Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Cant sleep!
Darn...cant sleep. This tapering is going to drive me crazy:) At least I have started writing for my blog again...even though both of my recent posts have been post midnight.
Just read another blog regarding chicago marathon by
http://averagemarathongal.blogspot.com/ Pretty depressing to see how weather can distroy months of training. Looks like weather in nyc is going to be okay. Accuweather has a 15-day forecast at 54/34 sunny. If actual weather is anywhere close to that, we are in for a treat. (interestingly there is snow predicted for the Monday....God knows how anyone can predict precipitation 15 days in advance when chances are the water hasnt even evaporated to make the clouds).
Anyway...Interesting piece of marathon trivia: Bush and Al Gore ran a marathon at the age of 44yrs. Bush at 3:46 (pretty respectable) and Gore at 4:54 (pretty average). Good that I don't hate Bush otherwise I would have had to shoot for 3:45:-).
Another interesting piece of trivia: running 4 hrs in nyc on a good weather day would almost perfectly get you placed at 10000...good target to beat.
Finally, saw the amazing story of http://womenontherun.blogspot.com. This is a group of amazing women up in Ogdensburg NY...almost 400miles from the city...commuting to the city to run 9 races and qualify for 2008 marathon. They are almost done! Few of them will be finishing their 9th this weekend during the Poland 5 miler. How can I complain getting to start-line being walking distance from the park!
Yaawnn....
Just read another blog regarding chicago marathon by
http://averagemarathongal.blogspot.com/ Pretty depressing to see how weather can distroy months of training. Looks like weather in nyc is going to be okay. Accuweather has a 15-day forecast at 54/34 sunny. If actual weather is anywhere close to that, we are in for a treat. (interestingly there is snow predicted for the Monday....God knows how anyone can predict precipitation 15 days in advance when chances are the water hasnt even evaporated to make the clouds).
Anyway...Interesting piece of marathon trivia: Bush and Al Gore ran a marathon at the age of 44yrs. Bush at 3:46 (pretty respectable) and Gore at 4:54 (pretty average). Good that I don't hate Bush otherwise I would have had to shoot for 3:45:-).
Another interesting piece of trivia: running 4 hrs in nyc on a good weather day would almost perfectly get you placed at 10000...good target to beat.
Finally, saw the amazing story of http://womenontherun.blogspot.com. This is a group of amazing women up in Ogdensburg NY...almost 400miles from the city...commuting to the city to run 9 races and qualify for 2008 marathon. They are almost done! Few of them will be finishing their 9th this weekend during the Poland 5 miler. How can I complain getting to start-line being walking distance from the park!
Yaawnn....
Monday, October 22, 2007
Marathon training recap
I haven't blogged at all since May. This does not however mean I haven't been running. Quite the contrary, I have been training moderately for the NYC marathon. With 14 days to go, my tapering formally began this weekend. No more long runs, no more races. I have had enough of those for the year. 15 so far, excluding the mid night run...but hey, who is counting. The one which really counts is coming up in less than 2 weeks.
This is probably as good a time as any to look back on the training so far; as for all practical purposes, the training phase is over and it now only wait and watch. Perhaps its easiest to compare 07 training with 05 when I ran my first marathon at 10min mile pace (4:22). I definitely ran less miles and less frequently. I did however run a lot more races including 4 (5?) consecutive weekend half marathon (incl one at 18 miles). Ironically PR was the first half at 1:52 with speed sliding steadily since. At 1:52 PR, I can shoot for exactly 4hr (1:52 x 2 +0:15)marathon if weather permits. If weather is a mess, may be good objective would be to beat my previous time of 4:22.
In general, the training this year was very bipolar. The races were typically pretty fast at 8:30-10mpm pace while training runs were unusually slow.
Also, work was heavier while food and sleep habits were wprse than last year. But perhaps keeping it healthy and stress-free in last two is what really counts.
Other aspect of the training different was the race strategy. I am almost certain that I will be shooting for negative split. I ran all serious race efforts with significant negative splits. This is partly due to the fact that I ran the races as tempo training runs. But I am not sure if I could have gotten the PR without negative split strategy. This strategy is however going to be a problem in the marathon as this will be a all-out effort and with second half much harder than first, making negative split would require first half to be unusually slow. Original plan was to run first half below 175bpm but this would push first half to 2:05+ (I tried this in the nyc half) forcing expectations for second half at 1:55 which could be problem...serious problem.
This is probably as good a time as any to look back on the training so far; as for all practical purposes, the training phase is over and it now only wait and watch. Perhaps its easiest to compare 07 training with 05 when I ran my first marathon at 10min mile pace (4:22). I definitely ran less miles and less frequently. I did however run a lot more races including 4 (5?) consecutive weekend half marathon (incl one at 18 miles). Ironically PR was the first half at 1:52 with speed sliding steadily since. At 1:52 PR, I can shoot for exactly 4hr (1:52 x 2 +0:15)marathon if weather permits. If weather is a mess, may be good objective would be to beat my previous time of 4:22.
In general, the training this year was very bipolar. The races were typically pretty fast at 8:30-10mpm pace while training runs were unusually slow.
Also, work was heavier while food and sleep habits were wprse than last year. But perhaps keeping it healthy and stress-free in last two is what really counts.
Other aspect of the training different was the race strategy. I am almost certain that I will be shooting for negative split. I ran all serious race efforts with significant negative splits. This is partly due to the fact that I ran the races as tempo training runs. But I am not sure if I could have gotten the PR without negative split strategy. This strategy is however going to be a problem in the marathon as this will be a all-out effort and with second half much harder than first, making negative split would require first half to be unusually slow. Original plan was to run first half below 175bpm but this would push first half to 2:05+ (I tried this in the nyc half) forcing expectations for second half at 1:55 which could be problem...serious problem.
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