It's safe to say that my long/slow endurance is finally back on track. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for my speed. Yeah, I know... I just ran a 15 miles the other day at MGP, but 1) the end of that 15 miles it really didn't feel all that great (I mean, heaven forbid I had to go 26.2!), and 2) last night's track workout shows that I have a lot of work ahead of me.
Last night we did 16x400's on the track, broken into sets of 4, with 200 recoveries between reps and standing recovery between each set. Each set was to progress: 75, 74, 73, 72. I stuck to the plan and made it through the workout. Actually, each rep was either right on or a tad fast. All in, I averaged 73.0. Given that I hit the targets, I guess it was a success. Probably my first reasonable track workout recently.
Am I happy with that though? No. Looking back at my last 3 big 400 workouts while training for Shamrock in the early spring and last fall's CIM, I had averaged closer to sub-72. I know I did a couple of those with spikes, and I didn't use the 200 recoveries, so maybe I shouldn't be worried?
Training for Philly has been very awkward though. I had a reasonable July and August build, which was intended for an October marathon, then busted at a really crucial time for 2 weeks. I then basically had to start from scratch again. It took me 4-5 weeks to recover from those 2 weeks off. And my roll back up hasn't been pretty... I've sacrificed quality for quantity and had random soreness either in my calves or my left knee (likely caused by ITB and a quick come back). Definitely not a clean training session.
Regardless, one thing is certain: I now need to get my speed back. From today, I have exactly 3 weeks of big-peak training followed by a gradually accelerating taper. That's something like 21-25 days to get my shit straight. Not impossible, but it's not gonna be easy.
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