Mountains 2 Beach Training – Week 16 – Highest Mileage Ever!

Last week was a breakthrough week. After a couple weeks of heavy legs and some serious doubts about my ability to achieve my goal, I had a really great training week that was the proof I needed to shift my mindset from “maybe I can do it” to “I will do it.” I’ve never felt more fit and strong and capable of running a solid marathon.

Monday: 8.5 miles with 2 x 18 minute tempo (10 minutes @ marathon pace, 5 minutes at half marathon pace, 3 minutes at 10k pace) at 6 a.m. I ran part of this with Kelly and was glad to have the company! 

Beachbody Yoga Studio – Yoga for Runners and Yoga Abs. The runner yoga was just stretching, not much of a flow. Felt good to do the abs!

Tuesday: 9 miles easy with my friend Ashley. Legs felt a lot better this week than the prior. 

Wednesday: 12.5 mile run & 5 min of abs. I NAILED this speed workout. I felt so strong throughout and could hardly believe I nearly ran a half marathon on a Wednesday night. The workout:

• 3 mile hilly warm-up & strides
• 4 x 2,000 with 1st 1,600 @ half marathon pace, last 400 at 5k pace with 400 recovery jog between (actual paces alternating the 1 mile and 400s: 7:48, 7:17, 7:48, 7:11, 7:43, 7:16, 7:34, 7:11)
• 4 x 1,000 @10k pace, 200 recovery jog (actual paces: 7:13, 7:22, 7:21, 7:21)

I actually felt better and better as the workout went along. The 1,000s are where I felt really strong. There wasn’t a lot of recovery and I still felt great.

Thursday: 40 minute trail run. As usual, I went on the hilly route near my house and I was feeling extra tired so I took more walk breaks than usual. In total, I only got 2.8 miles done in 40 minutes (14 minute/mile)! Recovery runs are all about time on your feet, right?

Friday: 5 mile trail run.  

Saturday: 21 mile run with last 10 mile progression. I cursed my coach when I saw the map. As usual, we were running hills for the first half of the route and the second half included trails – while flat, they make for slower miles. “Why couldn’t he just give us an easy coastal run!?: I said to myself and the people I was running with. But, I ended up surprising myself and as soon as we turned up the pace around 10.5 miles in, I felt really good, and I just kept felling better. By mile 17 when I exited the trail portion of the route, I was running sub 8 minute miles easily and my legs didn’t feel heavy at all! Our coach purposely put a decent sized hill around mile 18 and I kept the energy up it but tried not to go too hard. I let all out for the final mile, clocking 7:40 pace. This was a good run! It really proved to me that my endurance is better than it ever has been.

Sunday: Mother’s Day! I had such an amazing day. We got coffee at Philz and then had breakfast with Mike’s family and then dropped Siena off with his dad while we went for a 5 mile hike in the Blue Sky Preserve. We got in a nap in the afternoon and then I headed to Yoga Six for a 75 minute Yin-Yang Yoga class (which heavy on the yin, which his deep stretching, holding proses for up to 5 min each) – every mom got a free class and a rose! It was a lovely day.

 Weekly Totals: 

• Miles Run/Hiked: 58.5 run, 63.8 including hike
• Yoga/Strength: 2 hours

I was skeptical at first of my coach for having me do such a long run with only 2 weeks until race day, but after having him explain it to me and doing some research on 2 week tapers, I felt better about it. And now that I’m in the taper, I have realized that it makes me much less crazy to have a short taper!

When do you usually do your longest long run? Any good stories from a 2 week taper?