January happened

I ran more miles in 2012 than I have ever run in a year. My total was 1641.52 at an average pace of 7:22.0 min/mile. My next highest mileage year was 2010 when I ran 1167.26 at an average pace of 7:32.3 min/mile. Despite tracking these statistics (and every other statistic that I can think of), I’m not actually all that concerned with annual mileage.

One year, I might be injured for January-June, but come back and run great over the second half of the year. Another year, I might never be injured but just alternate high-mileage months with months of no running just because I get lazy. Another year, I might run every day and have a high total mileage at a relatively decent pace, but never do a long run or track workout or tempo run and thus never really get into racing shape.

What I want to accomplish is consecutive weeks and months of consistent and increasingly challenging training leading into a race. In this case the Providence Marathon.

So, I’m going to look back at January to try to compare it to what I've done historically and what my goals were for the month.

Days

I ran 24 out of 31 days in January. My goal was to run 27 days. Of my 3 missing days, two were attributed to mild Achilles Tendinitis that came from going too fast at a track workout and not rehydrating before bed. The third missing day was due to having to work all day on a Sunday, leaving no time for my long run which pushed it a day and cutting a Monday easy run from the schedule.

Long Runs:

The long run was the weakest part of my training this month.

I was scheduled for 4 long runs. The plan was to have 1x 16 mile long run, 1x 17.5 mile long run and 2x 18 mile long runs.

I did my 16 mile long run on Mass Ave through Lexington and into Bedford, MA. It was cold, but it felt good.

My 17.5 mile long run was supposed to be a run to Fresh Pond in Cambridge with 5 laps of the pond. This was 4 days after my Achilles injury and turned into a slow 10 mile run. It didn't help that I was running in the mud.

My first 18 mile long run was supposed to be around a reservoir in Southern Pines, NC. I reaggravated my Achilles the day before this run and it did not feel good. I ended up settling for 8.2 miles.

For my last long run, I was planning on doing that 17.5 mile run at Fresh Pond that I was going to do a couple weeks back. I just could not get out of work that Sunday so it pushed a day and I ended up having to do it on a Monday in Saratoga Springs, NY after meeting with a customer. It ended up being 15.32 miles on the treadmill. It wasn't everything that I was hoping for, but at least it was something.

Tempo/MP Runs

Other than my track work, I think that my next strongest workouts were the tempo/marathon pace runs. I didn't miss any and I increased the volume from the start of the month to the end.

I planned on doing 7 workouts at Marathon Pace or at Tempo pace. The plan was one MP workout on Saturday for the first two weeks before turning Wednesday into a MP day and Saturday into Tempo for the last two weeks of the month. The “extra” MP workout was because the month ended on a Thursday.

My first Saturday was 4 easy, 2 at MP, 4 easy. I ran it with the City Sports Run Club, but ended up running alone for the whole thing because no one else was running up pace.

My second Saturday was 5 miles at which I planned on doing at MP. This was 3 days after the Achilles injury so I just couldn't get the pace down where I wanted to be. I ended up averaging 7:18 min/mile.

After that run, I moved my Tempo/MP runs to the treadmill so that it could hold me to target pace. On my first Wednesday I did a MP workout of 4.44 miles at 6:45 pace. The goal is to get MP to 6:40, but I was still struggling with my turnover coming off the Achilles thing.

Saturday (1/19) was my first planned Tempo workout and without a treadmill at Sarah’s grandparents’ place in NC I did it as laps of the reservoir. I did 2 miles of warm-up, 6.3 miles of something kind of like Tempo and then finished with a 2 mile cool down. I ended up with an average pace of 7:11 min/mile. I couldn't get mile splits during this run so I don’t know my actual pace on each Tempo mile but the average looks okay.

Next was a MP run on the treadmill at the Porter Square Planet Fitness. The total run was 8.56 miles at average pace of 7:01 min/mile. The heart of the workout was 5 miles at 6:39 min/mile pace.

On Saturday, I was a bit frustrated by having to work all day so I locked into my Tempo pace (6:18 min/mile) and cruised for 9.52 miles.

My last MP workout was in the fitness room at the Saratoga Springs Hilton; 2 up, 5 miles at MP, 2.34 down.

Hills

These were the heart and soul of my training in 2012 but I only managed to do 2 of 5 planned hill workouts. They were all supposed to be 8.5 miles on Park Ave in Arlington Heights with ~800 ft of elevation gain over the workout.

I did my first Hill workout exactly as planned, and then I missed my second one due to the Achilles. My third planned hill workout felt so good that I tacked on a few extra hill reps for a total of 11.6 miles. I skipped my next hill day because of black ice in Arlington and did an easy run instead.

My last hill workout was replaced by an easy run. My final meeting in NY got pushed to late on Thursday and with the 4 hour drive home I didn't have time to fit in this run when I got home. Fortunately, I was worried about this happening so I did an easy run at the hotel in the morning before going to work. I might have pushed these Hills to Friday, but with the Stew Chase looming just a few days away I wasn't interested in putting too much quality so close to the race.

Track Work

Track work was the linchpin that held my training together this month. I did all 5 of 5 planned track workouts. My trouble on the track was holding back to the specified paces. The biggest struggle with going as slow as I was supposed to was that Reggie Lewis keeps lane 1 closed so I’m always kind of guessing at where to take my 100m and 200m splits. To be on the “safe side” I usually take my splits a little farther than I probably should and typically end up ~1 sec fast per 200m.

My last workout was on the Saratoga Springs YMCA track. I had 6x 1000m at 3:25 pace on the schedule. My first lap was 1sec per 200m slow as I got used to the track. The straights were longer and the turns were tighter than usual. The track also wasn't banked and the flow was clock-wise (because it was a Tuesday, apparently they alternate direction each day because they like collisions?). In the “infield” there was a Zumba studio, a spinning studio, bathrooms and a weight training area. There were kids everywhere because their parents were taking classes in the infield. The kids seemed to like playing Frogger; I very nearly killed one.

Some days you're the frog, other days you're the car. I'm not sure which is worse.

So here is January:

204.81 miles in 24:51:51. Average pace: 7:17.0 min/mile.

This was the most I’ve ever run in the month of January (actually more miles than I logged in the previous 2 Januarys combined; last January I logged only 48.89 miles in 6:33:19). The only other time that I’ve logged over 200 miles in a month was last October and that included the Cape Cod Marathon on the 28^th (203.3 miles in 25:29:52). My third highest mileage month was July 2012 with 197.34 miles (23:59:38) but my median run was much shorter as I ran all 31 days that month.

Despite my general loathing of the treadmill, it saved my ass more than a couple times this month. I’m hoping not to need it as much in February, but you need every tool in your kit to build a good marathon so I’ve got no intention of completely abandoning the treadmill.

I was a bit short of where I wanted to be in terms of total mileage, total days of running, number of Hill workouts and length of longest long run, but all in all I’m fairly happy with this month. I did manage to set a personal best for monthly mileage and had only 1 fewer run longer than 10 miles than I had in all of 2011.

That said, being week on hills and long runs is not a good way to get ready for a marathon. Next month is all about keeping the speed work strong while improving the strength and endurance runs and adding some strength training. I’ll get my first fitness tests at the Stew Chase 15k in a couple days and see where I really am. Bring on February!

May your training miles be ever hilly and may all your races have free beer!