Coming off a poor workout the week before I was very mentally ready for the workout this week. After a few days of just running, Tyler and I had a classic ZAP staple workout slated for Thursday at Moses Cone. We opened with a quick 1500 meter lake loop in 4:17 and then after a few minutes rest did a progressive climb to the Manor House (just under 3 miles) in 14:20 and then jogged steadily downhill to the Maze which we progressively ran through (around 2.5 miles) in 12:02. When we came out of the Maze we were back on Bass Lake where we finished off the day with 6×1 minutes hard with 90 seconds easy jog between. Overall, the Manor-Maze section of the workout is 7 miles in length and we covered it in 35:02 with nearly 8 minutes of that being jog recovery. Not too shabby considering the 115+ mile weeks we have been putting in.
This workout has a little bit of everything which is why Pete loves to have his athletes do it. We opened with a faster piece around 4:30 mile pace to put some junk in our legs and then were asked to climb assertively for about 15 minutes before then recovering to another segment where we we had to run downhill fairly fast. So the workout is flat, uphill, then downhill, and then finishes with some more faster,flat running so that we can simulate running on tired legs at the end of a marathon. It was a good day for both Tyler and I as we helped each other throughout each section of the workout.
The remainder of the week was relaxed and other than dealing with a soccer coaching induced thigh bruise I felt pretty good coming off of the session!
Finishing up the Maze section of the workout on Thursday.
On Friday I made my way down to High Point, NC because my U13 girls soccer team had a tournament over the weekend there. In addition, the App State men’s soccer team was scheduled to play High Point on Saturday evening so I was able to coach my girls during the day then pop over to the HPU campus and coach AGAINST my alma mater in a preseason match that evening. It was neat to be back on campus and once again marvel at all the changes taking place, but it was even neater that App was able to get the 1-0 victory on a late PK. On this night I was a Mountaineer and proud of it! The soccer team is now 3-0 in the preseason and looks primed and ready to go as they begin their quest for an NCAA tournament berth in their inaugural season in the Sun Belt Conference.
Next week, Tyler, Sarah, and I will travel to Virginia Beach, VA to run the Rock N’Roll Half Marathon as the sole prep race in our marathon build up. The race will serve as a pacing workout as we will be instructed to run our goal marathon pace for 10 miles and then will be allowed to race the last 5k or so. Right now, I am aiming for around 5:10 per mile so I am excited and nervous to see how that pace feels because much of our training up to this point has been fartlek and effort based. Wish we luck that all goes to plan! 6 weeks to go!
Here is my last week of training (8/17-8/23):
Sunday: AM: 8 miles PM: 7 miles
Monday: AM: 11 miles PM: 7 miles
Tuesday: AM: 15 miles (5:35 last mile)
Wednesday: AM: 12 miles
Thursday: AM: 16 miles (1500-Manor-Maze workout)
Friday: AM: 8 miles (90% Alter-G) PM: 9 miles (90% Alter-G)
Saturday: AM: 12 miles PM: 6 miles
Total: 111 miles, 2 Alter-G runs