95 Miles + Countdown to Grandma’s Marathon

And so the countdown to Grandma’s Marathon begins. . . .46 days!

I am nervous, excited, apprehensive, and did I say nervous? Especially when I start to think about how fast I have to run in order to get a sub-3 hour finish time. It calculates out to be an average pace of 6:51 minutes/mile. . . for 26.2 miles!!

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I truly believe I can run a sub-3 hour marathon, but there are a lot of things that could go wrong and cause me not to reach my goal. I like sharing my goals with people to keep myself accountable, but I’m truly worried if I talk about it publicly too much I’ll put too much pressure on myself, and I will falter. So that’s all I’m going to say about that. In order to focus on this goal, I actually need to talk about it less. It is like at the start of a race when I just want to be left alone by myself and focus on what I need to do.

This past week was the highest mileage week since having Cullen. Last summer I hit 75 miles, so this 95 miles was quite a bit more. I did run 100 miles during the summers of 2012 and 2013, so this type of mileage isn’t completely new to me.

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It was a good week of training overall, and I wasn’t too tired most days. Thursday was the toughest day, but other than that my runs went pretty well.

Monday

7 miles – easy

Originally I was supposed to do a double on this day, but my coach said to scrap the second run and save my energy for the next day’s tempo workout.

Tuesday

AM – 13 miles – tempo workout

2 x 20 minutes @ 6:20 pace (goal pace)

The first segment was all over the place. I forgot my watch, so I was going by feel, which was not effective. Splits – 6:11, 6:47, 6:27. But then my friend let me borrow her watch, and I nailed the splits – 6:19, 6:20, 6:19.

PM – 4 miles, easy | average pace – 7:30

Easy run in the afternoon, this time (surprisingly) without the stroller. I flew on this run!

Wednesday

AM – 8 miles, easy | average pace – 7:43

Ran a hillier route but felt good overall.

PM – 5 miles, easy | average pace – 7:51

Stroller run.

Thursday

15 miles, easy | average pace – 7:54

This was probably the toughest workout of the week. I think the two double days definitely left my legs feeling tired. If I didn’t have a coach telling me what to do, I probably would have only run about 5 miles.

Friday

8 miles, easy

I was supposed to run 9 miles this morning, but I didn’t have time before Craig had to leave for work.

Saturday

22 miles, long run

I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. in order to get the miles done before training group at 8:00 a.m. Luckily it was just starting to get light out when I started, which made me forget how early it really was.

Sunday

AM – 7 miles, easy

Pushed Cullen in the stroller. He’s only good for about 5 miles these days, but we did see a moose, so that was exciting for him.

PM – 6 miles, easy

I actually felt really good. It probably helped I wasn’t on my feet all day.

Total: 95 miles

Hi, I'm Michelle

I love running around the lakes of Minnesota, running after my two boys, and racing anything from the 5K to the marathon. I have been blogging here since 2010 when I ran my first marathon. I finally secured my sub-3 hour marathon after trying for 8 years.

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4 Comments

  1. 5.2.16

    Chuck Johnson here. My top mileage week was 54 miles and it almost killed me. Good Luck to you at Grandma’s and more power to you to be able to run that many miles!

  2. 5.2.16

    Hopefully your knees don’t turn out like mine. Chuck