I had the following conversation with my best friend on Wednesday:
Michele: How are you feeling?
Me: Better, but my run today was horrible.
Michele: Why? Are you still sick?
Me: No… well, I think I’m at about 95%. It’s frustrating though because I did a threshold run today and it was way harder than it was supposed to be. I’m not happy that my fitness has gone backwards.
Michele: You’ll finish, and you won’t be last (referring to Boston).
Me: But I want to break 4 hours (whiny voice).
Michele: You’ll finish, and you won’t be last.
Me: Yes, and thank you for the reminder.
I’ll finish and I won’t be last. That was the goal of my very first marathon. I did finish, and while I wasn’t “last,” I was definitely bringing up the rear with a time of 5:51:02 (course had 6 hour time limit).
This was a good reminder because, we all need to train with our current fitness instead of the fitness that we had, or wish we had. If you’ve lost training time due to illness (my case), injury, or any other interruption, it’s not advisable to mindlessly pick up where you left off. I know this and when I advise others I make sure to help them with perspective. But this is hard, and it is a good reason to have a coach.
Last week I wanted to run 14 instead of the 12 my coach assigned. I asked him about this and he said, “my gut reaction is no.” He was right, and even running the 12 miles I went too hard. (Recovery – Boston Marathon Training Week 9)
If you read my training log notes you’ll see that I have a mixed week…some good runs and some surprisingly hard runs. The good news is that the week ended well.
The lesson in all of this is to train at the fitness you have, not the fitness you want. If you do this, you’ll eventually get to the fitness you want.
7 weeks until race day! Have a great training week.
Workouts: 2/18/2018 – 2/24/2018 | ![]() |
15 squats; 20 sec. plank; 10 push ups; 20 Crunches; 10 lunges on each leg; 20 sec. plank; 10 calf drops on each leg; 20 Sit-Ups
4 x 1 Mile @ Threshold Pace w / 1:00 rest
1 Miles Easy
Nancy Switzler
Since I ran too hard last Saturday, and Wednesday’s threshold run was actually run too hard as well, I decided to make sure that I ran very easy today. So I kept my heart rate in the low 30’s for most of the run (avg 132). For this reason the run was very easy…even with going up and down hills. At the same time it was incredibly slow. While I know this shouldn’t matter, it’s frustrating to see how this bad cold knocked fitness right out of me!
Completed Strength Training: 56:36