I'm not going to bore you with too many details, so I'll just summarize each week and make note of anything that stood out for that particular week.
March 6 - 12: The week when I finally ran a 20+ mile run
The week after Chilly. I didn't do any structured workouts this week, but I did run with the Wednesday Night Tempo group at Runners' Choice. I had no idea what they were actually going to be doing, whether it was a longish tempo run or tempo intervals, so I just planned on following along and doing whatever they were doing. If they started to run hard, I ran hard. If they ran easy, I ran easy. It was good to mix things up a little and was fun to run with different people.
On the Saturday of this week, there was some more mixing up of things. This was the day of the "Pop-up run" where Run Waterloo and H+P planned a long run together on the ENDURrun Stage 1 course. The course is a 13ish km loop followed by an 8ish km loop (it's a half marathon). I ran the big loop, then the small loop, as one would normally run it, but then another big loop so that we (myself, Trevor, and Brian) got a decent long run in. It was my first 20+ mile run since the fall, so I was very happy to finally get one in. It was bugging me that I hadn't run any yet this year. It was also great that it went well! The average pace for the whole run was 8:18 min/mile on snow-covered roads, so I was happy with that.
March 13 - 19: The week when I finally ran 60+ miles
Last week included my first 20+ mile run in what felt like forever, and this week, my total mileage was finally over 60 miles. The week consisted Tuesday and Thursday workouts. One went well, one not so much. The Tuesday workout (4x 1 mile), I did on the treadmill and I just wasn't overly into it, so it was a struggle. The Thursday workout went so much better. I was back outdoors and I ran it with Steve, which made it feel so much easier! Thursday's workout was 2 miles warm up and cool down with 6 miles at half marathon pace. It was a nice confidence boost for this one to go well. On the weekend, snow surprisingly showed up on Saturday morning and made for some crappy wet snow and slush situations. I ran 18 miles with Gillian and we were slushed by vehicles several times. The following day, the weather was so much nicer! I got together with Trevor and Payton and ran a very enjoyable 11.7 miles.
March 20 - 26: The week when I caught a cold.
It was a solid week otherwise. I did a couple of workouts and I got in another 20+ mile long run.... I just felt a little more tired than usual doing them. I lucked out in that I only had a head cold, no chest involvement.
March 27 - April 2: The week of extra Toronto
I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I work for a company in Toronto. I work from home three days per week and I go into the office two. Well, that's my normal week. This week was different because there were a couple of events going on. We were hosting a client party at the office on Tuesday evening and I had a conference to attend on the Wednesday. Due to these events, I stayed in a hotel Tuesday and Wednesday nights and returned home Thursday night after work. I had great intentions of getting some solid runs in while I was in Toronto, but with the cold and with the time spent at the events, it didn't quite happen. I still ran, but not as much as I had hoped. It was probably for the best, though. I really did need to get over the cold.
My Tuesday evening workout became a short 3 mile progression, which went well. I squeezed this one into the limited time between the end of my work day and the party. I was glad I got something in.
The party was fun. Good food & drink, good people, music, and even caricature artists!
After a late night a morning run was not going to happen before heading to the convention, which officially started at 8:30am, with breakfast starting at 7:30. I arrived shortly after 8. After getting back to my hotel at the end of the day, around 6:30pm, I was going to meet up with the Toronto contingent of H+P, but decided that a short easy run and early bed would be best. I ran a little over 4 miles.
On Thursday morning, my alarm went off and I decided that I was not going to run. I re-set it and got some more rest before heading into the office. I ended up taking a zero day this day and I was perfectly happy doing so. Friday was an easy 5 or 6 mile run after being back to working from home.
On the weekend, I had a really good run on Saturday. I did 16 miles, which included 12K at marathon pace and 2x 1K around half marathon pace. I ran all of the tempo portions with Emily, and the easy parts with both Gillian and Emily (Gill was ahead for the tempos). All three of us (as well as several others) are running Boston in a couple of weeks, so it was great to do this with them. My average pace on the whole run was slightly quicker than the pace of my current marathon PR, so I was definitely happy with how the run went.
Sunday, I had a two part run, as it involved running to watch my niece play volleyball. I ran there, and then ran home afterwards. I got in a little over 10 miles total.
All in all, it was a decent month of training and now I have just 2 weeks until race day. Getting sick was an inconvenience, but the timing was actually pretty decent. If I had to get sick, three weeks out from race day certainly is not the worst time. I only missed one workout, and ended up with a fairly minimal reduction in mileage in a week that ended with very solid long run workout.
So there you have it. I seem to have rambled a bit more than I expected to... :)
