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Reveling in the cut-back week

Reveling in the cut-back week

Another week of Boston training under my belt, hooray!  Last week was a cutback in terms of distance and to a lesser extent, volume.  The FF group and I had a good, challenging workout on Wednesday night — repeats of 1 minute on, 1 minute off, x 8, with a 2 minute recovery between sets — totaling just under 7 miles for the night.  Saturday we did a simple 10-miler in the city, and the ladies and I managed to run a negative split, which is always a confidence booster.  And we ran it pretty quickly, to boot.

When I first began marathon training, and running in general, I didn’t understand the importance of tapering or of taking cut-back weeks periodically.  I thought in order to become a better, faster, stronger, leaner runner, I had to go balls-to-the-wall effort 24/7/365.  Not so.  Experience has since taught me that taking appropriate time off, or just even appropriate recovery time, is as essential a part of the training as the actual running.  In fact, some may even argue that recovery and cut-back is even MORE important than the actual running, itself, to allow the body to properly rest and rejuvenate and torn/strained muscles, to repair.

This week, and subsequent weeks, will be substantial build-up weeks.  We’re slated for ~8 miles of speed on Wednesday followed by a good 17 miles of hills in Barrington on Saturday.  It will be great — and especially now that I’ve just submitted a final paper and am beginning to see the light on this thesis project… the timing could not have been better.

And we wait.

And we wait.

That’s right- it’s that time!  The MCM is on Sunday, officially less than a week away.  I’m super excited to run the race and to jaunt around DC with my parents and C from Friday through Tuesday.  It will be most excellent.

I had my last long run, around 10 miles, on Saturday morning along Chicago’s lakefront with Jack, the recent Chicago marathon rock-star  who posted an impressive 3:29.  Our training run was nice, though the intense out-of-the-north winds I had to negotiate on my return home were less than wonderful.

Goals for the MCM?  Depends on how I feel.  Right now, the main goal is to break 4.  I plan to line up with the 3:40s and hang on.  If I have an awful day and run a 5 hour marathon, it’ll be the best 5 hour marathon I’ve ever run (and the only).  It’s going to be THAT fantastic; I just know it!

Keep an eye out for the post-race recap early next week.  Happy trails!