping the anaerobic system), but as the years go by and you adapt to the workload, the gains from such training decrease, and, if you want to improve, you have to find new ways to spark adaptations.

Well, I like to think some of the things I have been doing outside of running have helped to counteract some of the negatives -- the wear and tear -- which have come with years of steady marathon training (reduced speed, stumbling out of bed like an old man).

Recent races and workouts would suggest I am ready to run well in 10 days ...

What I was getting to when I first started writing this, before I got way off track, was that while the buildup for each marathon I have prepared for has varied quite a bit, the three-week Pete Pfitzinger taper I do has not (http://pfitzinger.com/labreports/marathontaper.shtml). In this week before race week, the workout is 3 by 1 mile at 5k pace.

The weather was cool, windy. I started at about 7:30 a.m.

5:07, 5:07, 5:08.

I have done this workout faster in the past (closer to 5-flat) but I think I ran too hard to do it, or perhaps harder than I had to. Judging off my 10k last weekend, I'd say my 5k time at this very moment (stealthy marathoner that I am) is about 15:50, and so I ran at that pace, not feeling like I was "flying," as I had in the past, but that I was under control. And ready for 26.2.