Filed under: 2008 NYC Marathon Training | Tags: Cross Training, Heart Rate, Miles, New York Marathon
Today’s long run can be summed up in one word, ‘bonk’. My right knee started acting up an hour into the run and proceeded to nag me for the next hour until I called it quits. It was especially bad on the downhills. Again, my buddy Jeff hooked it up with a great route through the South Side & East End of Pittsburgh, but I ended up completing only 14 miles of 20. Not a great run, but the simple fact that I was up at 7 on a Sunday and pushed myself for 2 hours is a good sign.
I’ve been reading that for the long runs, you shouldn’t exceed 80% of the race day goal, which was definitely not the case on Sunday. I was out of the gate maintaining an 8 minute mile pace and then continued to push it with Jeff. In retrospect, here’s what went wrong last week; I missed a short run (3 miles, but important nonetheless), I took 3 days off before attempting the long run (never again!), I only did limited stretching (no yoga either) and partied a bit much on Friday night. Finally, I’m simply not keeping up with the core training. Lessons learned… Also, the battery went dead on my heart rate monitor so there was some lost data there (not a big deal though).
On a positive note, I ran almost 30 miles so the week wasn’t a total wash. Also, Wendy and I caught a sweet 13 mile bike ride on Saturday so I was able to get some cross training completed.
I had a chance to review the course for NYC’s Marathon and it gave me some ideas about how I should approach the training strategically. The Marathon starts on the Verrazano Bridge with about a 1 mile climb up 150 feet. Training in Pittsburgh definitely has it’s benefits in this sense as the hills are plentiful and typically higher and steeper than what Verrazano will throw at me. Also, there are some hills at the end of the race in Central Park, so I need to focus on crushing it for the last 2-4 miles of every long run. Really want to finish this race strong and recover quickly.
