Thursday, October 16, 2014

MCM Taper time



Here I am tapering for my second marathon- the MCM. Last week was the first week that I started tapering. The last week before tapering should be the highest mileage week. Anyway, that week (09/29-10/05) I only ran 42 miles (compare to 56 miles the week before with 5 day run) with 4 day run. I felt right hip pain and I didn't want to risk getting injury before the marathon. I didn't even do the marathon pace run which I usually did on Thursday for about 10-12 miles. I switched it to 6 miles easy. I did my longest run ( 21.6 miles) easy also.



 For the first taper week (10/6-10/12), I ran 42 miles with 4 day run, one day cross training on my rowing machine and two rest days. I did all workouts – speed on Tuesday, 8 miles at marathon pace on Thursday (total 12 miles), easy 7 mile run on Saturday, and 12 miles at marathon pace on Sunday (total 16 miles). All my marathon pace came out faster than I planned to run. I barely looked at the watch while running, and I just ran by how I felt. I was pretty tired at the end. I just have to slow down more when running my marathon. 



I'm now in the second week taper. So far, I took Monday off, and did speed work on Tuesday (7x1K at 7:40-7:40 pace with 2 min RI, 1M w/u, and 1 M c/d). I plan to run 4 days a week, with one cross train day on Wednesday, Thursday will be my marathon pace run (plan to do 3M w/u, 6M at MP, 3M c/d), Friday- an hour easy run, Saturday will be easy 8-10 miles, with another rest day on Sunday.

I'm still not so sure what to do about water on race day. Most people told me to just stop at the water stops, but a few runners told me that I should be carry my own water especially for MCM which will be SUPER crowded. I asked my coworker (Sandra) who is much faster runner than me to be my pacer for my second half of the race and maybe carry the water for me. She said that she will have to let me know later if she can do that or not. It would be great if she could help me out, so I don't have carry my own water and has someone to run with.

My marathon race day plan- I plan to run the first few miles (9:10-9:20) easy especially they are pretty much uphill the first 3 miles. I think I may start with the 4 hour pace group for those miles. I will have to talk to them to see what race they decide to run those miles first before running with them. Then I will ease in to about 8:55 from mile 4 and hold the pace for the first half, then lower the pace to 8:50 until mile 20, then see if I could hold the pace all the way to mile 23, then I would give it all I have left.

We will see what is actually going to happen on the race day. Right now, I will just relax and enjoy my taper.