Prepping for a 12 miler today. I’ve fortunately been pretty healthy over the last 6 weeks. Today I have a little bit of a tweak in my left shin, so hopefully that won’t blow up into more of a problem. Figure I’ll just tape it up and get a wrap on it.

I am a little concerned that I haven’t been putting enough work in though. I tend not to do quite the kind of mileage that you find in the half-marathon training plans. I mentioned in a previous post that I ran my fastest half last year on 20 mile weeks, but of course as runners we are all concerned with getting that PR, and so I have to wonder if maybe I’m doing myself a disservice by undertraining. Lately I’ve been sticking mostly to a schedule of 2-3 road runs, 2 shorter treadmill runs, a couple of XT sessions on the bike, and a couple of core strength workouts each week. I’ve slowly worked up my mileage to just shy of 30 per week running and 12-15 miles of cycling. This is a little less than the 35 miles of running suggested by Higdon, as an example, but they are quality miles I think. My shorter road runs are generally done at a pretty fast tempo, about 90% of full on. So a typical week has looked like this:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 4 miles treadmill (run at 8:00/mile),  XT cycling 6 miles, core strength x 20-30 mins
Wednesday: 6-7 miles tempo (generally run at about a 7:30/mile pace)
Thursday: XT cycling 6 miles + core strength x 20-30 mins
Friday: Rest or speedwork x 4 miles (depending on length of Sunday’s run)
Saturday: 4 miles treadmill (run at 8:00/mile)
Sunday: 8 or 12 miles (alternating weeks, run at 9:00-9:15/mile)

There have been some ah, deviations, from this.

When I say deviations, I mostly mean that I’ve been a bit lazy with the XT some weeks. And the core strength. And sometimes the running (but not as much).

Anyway, times in the shorter races have been good. Buffalo is flat, so that’s a big plus for me. I plan to do one more 12 miler about 10 days before the event, and hit 30 miles for the week prior to it, then taper. We’ll see if I manage a PR or not.

I have been considering breaking down and buying a Garmin before the race. I just don’t know if I need it. I can pretty much go out with Strava on a smart phone and without looking hit almost exactly a 9:00/mile pace by feel on my long runs. The problem, I think, will be that adrenaline hit at the start of a long race that screws up one’s ability to do that. For a PR I’m going to need to maintain about a 7:20 pace. In the first half of the Toronto Waterfront, I was under that at about 7:10. The plan, I think, is going to be to stick with the 1:40 pacer for about the first 3-4 miles or so and then crank it up and try to run negative splits. In other words, no blowing past the pacer after a mile like I did last time.

Curious to see what the weather will be like, although I’ve run in all kinds of weather this year with no problems, so there’s that.

And finally, I gotta give a shout out to Asics – I switched from Saucony to Asics GT 2000s earlier this year and I don’t know if I was picking the wrong Sauconys (a pair of Guide 7s and a pair of Hurricanes) but the difference has been unbelievable, at least for me.

Can’t wait to get to the Queen City and hit the road.