New Jersey, Gettysburg

PHOTO: By Joan Mercer. Crossing the finish line of my first 10,000 on the track since 2003 at the Mason-Dixon Invitational at Gettysburg College.

April 13-19
M - AM 10 PM 4
T - 10
W - AM On the track - 3 WU, 4 by 2 miles with one lap for rest, 3 CD - 15
10:46, 10:48, 10:41, 10:50
Th - AM 11 PM 4
F - AM 12 PM travel to NJ
S - 23
S - 10
Total - 98

Four by two miles on the track with one lap recovery has become a staple marathon workout for me. I generally do it once every buildup.

The best I have done this workout was during my buildup for Chicago in 2006, when I did perhaps two weeks earlier in the cycle and ran 10:40s across the board. I did that in the afternoon after a light day of work (no commuting back then) and in pristine weather.

For this latest workout, however, I started at 6:30 a.m. with 30 degree temps. One of my training partners was nice enough to meet me and help me for the first and third reps. My legs were tight and I was pretty bundled up, so I was pretty pleased to get through it with times at 10:50 or faster. This is MUCH better than I did this before New York. I got through the first with two 5:23s. The second, in turn, was 5:24s. Something clicked on the third, with 5:20s, and then the fourth, running solo, was pretty tough, though I managed to hang on. Right now, when I am tired, my reserves are pretty deep.

On Friday I traveled by train to see my family in New Jersey and decided to go long on Saturday since we had Easter plans for Sunday. The week prior, I had run 20 miles on the Frederick Marathon course, including miles 15-24, which are totally different than when I ran the race in 2006 (2nd, 2:32.20). These miles are quite a ways out of town; I never ran out there when I lived in the area. There are some hills to deal with, for sure, but all are followed by downhills, and I left the workout feeling confident I could handle them. I have been incorporating lots of hills into my training the last few months: For one, I live in a hilly area, but after learning about the course changes in Frederick I made an effort not to avoid them, as I am wont to do. I do most of my training in Takoma Park and Silver Spring along the Sligo Creek trail, and to get back to my house every day I can choose either a series of rolling hills, a long gradual climb, or a long, steep punch to the kidneys up New Hampshire Avenue to University Boulevard. All of my midweek 15-milers recently have finished with the latter.

On a Saturday morning, Dad and I (with my sister doing everything because we could not figure it out) worked out a route on Mapmyrun.com. We incorporated a somewhat legendary area route with a less than legendary name ... "Around the River." I believe, and I am not entirely certain, that it began when Tim McLoone's The Running Store was located in Red Bank and fielded a team. Good area runners like Dad met there and hammered a 10-miler out through Red Bank and across a bridge to a hilly, narrow, dangerous Navesink River Road which takes you around to another bridge to Rumson. You then run up River Road and return to Red Bank. Get it: you go ... Around the River.

Dad, who coaches track and XC at my old high school, Rumson Fair-Haven, had his team's top runner, Max Sparshatt, come over at 10 a.m. (the kid rode his bike!) on the most miserable running day of the year and join me for the first 13 which included an extended version of the above route and a sideroute to include a huge hill up the dirt Cooper Road. Temps were in the 30s. The rain was coming down hard and the wind was sweeping across the bridges, numbing out our legs. So we did the only thing one can do on such a day, and that is run fast. Honestly, the weather was so annoying it was laughable. Dad was nice enough to meet us with water and gave me a couple gels. That made it feel like a practice, and, well, if there is anything I miss from college, it is just that. I really got into it; the worse the weather got, the more we cursed it, the faster we ran.

By 13 we were back near my parents house so Dad could drive Max home (no, we didn't make him ride his bike) and I basically just took off for an Around the River loop, finishing with a long climb up Browns Dock Road. I was sub-6 for the last 10. A great way to end a training cycle.

April 20-26 First taper week
M - 6
T - 8, strides
W - 15
Th - 8
F - AM 6 PM 4 in Gettysburg
S - AM 10,000 at Mason-Dixon Invitational - 12
S - 17 in Gettysburg - Brilliant
Total - 75

I usually do a 10k tempo during my first week of taper, and rather than run around an asphalt track by myself, I decided to return to my alma mater for a 10,000 at the Mason-Dixon Invitational. In college I wrote a poem about this race to pump up/loosen up my teammates before the Centennial Conference Championships. 25 laps ... 25 laps! Back then, the 10,000 was the marathon.

32-anything would have given me a PR, and I went in with a strategy to run 5:15s. The odd thing about being a pure marathoner without the talent to truly excel simultaneously at a variety of distances, is that, well, it makes running shorter distances very difficult. Why? Because 98 percent of my training is geared towards the marathon, meaning I am developing my aerobic system much more than my anaerobic system, meaning I can run at an aerobic pace for a very long time but at an anaerobic pace for a relatively short period of time. Right now, for me, my anaerobic zone is clearly somewhere between 5:10 and 5:20, and so it gets very tricky: I could probably do 10k at 5:20 pace, in a race environment, quite comfortably, almost like a tempo. But in trying to run 5:15s, or mid 32s, I could wind up suffering to a 5:20 average. And that's basically what happened: 33:12. I ran a bit faster than 5:15 pace through 3.5 miles, but then it got a bit tough (first hot day of the year) and I ran some slow laps before picking it up some and closing (Go Speedracer!) in 76. I won by three minutes, and it would have taken someone to race with the last two miles to get under 33.

All that aside, I got the workout I needed, and it was great to be back in Gettysburg and catch up with teammates and, of course, Coach Shenk. My parents came down for the weekend as well. Two meals at Lincoln Diner!