Funning to Newport
The turn-around time between Oakland and Newport, my first and second marathons of 2014, is about 10 weeks, and while I’ve done quick (and significantly quicker than this) turn-arounds between marathons before, this one has been a bit, well, different, I guess.
Typically, in the weeks post-marathon, especially if it’s a marathon wherein I really laid it all out there, I don’t even so much look at any type of official “marathon recovery” plan; more than anything, I just listen to my body. If I wake up and want to run 8 miles, I do; if I sleep in until A awakens me, I won’t run (or will run very ‘easy’ with her later, air quotes necessary here only because stroller running isn’t exactly effortless). This time around, for a reason kiiiiiiiinda unbeknownst to me, I’ve been more or less following a 10-week-between-marathon plan, again from my buddy Pete Pfitzinger, and really, so far, it’s been a blast.
Don’t get me wrong here; running typically is a very fun pursuit for me, though admittedly, I do sometimes have momentary freak-outs–don’t we all–if I don’t nail a workout or a run as much as I’d like to. What has stood out to me so far about this little recover-then build and enhance-then recover cycle is that, while I didn’t catch my unicorn in Oakland in late March, I’m going through these training motions pretty much free of pressure.
Isn’t that weird? I mean, looking from the outside in, I surely would have thought that I’d be going through this cycle with a vengeance, and with this sense of incredible pressure to rectify any and everything that I could have done wrong, done poorly, that resulted in me not performing exactly as I wanted to in Oakland… but that’s not really the case.
I guess it’s this kinda weird thing because I’m portraying myself, and my training for Newport, as being ambivalent at best… but that’s really not true. I am still very much committed to my training and to a strong race day performance in Newport, but I feel like this training, so far, has been all ‘funning’ and less ‘running.’ (Ed. note: ‘Funning’ surely is the worst made-up word in the English language, but it absolutely encapsulates what my training has been like so far: namely, just a lot of stuff I usually don’t do.)
So far, aside from the usual mix of recovery, long, lactate thresholds, general aerobic, and VO2 max goodness runs, I’ve also run the Ragnar SoCal relay with a gaggle of TSFM ambassadors, hit some trails here in Alum Rock (and be momentarily terrified and then strangely liberated seconds later), pace for my first time at a half marathon, and run an unofficial-and-mismarked-10k (and post an unofficial PR and a 2nd OA), and, soon enough, do another 1:45 pacing gig and have some fun at Bay to Breakers (my first 12k).
I’ll start posting some weekly running recaps here shortly, but in the interim, here’s what the first part of the Newport mini-cycle has looked like, mostly in pictures (and some of which, if you follow me on IG, you’ve probably already seen).
Week of 3/24 — one week post-Oakland — 26.76 miles
Week of 3/31 — two weeks post-Oakland — 34.79 miles
And Ragnar SoCal. A cajillion Ragnar pics on that post.
Week of 4/7 — three weeks post-Oakland — 48.67 miles
Week of 4/14 — four weeks post-Oakland — 60.03 miles
That’s about it so far for the Newport mini-cycle. How’s your training? Do you do more funning or running these days?