At the midpoint: Looking ahead

Did a 5 mile recovery this morning so it was a ho-hum run. It's been an exhausting schedule this summer. I did a total of 13 early morning runs so far this month (started earlier than 6 a.m.). Five of them I was out there between 4:30 and 4:54 a.m. and they were all 11 + miles.

At the end of this week, it'll be eight weeks to marathon day. The next two months will see me go through three 'mesocycles' under the Pfitzinger plan.

LT and Endurance: 1 more week
Next week is the last of the five-week endurance and lactate threshold cycle. It's also a big-mileage week with a 7 mile LT run (scary) at half marathon pace on Tuesday, followed by a 20 miler (mildly scary) on that Sunday. During this mesocycle, I will have conditioned my body to run for 3 hours plus and also, hopefully, improve my LT.

Race preparation: 4 weeks
September and early October will see the efforts step up in a huge way. I'll be averaging two to three 'hard' runs a week and all but one week will have me running more than 50 miles.

Hard runs: The schedule has me doing four V02 Max runs (two 5x600s, one 5x1000 and one 4x1200), two tune-up races, three 17 milers (one of which includes a 14 mile pace run) and a 20 miler. An oh yeah, those freaking mid-week medium longs (two 11 milers, a 12 miler and a 10 miler)

I have to make a few tweaks though. I have a half marathon in late September that I'm thinking of making an all-out effort instead of a pace run. But I should still do a pace run. I'm having trouble looking for race in mid-September and am thinking of doing a Terry Fox run or some track work.

One problem is that the week after my half marathon (Sept. 30), I have a weekend with a 4 mile recovery and a 20 miler planned. The mixup is that I have the Army 10 miler (Oct. 7). Part of me says I'll do the 10 miler as part of a long run but perhap that's a bad idea. So I may do the 20 miler on Oct. 6 followed by a really easy 10 miler recovery during the race. It'll be a truely non-effort (maybe i'll actually just enjoy the experience with R., who's also running it and has never run that distance before).

Taper and race: 3 weeks
Mileage goes down to 43, 32 and 22 in the last three weeks. I have a tuneup 10K race on Oct. 13 that will be a fitness indicator. Longest run is 15 miles , there are two V02s (5x600 and the whopping 3x1600). Then 26.2 miles. That starting line seems far, but close, if you know what I mean.