Running Ruminations

A 10-week turnaround between Oakland and Newport made me think that writing weekly training recaps would be a bit cumbersome, if not also repetitive, so most of my bantering lately has been less about “I did this workout and this workout and I felt great” blah blah blah–though no doubt, you can glean that from my dailymile any ol’ time you want–and more about some bigger picture stuff.

With the marathon just two weeks and change out from today, I still wanted to write through some of my training so I could examine everything from a bird’s eye view. As I’ve written earlier, writing through these things makes me think macro instead of incessantly micro, so this will probably not be the most titillating post I’ve written (sorry, friends). Come back later for some entertainment.

In terms of the weekly mileage breakdown, it’s looked like this, beginning with one week post-Oakland (which was on 3/23):

 

Of course, dailymile rounds the mileage, so it’s a bit misleading, but that’s the general gist of how the mileage has broken down.

Any seasoned runner will tell you that the mileage is meaningless unless you’re a) having fun and, equally important, b) healthy, and I’m happy to report that all is well in both territories.

The last time I wrote about my training, I talked about the funning I had done, which included running more trails in Alum Rock as part of my recovery, Ragnar SoCal with the other fine folks from TSFM ambassador group, and my first 1:45 pacing stint down at the Santa Cruz half marathon. That post basically captured my first four weeks post-Oakland.

Here’s how the subsequent weeks have shaken out:

• week of 4/21: 74.54 miles, including some awesome spectating adventures at Big Sur International Marathon down in Carmel and Monterey. Also, I think this might be a weekly mileage PR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• week of 4/28: 71.09 miles, including another 1:45 RunningAddicts pacing gig at Brazen Racing’s Western Pacific half marathon (1:44:30, still too fast, though this was my first time pacing sola) and getting to see Chris start and finish the WP marathon

 

 

 

• week of 5/5: 71.92 miles, including my longest LR (23) to date… and on a Wednesday because, #life.

 

 

 

That’s about it. Training has been punctuated with the standard fare mix of recoveries, MLRs, LRs, and speed and tempo stuff, and things have been good, fortunately. It is pretty cool (and gratifying) to me to look at all these pics throughout my training cycle thus far and relive some of the crazy-ass stuff I’ve seen or done while on the run because, if nothing else, it’s assuring me (or reminding me, anyway) that, for as much as I want to perform on 5/31, I’ve already had a fuckin’ blast with this truncated training cycle. That, in and of itself, is a victory.

Your turn. Interesting encounters on your runs or rides of late? Any spectating or volunteering fun to report?