It’s true my superfan and I headed to Chicago specifically for the marathon. However, that only took up a brief 3 hours 16 minutes and 29 seconds. The other 57 hours were chock-full of eating, walking, and VWing all around Chicago. Here’s a brief history of our weekend in the Windy City. I’ll break it down into two logical sections.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not good at setting goals and then sticking to them. My most recent case in point is the 3M Half Marathon. Well, I have a new, better example of sandbagging underestimating my abilities. I wasn’t planning on doing any Fall marathons this year, but got recruited by Team VW to run the Chicago Marathon as part of a Volkswagen PR marketing campaign. Well PR I did!
Alright party goers, this is going to be the last weekly review post for my Chicago Marathon training schedule. It’s been a long road to this point from getting that initial email inviting me to be part of Team VW. This final week I took it easy, starting with a rest day Monday. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were all generally easy runs, focusing on staying fresh and recovering from weeks and weeks of pounding. Next time you hear from me should be my Chicago Marathon race report telling the trials and tribulations of my eleventh marathon! So as I’ve said here before, the work is done. The hay is in the barn.
Well it’s that time. This Sunday is the Chicago Marathon and I’m all geared up to be part of Team VW! I’m really looking forward to everything that’s going to happen this weekend. The Team VW organizers have sent us a few instructions about where to be and when, what to wear, and what to expect. Oh, and there’s also that whole running a marathon thing going on too. So here’s a little preview of what to expect between Friday and Sunday.
We’re flying to the Windy City Friday morning. The plan for the day is to have no plan, meaning just see where the day takes us. We may go over to the race expo Friday if nothing else strikes our fancy after lunch. Saturday Team VW wants the whole team to meet at the expo center at 2pm for a group gathering and to meet a special guest. Gleaning from other emails I realize the I am not that special guest. Instead it’s like Dean Karnazes, as in the super ultramarathoner who has all kinds of crazy feats to his name (just Google him). After the Team VW meet up we have dinner plans for some fancy Italian and then off to a good night’s rest.
So yea, after all the Team VW hoopla there’s that marathon business to take care of. Here are few numbers for you:
Tapering — the time in training that most runners hate. The end of most training plans feature several weeks of decreased mileage and intensity to give the body time to recover in preparation for the race. It also leads to pants full of ants and an overall surplus in energy. Really it’s a silly idea, to build a runner’s endurance up to 50+ miles per week, transforming their body into a high-performance running machine and then suddenly say “now take it easy for a few weeks”. Well to that I say “psssssssh”.
We’re back on track folks! I got all my scheduled runs in last week and had no problems, inside or out. With travel to Connecticut for Colin’s wedding I had to smash everything into five days instead of six, so obviously I skipped my rest day. Tuesday’s intervals (four 3/4 mile repeats) were right on target and Wednesday’s 11 mile run to work was on the faster side of normal.
On Thursday night Ev and I landed in JFK and made the drive out to Connecticut near Colin’s apartment. I met Colin Friday morning on a street corner to embark on our 20 miler and my last major run before tapering for Chicago. What I wasn’t expecting was actually how humid it was. I was hoping for cool, crisp Northeast Autumn. Instead we got foggy, rain* that lasted approximately 2.5 hours of the 2.75 hours that we ran. Good news is my leg-hip injury is a thing of the past. It was great running with Colin again, and now he’s all married and stuff!
Now for my least favorite thing, besides the dentist… tapering.
