Marathon Training Week 5 – Holy Hills!

I had fun training this week. Despite the fact that HILLS became the center of my training week. First of all, my runs were a little more spaced out than they were last week, when I tried to cram a week’s worth of training into 4 days. So, even though Week 5 was a ramping up week, it seemed more of a gradual progression than a shock to the system.

Hills were introduced for one of the workouts this week. It was pretty unstructured – find a route with 4 hills, that take about 30 seconds to climb, with flat ground after each hill so you can work on regaining your regular pace after a hard effort, without the assistance of a downhill. Easier said than done! I needed to stay close to home for this workout, so I was stuck with a limited terrain. Nothing really came close to the description, even with me trying some pretty creative mapping out online before I ran. So I turned this into a hill repeat workout – I picked a hill, ran it 4 times, then tried to hit marathon pace for a mile after the last repeat. I was pretty happy with my effort and it wasn’t as awful as I imagined it was going to be.

Hills again were a recurring theme later in the week – we went away for a few days to hang with family upstate, and I did a 6 mile run near our cousin’s house. After quizzing my cousin Doug about potential routes (he is also a runner), I quickly realized that whichever way I ran, there was no escaping the hills. So. Many. Hills. 

I need them, though – I will never forget the Queensboro Bridge hill in the NYC Marathon, around Mile 15. That is one unholy hill when you’re tired and have 11 miles left to go. The more I can be prepared for that, the better!

So, upstate I decided to do an out and back, then about a mile in I took a different road because it meandered along the river and looked pretty. It was a dead end, about half a mile long, and as I was turning to go back to where I’d turned, it occurred to me that a) I was in bear territory; b) I’d told my family I was doing an out and back and now I wasn’t; so c) if I had to call my cousin (who is a cop and owns a gun) to help me out in case of bear, they wouldn’t even know where to find me. So that was a really fast half mile.

LONG RUN: 12 miles this week. The long runs are coming easy to me – I guess it’s why I choose long distance running, because I love the groove I get into on a long run. I find them meditative. The pace is easygoing and I am just alone with my thoughts. I haven’t used music yet in my training – I’m interested to see what distance I’ll hit where I decide I need to listen to my iPod.

I’m feeling great 5 weeks in to this NYRR Virtual Trainer program! I love the way it’s set out, I love the flexibility I can bring to the program, but most of all, I love that I’m feeling stronger and fitter without any sign of injury. No aches or pains or anything so far. Touch wood!!

MILES FOR WEEK: 31

How’s your training going if you’re coming up on a Fall Marathon?

Do you have to listen to music every run?