Monday Nov 9, 4 Miles, 492′ 34m16s

Lazily paced run throughout my apartment complex. I’ve been trying to gain more vert through more dynamic routes within the complex, especially for <5 mile runs.

Tues Nov 10, 6.9 Miles, 659′ 53m33s

Early start to avoid the worst of the bad weather forecast. Felt good all morning, and finished the run feeling like I could have kept this pace up all day. This also marks my first continuous climb from the highway to the top of the apartment complex…

Wed Nov 11, 5.4 Miles, 1030′ 48m48s

1.8 mile warmup followed by 5x main complex hill repeat (~.2 miles 142′) at maximum effort. Cooled down with a couple miles of jogging. Intervals felt unusually crappy, and only got worse from the get-go. On the upside, I managed to top my previous incline PR according to Strava, but would have preferred a bit more pep in the legs.

Thurs Nov 12, 13.1 Miles, 1247′ 1h48m

Modified Broken Shin with Mark including an ascent up Hillcrest. Legs felt generally fine, but my quads were unhappy with the prolonged climbing — burning a lot more than I would have anticipated. Also dealt with some gnarly heartburn, which was easily fixed through some Tums, but none-the-less annoying. Decided to wind down the final mile of the normal 5 mile section to the 6:50 range.

Fri Nov 13, 1.5 Miles, 167′ 12m52s

Easy midday jog, Trying to take my easy days particularly easy leading into taper.

Sat Nov 14, 13.3 Miles, 623′, 1h33m

Ungodly early start with Jay, Jeff, and Kevin. Overall a little tired with a relatively unsettled stomach, but my legs felt consistent and competent throughout the day. AVG pace of 6:58 with HR steady at 141BPM leaves me feeling confident for Philly, which I anticipate to have similar weather conditions.

Sun Nov 15, 1.5 Miles 151′ 12m4s

Easy Shakeout, let the tapering begin

Totals: 46 Miles, 4370′ 6h2m

Confidence boosting final training week before my 7 day taper going into Philly. At this point, I just want to get through the taper and back to my normal routine of big mileage in inspiring places. I’m finally feeling confident enough in my legs to submit them to more serious ultra-training kind of abuse, something I’ve been gun-shy about for over a year, and as much as I’m looking forward to the marathon itself, I’m more excited to jump into my next block.

Monday Oct 26 5 Miles, 282′ 39m45s

Easy effort midday Shakeout type jog. Unfortunately a bit of lingering GI issues caused me to walk in the final uphill mile rather than risk some pants-around-the-ankles time so close to home.

Tuesday Oct 27 9.7 Miles 341′ 1h3m33s

1.7 Miles easy (7:30ish pace) followed by 8 Miles at 6:17 pace with Jay. I foolishly wore split shorts and a lightweight shell, which wasn’t the most ideal clothing combination, but otherwise an uneventful tempo. It’s been good to really start to wind things out in recent weeks, discovering gears I wasn’t sure I had.

PM 1 Mile 7m49s

Easy shakeout after doing some core-work at the gym

Wed Oct 28, 8 Miles, 869′ 1h5m25s

Pretty sluggish jog before work. Weather was supposed to be getting progressively worse throughout the day forcing me to head out with the head-torch first thing in the morning. Legs felt surprisingly okay, if a little bit tired.

Thurs Oct 29, 13.3 Miles, 1068′ 1h52m

Exploring Hillcrest with Mark. We’ve been running the same couple of routes out of the 400 Morris lot for years now, and I’m amazed that none of us have been going up this incredible incline. One of the better road-views in the area, and a pretty progressively challenging incline.

Fri Oct 30, 4.4 Miles. 436′ 36m55s

Trying not to leave my apartment complex for shorter runs created a pretty clumsy route. Overall my legs were feeling okay, just trying to save some pep for the inevitable weekend grind.

Saturday Oct 31, 16 Miles, 1283′ 1h57m

Started for an early 4 miles out of Chester before meeting up with Jay and Jeff for an additional 12. Jay’s routing was typically ignorant of the y axis on the elevation chart, with most of the gain coming in the last 5 miles. I left the run knowing I had it in me to run substantially harder, even with the weeks’ accumulated volume showing up in my legs (and Jay pulling on my shirt anytime I picked things up to 7:0x)

PM 2 Miles 223′ 16m304

Evening shakeout to finalize the days quota.

Sunday Nov 1 10.2 Miles, 1063′ 1h21m

Easy morning 10 miler. Again just trying to get to my 70 MPW quota. Nothing particularly substantial about the outing, rise and grind.

Monday Nov 2, 4 Miles, 29m49s

Morning treadmill run after spending the night in Atlanta. Had to fly into town for an early morning kickoff meeting, and hadn’t had time to scout the lay of the land for a proper road-run… plus the late sunrise and rain had me a little more gun-shy.

Tuesday Nov 2, 4 Miles, 230′ 31m45s

Definitively uncreative route-building, but none-the-less it was nice to actually get some proper-outside time after spending the entirety of Monday inside conference rooms

Wed Nov 3, 9.1 Miles, 371′ 1h

Short warmup followed by 6 miles at 6:07 pace with Jay. We had planned to do a longer Marathon-Pace run later in the week, so it seemed prudent to crank the speed up, and the distance down a little for this weeks speed sesh.

Thurs, Nov 4, 10.1 Miles, 830′ 1h25m

Usual Broken-Shin loop with the Highlands guys. Did the first round by myself before meeting up with the guys for round two. Ran with Mikey most of the evening, chewing the fat about running and the technology sector.

Fri, Nov 5, 2.4 Miles, 233′ 21m1s

Easy lunch-time jog, trying to shake the cobwebs off before Saturday’s MP run.

Sat, Nov 6, 15.4 Miles, 751′ 1h45m

Couple of miles of warmup pace followed by a half marathon at anticipated marathon pace (6:40). Admittedly I failed to properly hydrate before the run resulting in a genuine suffer-fest which started before the actual workout portion. I managed to hit my splits as planned, but it required digging a lot further into the pain cave than I would have liked, making me wonder what this workout would have been like had I fueled properly. Either way, it was a confidence booster going into Philly, both knowing that I could hit my splits in the midst of a long couple weeks, and that I’m still familiar with, and willing to go into the proverbial pain cave.

Sun Nov 7, 6 Miles, 558′ 46m

Easy jog around town. Ran into Jay and Jeff part-way through and stopped to chew the fat for a while.

Totals: Oct 26-Nov 1, 70 Miles, 5745’9h0m. Nov 2-7, 51.2 Miles, 2972’6h19m

Overall a really productive couple of weeks. I’m gaining a lot of confidence in my leg speed going into the Phila marathon, but admittedly still intimidated by the concise nature of a marathon, and still unsure about what I can really do on a flat course. From here on out it’s basically taper time, although I doubt I’ll really cut any mileage in the upcoming week, especially since my legs have really been responding to the uptick as of late. As much as I’ve been enjoying the precision of training for a race like this, I really can’t wait to get back to my normal routines, especially as I’m beginning to sense that my legs are well prepared for some more reckless training ideas.