Mixed Bag Soul Buster

Yesterday was the MAIN EVENT of our Portland Marathon training. With just 5 weeks to go, we took on what Steve calls the toughest workout he has ever devised for a Rogue group. The 27 mile workout was planned to trash the legs early, run marathon pace for an extended period, further trash the legs with hills then attempt a 10K on the track at marathon pace and faster. I was nervous about the workout but not really intimidated by it. My feeling was that anyone who could close the workout at anything close to 10K pace was not running the marathon at their true potential. This was also going to be the final real world test of my race nutrition/hydration plan which is in fact my biggest concern going into Portland and Boston. My pre-run meal was a small cup of strong coffee and a concentrated Carbo-Pro mixture with 336 calories. I was not planning to have any calories during the run itself. I planned to sip 1-3oz water at each stop.

Run Re-Cap:
1.8 mile warmup to the track at 7:59 pace.
1 mile on the track in 5:56
2.26 miles easy at 8:02 pace
5 miles MGP 7:04 pace (*7:15 was target)
4 miles MGP 7:03 pace (*7:15 was target)
6.2 miles of HILLS 8:23 pace (*9:00 was target)
7:09, 7:15, 7:03, 7:23, 7:28 5 miles on track (targets: 2 at 7:15, 2 at 7:00, 2 at 6:50)
Then 1.3 mile jog over to Barton Springs at 9:42 pace.

So what's the good and the bad? This workout is one that will absolutely PUNISH you for ANY mistakes. Now that I have put it all in writing, I see the mistakes. The MGP section should have all been run at 3:10:00 marathon pace of 7:15 per mile. I ran paces for a 3:05:00 marathon. Felt GREAT at the time but I clearly paid later. Mistake number 2 was the pace in the hills. I know from experience that to have any chance of completing the target paces on the track that I would need to run the hills at a 9:00 pace. From the workout description, I thought we had 5 miles of hills so I was looking for a time in the hills of about 45-48 minutes. As my watch kept going past 50 minutes I began pressing. After mapping out what we actually ran it turned out to be 6.2 miles of hills and that mistake on my part was the final nail in the coffin. On the track, I completed the first 3 miles successfully. On mile 4 I lost it and after 5 miles I began dry heaving. Had this been a race and I was under 2 miles to go I would have pushed through it somehow some way. Once I heaved though, my abs were on fire and I skipped the final mile on the track. Normally this would have been mentally devastating for me but I left the track absolutely convinced that I had completed a successful workout and gotten what I needed from it. With this review, I still feel good about the results and can see where I made the mistakes. After totaling up the miles run and the total time, I posted a 3:20:08 marathon on a brutal training run. I can live with that.

Conclusions: I can run a 3:10 marathon in 5 weeks. My nutrition/hydration plan is solid. I cannot afford ANY mistakes though. If I let myself go faster than pace OR press up the two hills on the Portland course I will destroy my chances. I am healthy, I am fit and between now and October 4 I will focus on making this goal a reality.