A Perfect Storm

I'm getting into the kinds of milage in marathon training now where it takes a little more planning than just hitting all of the 3-a-day workouts. The basic plan lays out fine until the long run milage creeps up high enough. Every sport has a speedwork day for speed, a tempo work day for power, and a long day for endurance. Yesterday I put a mile in the pool (long swim), monday I did speedwork in the pool 10 x 100 yd hard repeats. Tuesday I did 40 miles on the bike.

But today the long run was 15 miles. I have been maxing out at that distance lately to peak for the half marathon at tybee next weekend where it's time to go-a-snail crushing. But I'm still following a FIRST training plan for the full marathon March 21st. So after yesterday's mile swim, I blew off the bike workout that evening. And I skipped the company bike ride over lunch today. Instead, I stuffed my face with carbs and good protein.

So I didn't start the run hungry. I was actually prepared for a long run this time, which I had not been for the last several weeks. I had enough gels and gatorade, and the proper recovery nutrition. Heck, last week I started walking out there without even putting the band aids on my nipples. That would have been painful.

I loaded up a bunch of new tunes on the mp3 player last night. Fired that puppy up and started running at a 6.3 speed on the treadmill. It was the perfect storm. I was properly fed and hydrated. I didn't even break a sweat for the first 2 miles! So 5 miles came and went without a single hitch. I didn't even notice, and normally I'm counting down to the 5 mile marker. It was easy breazy beautiful, and I even felt like a cover girl.

I refilled the water bottles and started 'er back up again. Poor treadmill. It might not have been prepared for the kind of abuse I was dishing out tonight. A 6.3 speed is a 9:31 per mile pace. Tempo runs are under 9 minute miles always. But this is a speed that I can maintain for a long time. Training for the last marathon my long run speed was only 6.0, so I'm feeling ok about this. In the second 5 mile block I made it 3.5 miles before ever having to walk. That's 8.5 miles without ever slowing down or speeding up. I like that. Yes I stop every 5 miles to reset the treadmill numbers and refill my water bottles. I know exactly how much water and gatorade I need to take in per 5 mile block. That's a benefit of running inside - you don't have to carry all that crap with you.

So I reset for the third block and had to slow and walk a few times during it. Still, I covered the ground and got all the milage in and it felt great! Everything came together. I never got hungry or mentally drained (well, besides the general living-on-the-edge-of-sanity that is treadmill running). I was smiling the whole time walking back to the locker room. You can't ask for a better run than that one. 15 miles done. Ready to go to Tybee Island and run with the Snail.

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First, I have to go back to SC this weekend. Kelley and I are both doing the Foothills Drifter 6k race tomorrow. It's my first time doing a trail race, and my first time at the 6k distance. I'm just going to go out there and run it the best I can with no expectation besides having fun. Jenny is also running this one, so it will be great to meet up with a fellow running blogger.

The kicker is this giant storm that's moving through. They say it's supposed to dump a foot of snow on Raleigh on saturday. I don't see how since it was 60 degrees today (thursday). But tomorrow is supposed to be a wintery mix of rain and sleet for Raleigh and all points south. So my normal 4 hour drive back to Greenville could be complicated. Saturday in Greenville is supposed to be 31 with freezing rain. Perfect trail racing weather right? Part of me wants to be aggressive. Push things to stay warm, see how many people I can pass on the trail. But I think I'm going to be fairly conservative. The worst case scenario is that I slip and fall on some ice in the trail and bang something up that screws my 2 hour half mary next weekend. So I think I have to be cautious. I'll try and bring the small camera with me to take some pics during the race.

Then sunday I have to drive 4 hours back to Raleigh. They say south of raleigh is just going to be slushy maybe icy, but no snow. So who knows what I'm going to be coming back into. I've got to give serious consideration tomorrow afternoon to staying in Raleigh for the weekend, which I really don't want to do. But will it be safe to get down to Greenville friday night? Will I be able to get back to Raleigh on sunday? Will we actually race in the woods in a horrible winter storm?

Tune in monday night, same bat-time, same bat-blog to see the exciting conclusion. And have a great weekend!