Just TRY and tell me I'm not effing awesome, bitches!
But, I was also kinda going through a mini-freak out session. You see, I thought I was awesome back in 2009 when I set my old half marathon PR of 1:49:54. And I kept running alot and training hard and then I failed miserably at my ultimate goal that spring: to go sub 4:00 in the St. Louis Marathon. What happened? Why did I miss my goal by 12 minutes?
Luckily, I have every single freaking mile I've ever ran in my entire life logged in RunningAhead. I spent some time looking it over and saw all the high mileage weeks in 2009 and started scratching my head. I remembered running over to the track with Vandy Montana and diligently doing Yasso 800s. We did some hill workouts (occasionally), and I was running a lot with Vandy Montana who is significantly faster than me! Perfect, right?
WTF?
BUT, my memory and my history are two entirely different things (always). Upon closer inspection of my running log from 2009... it appears that even though I remember going to the track a lot, in actuality, after the beginning of March that year, I kinda, sorta stopped. I was logging a lot of miles. But, they were all just moderately paced runs, with no specific workouts.
DING DING DING.
What a dumbass! This explains a LOT from that marathon day. It explains why I felt like HELL trying to keep up with the 4:00 pace group for the first 14 miles (HELLO... no marathon pace runs!!!!) and it explains why I felt great at the end in the last few miles of the race (high mileage weeks, perhaps?).
All I can say is thank god I have a coach and I'm not bumbling around trying to figure this shit out on my own anymore.
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Yeah, coaches are good. I just became a certified running coach this year and there was a bunch of stuff devoted to the importance of the 4 phases of marathon training -- base-building, sharpening, taper and recovery. And they have to go in that order, you can't do sharpening the first couple months and then drop it in the 6 weeks before the race, that's when it could actually be useful! You've got it this time and I think you'll actually be well under 4. You should run a prediction pool. I'll call 3:52.
Like that DING DING DING :-)
I hate when my memory fails to support the actual facts of my running...and like you I love running ahead even if it makes me a liar.
And beyond!!!!
Sooo, I kind of did no real speed work in the months leading up to my marathons (a had some tempo and mile repeats, every *other* week and then I even stopped that when my hip got messed up). And I ran much faster than I expected - and 30-45 seconds faster than my long/easy run paces.
Perhaps your body responds best to speedwork (thus why you demolished your half goal).
Me, I still haven't figured out if speedwork really helps me, or if I'm a more-miles-at-any-pace person.
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