First Half Split Training

Pretty good week of training as I get ready to go into taper mode for the Phoenix Marathon on February 28th.  The best news out of this winter training cycle ... besides some extremely minor nagging left knee tightness when I don't keep my quad stretched out ... I'm 100% healthy!  I never really feel completely ready for a marathon, but I'm probably as ready as I can be.

Today's run was a fairly positive indicator of what I hope to do in Arizona. I basically simulated the marathon start I'll use in two weeks.  My first half split was 1:35:30, which is probably a tad fast for what I'll try to run, but other than that, the pace was pretty close.  Here are the mile splits ...

7:53     8:17(pee stop)    7:22     7:30     7:36     7:19     6:55     7:22     7:02     6:55     7:26     6:44     6:57

There were a few pros and cons to this run. On the plus side, in spite of having somewhat dead legs, lacking energy, and the inability to focus for some reason, I ran the run fairly easily.  I had no issues getting up to speed and holding it.  Plus, I walked through all the water stops to give myself a break, and it didn't adversely affect the time that much.

A couple of red flags were that my pace was all over the place.  I typically blame that on not running enough at the marathon pace during training.  At times I was flat out going too fast, and my body didn't "feel" the difference between coasting at marathon pace, and going faster.  Also, I'm just not sure I'm marathon ready right now.  I've got a very solid 20-22 in me, but the last 4-6 miles of the race scare me to death ... but that's pretty natural.

I'll probably do a very short Speed Run on Tuesday, and maybe another Marathon Pace Run on Thursday, but the mileage will drop off significantly this week.  I'll probably increase the Core and upper body work a little, but back off of legs a touch.  And hopefully I won't do anything to screw up my training over the next two weeks.  Hope your training is going well!
... Be Great Today!