Friday, September 14, 2012

Hal Higdon, I think you're onto something.

It's been a fantastic week for running.  The weather has been beautiful, and I have been feeling like a boss.

In preparation for the marathon, I've been following a training plan designed by Hal Higdon.  This week called for an 8 mile run at marathon pace on Monday and an 18 miler at a comfortable slow pace on Tuesday.  Hmm.  If I combine results from Monday's 8 and Tuesday's 18 I get a total distance of 26 miles covered in a total of four hours, ten minutes.  Not bad, especially considering I've got a month and a half to go until the big day, and a goal time of four hours.

My long runs have been rough these past few weeks.  For about a month or so, I've been struggling with nausea towards the last hour or so of these long runs.  Luckily for me, Tuesday was different.  I felt strong and light and swift, especially towards the end of the run.  Let's hope this continues as we get closer to the race.

My map for Tuesday was pretty boring, but for a good reason.  I really think it helped my mental stamina to run paths I was already familiar with, but the result is really just a series of figure-eights through the neighborhood:


Anyways, back to my man Hal.  I did a post recently about my summer reading list.  Well just a few days ago, Higdon's Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide has made it's way onto the list.  I'm only 15% through on my kindle, but I'm already wishing that I had started my exploration into running literature with this book.  It's a lot more technical than most of the others, but still very easy to read.  It's also my first running book that is specific to this distance.  I have to say, I'm a fan of his plan too.  I don't think Tuesday's 18 miler coming off an 8 mile "race pace" run the day before was a coincidence.  Next week I'll take a step back in mileage to recover a bit and get ready for a 20 mile run the following week.  These numbers keep getting bigger.

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