| Distance | Time | Pace | Heart Rate | |
| Monday | 7.15 Miles | 1:01:38 | 8:37 min/mi | 145 bpm |
| Tuesday | 10.01 Miles | 1:16:38 | 7:39 min/mi | 157 bpm |
| Wednesday | 11.00 Miles | 1:30:01 | 8:11 min/mi | 153 bpm |
| Thursday | 3.56 Miles | 31:10 | 8:46 min/mi | 139 bpm |
| Friday | 20.23 Miles | 2:44:04 | 8:07 min/mi | 156 bpm |
| Total | 51.95 Miles | 7:03:32 | 8:09 min/mi | 153 bpm |
*yes, rain! ugh, Austin is changing me into someone who savors rain
With no new illness or injury Week 12 wasn’t too bad, and “wasn’t too bad” is good enough for me right now. I’ve been a bit discouraged, demoralized, and dissatisfied with all the unwanted breaks in training. Thankfully Week 12 was good to me. My paces
were unimpressive if not a little slow, but at least there were paces. “Running” and “slow running” are both better than “not running” at this point. I finished the week off pretty well and hope to leverage that going into Week 13. After that it’s just taper for two weeks and then the race! it’s coming up quick…
| Distance | Time | Pace | Heart Rate | |
| Wednesday | 9.15 Miles | 1:18:06 | 8:32 min/mi | 146 bpm |
| Thursday | 8.00 Miles | 1:05:56 | 8:15 min/mi | 147 bpm |
| Friday | 1.03 Miles | 09:30 | 9:14 min/mi | — bpm |
| Saturday | 17.10 Miles | 2:22:54 | 8:21 min/mi | 158 bpm |
| Total | 35.27 Miles | 4:56:26 | 8:24 min/mi | 152 bpm |
After returning from Vegas and getting over my sickness, Week 11 was positioned to be something of a comeback week. Still a high volume week totaling 52 miles, I decided to skip one midweek medium long run of 12 miles to avoid doing too much too soon. After a great interval 9 miler on Thursday I was really looking forward to a tough 18 mile marathon pace. Well, Friday after an easy recovery a non-running injury (more to come in another post) left me sidelined for an unknown amount of time. Things aren’t looking good so all we can do is keep our fingers crossed. A trip to the doctor might be in order if things to get resolved soon. The Chicago Marathon is coming up in less than 4 weeks…
| Distance | Time | Pace | Heart Rate | |
| Monday | 12.00 Miles | — | — min/mi | — bpm |
| Tuesday | 8.27 Miles | 1:09:03 | 8:21 min/mi | 144 bpm |
| Thursday | 9.00 Miles | 1:09:37 | 7:43 min/mi | 154 bpm |
| Friday | 5.00 Miles | 44:22 | 8:52 min/mi | 140 bpm |
| Saturday | 18.00 Miles | — | — min/mi | — bpm |
| Total | 22.27 Miles | 3:03:03 | 8:13 min/mi | 147 bpm |
bleh.
That’s how I felt during Week 10 of training. What should have been titled something awesome like “Run the Tables! – Week 10 Review” or “Runs in Vegas Stay in Vegas – Week 10 Review” ended up anticlimactic when I came down with some sickness that essentially incapacitated me for over a week. Week 10 was supposed to be the training week of this whole training plan with a total of 55 miles and some intense efforts. Instead I ended up with under 20 miles and nothing but slow but not easy miles.
Week 9 had a similarly quirky schedule to Week 8. The first three runs of the week were each set for 8 miles, though the last went a little long when I ran to work. Tuesday’s 8-miler was a great interval workout with five 800 meter repeats and I nailed all my splits. Huzzah! I’ll attribute it to my new Brooks Ravenna 2 shoes (which I forgot haven’t gotten around to mention) which are a little lighter and more responsive. Saturday I wore the same Ravenna 2’s for the group long run to see how they’d do for a moderately long distance and felt great the whole time. I’m getting close to declaring them my race shoes over my old standby Adrenalines.
| Distance | Time | Pace | Heart Rate | |
| Monday | 8.20 Miles | 1:08:55 | 8:24 min/mi | 144 bpm |
| Tuesday | 8.12 Miles | 1:02:58 | 7:45 min/mi | 152 bpm |
| Wednesday | 8.87 Miles | 1:13:53 | 8:19 min/mi | 148 bpm |
| Friday | 5.04 Miles | 45:57 | 9:07 min/mi | 137 bpm |
| Saturday | 14.56 Miles | 1:57:26 | 8:03 min/mi | 151 bpm |
| Total | 44.78 Miles | 6:09:12 | 8:14 min/mi | 148 bpm |
