Marathon Training - Week 17

This week was another good week! I ran 24 miles, played soccer and went to the pool once for a kicking session.

I have been a bit concerned about doing two sessions of Heel Drops every day as my calf muscles have already grown and become much more defined. This would be fine if I was also strengthening the other muscles in my legs to maintain a balance, but I have only been focusing on my calves. I experimented with only doing Eccentric Heel Drops before running instead of doing the exercises twice a day to see whether I would notice a difference - and I did. My Achilles continues to be pain free during running, but I did notice pain and tightness on a couple of mornings, which is a regression in the improvement I had been seeing. I am going to try one session of the Heel Drops each day with an extra session before running to see whether that makes a difference.

I played Soccer on Monday but didn't manage to make it to the pool on Tuesday due to a busy work day and a thunderstorm in the evening.

On Wednesday I ran 7 miles on a hot, humid morning which was surprising following the storm the night before. It was 73F, 23C with 90% humidity at 7am. I had planned to run 9 minute miles with my new low arm carry and I did fairly well over the first 5 miles (9:03, 8:26, 8:46, 8:41, 8:49) at which point the urge to stretch my legs and test my new stride at a faster pace began too much and I threw in a 7:42 mile. I checked my stride count a couple of times during the faster mile and both times I was above 180/minute.

On Thursday I went to the pool for 30 minutes of kicking. My legs were tired and this was probably my most difficult kicking session so far. I did manage to get through the 30 minute session, but it was hard work.

On Friday I ran another 7 miles on a cooler day. It was 60F, 15C with 80% humidity which was a nice change from the recent weeks. I targeted 9 minute miles and ran 9:03, 8:49, 8:43 and then a 7:58 faster mile followed by 8:51, 8:34 and 8:21.

Saturday was my rest day.

On Sunday I ran 10 miles on another cool day. It was 62F, 16C with 80% humidity at 7am and 70F, 21C with 67% humidity at the end of my run. I made a point of sticking to the 9 minute mile pace and ran 9:11, 8:51, 8:54, 9:08, 8:56, 8:50, 9:05, 9:00 and finished with a faster 8:18. The pace felt comfortable and my heart rate stayed in a zone between 151 and 157 until I got to the hill at 8.5 miles (at which point I only hit a peak of 165).

The 7 mile runs at 9 minute mile pace seem to be a good replacement for the speed and tempo sessions at the moment, and I am going to continue with them for a few more weeks as my focus at the moment is on increasing my long run distance. Given that my goal is simply to finish the Marathon in October and that my pace goal will be 4 hours (9:09/mile), I really don't need to do much speed work as I am doing all of my workouts at Marathon Pace.

This coming week (week 18) I plan to add 3 miles to my long run for a total of 27. Week 18 will be my third consecutive week of mileage increase, so I will be running a recovery week in Week 19 with fewer miles to give my body a chance to recover ready for another three weeks of increased distances.

Here is my plan for Week 18:
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Kicking - 30 minutes
Wednesday: Run - 7 miles
Thursday: Kicking - 30 minutes
Friday: Run - 7 miles
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Run - 13 miles