Week 1 - Eugene Marathon Training

This first week was a killer. A few weeks ago when I chatted with my coach about training, she recommended kicking things off with a 10 day, 10 mile challenge. 10 miles/day for 10 days would give me my first ever 70 mile week. I felt up for it. 10 miles is about an hour and 20 minutes per day. That's a lot of time. No rest days. I was running 35 miles/week for the month of January, so it would be a big jump. When training for NYC, I hit 64 miles in my peak week, so I was amped to get my peak week up to 70 miles this cycle.  We decided to go with 8 miles/day for 8 days to see how my body handled the sharp increase. I still have 1 day left in the challenge, but here's how the week went down:

• Monday: 8 miles at 7:55 average. I felt good on this day (duh. It was the first day!)
• Tuesday: 8 miles at 7:35 average. This urn had a 2 mile steady state in the middle. I hit a 6:38 and 6:43 for this and it was tough. My half marathon PR is 6:50 avg, so this was a bit discouraging, but that's what the comeback looks like right?
• Wednesday: 8 miles at 8:05 average. Had some serious GI issues on this run and stopped every couple miles (remind me to never eat peanut butter after noon).
• Thursday: 8 miles at 7:45 average. Got in 7 x 20 second strides with 40 second recoveries. My legs felt super tired on this run, so I was pleasantly surprised with the end pace.
• Friday: 4 AM recovery miles at 8:33 average. While my legs felt like this pace was slow, my HR was too high for this to be a recovery pace. I also got in 4 PM miles at 8:04 average. My legs felt much better on the evening run.
• Saturday: 8 miles at 7:42 average. My legs were spent and this run called for a 3 mile progression and I just kept thinking, Nope! Not gonna happen! But I pushed through and hit 7:26, 7:06, 6:50 for the progression and I was so happy with that. I also got in a kettle bell workout.
• Sunday: 4 AM recovery miles at 8:26 average. My HR was much better on this run at 146 and I felt like my legs had finally adapted to the higher mileage. No soreness at all. I also got in 4 PM miles at 8:06 average.

56 miles total for the week. One of the perks to doing this challenge was it made me realize maybe I'm not up for the 10 mile/day challenge. If you notice, I only had time for one strength workout all week. One 20 minute kettle bell workout and I only got in one Myrtl routine. If I keep doing this, my hips will fall apart and my muscles will get devoured. I need to do at least 2-3 strength workouts and 2 core workouts. I just ran out of time each day with meal prep, coaching, work, getting in the miles, and just being legit exhausted. Aside from that, I also realized I need more sleep. I consistently got 7 hours of sleep a night and got 2 nights where I had 8 hours of sleep, but that was NOT ENOUGH! I also did not have enough time for mobility/yoga. I also realized my 8 mile route was boring AF after doing it 4 days in a row. I appreciate the diversity that comes with different miles. Even though I do the same 6 mile route or 10 mile route, it still looks slightly different from day to day.

This was a GREAT first week though. My body held up with the mileage and I was able to run decent paces even though my muscles felt tired. The tired was strange though - it wasn't like I ran 20 miles and it hurt to move, walk, sit/stand. My legs really only felt tired when I was running. I could tell they were fatigued when putting in miles, but they felt fine throughout the day. Very happy to have logged a solid first week of training!

J