Chicago Marathon Training: At the Halfway Point

Okay, I'm not sure if I'm actually at the halfway point in my Chicago Marathon training, but I thought at least check-in and let you know where I'm at training-wise. For this year's training cycle (as opposed to last year's), I'm doing two quality runs per week in addition to a Sunday long run.

• Tuesdays are for marathon paced runs (7:00/mile) from 7 to 10 miles 
• Thursdays are for three mile "speed" sessions (6:10/mile) at the track. Starting next week, I change these to six mile "strength" sessions (6:50/mile).
• Monday, Wednesday, Fridays are for recovery runs
• Saturdays are for rest!

This schedule has my legs feeling much more fatigued than they were at this point last year when I was pretty much focusing solely on getting in high mileage weeks. Last year, I was running my "long, slow, distance" runs in the 7:15 to 7:30/mile range. This year, my legs are so shredded, I could not run that fast if I tried. So they are more in the 8:00 to 8:15/mile range. If I truly want to follow the 80/20 rule, I should be running LSD runs with an emphasis on the "slow" part and might be still running them too fast.

Anyway, I'm probably not going to race again until October 11, unless I hear that a critical mass of WRCE members are running the Oktoberfest 5k next month. Racing short races hard at this point in the training cycle only necessitates more recovery time, and I'd rather just keep marathon training to see if I can snag a coveted marathon PR when I hit the finish on Columbus Drive.

So, I guess we'll see in October if my marathon time improves by doing less mileage but with more quality workouts, or if it's better to simply run lots of miles and leave quality workouts for shorter races.

On Navy Pier During a Sunday 16 miler