Fighting Through the Grind

As I mentioned in my last post on Creating Marathon Fitness Building Blocks, training for an endurance event takes an equal amount of  patience, persistence, and letting go of your ego.  The day in day out consistency required for training eventually reaches a point, typically in the middle of a training cycle when you are close to the race but still far enough away that it isn't THAT close, where the training becomes a grind.  I'll be the first to admit that I am at that point right now.  The cumulative effect of training, both on the body and mind, have started to take their toll.   Running is always enjoyable, but to reach new heights and achieve tough, but realistic goals takes an extra effort to go above and beyond what is comfortable.  Training for a difficult goal should be hard.  If it isn't, it probably isn't a difficult goal.  As a result, I am working through a few tough spots, but I am ok with that.  It means I am pushing myself and am close, but not over the edge.

I am now 11 weeks out from New York City with two of the most important blocks, the core of my marathon-specific training, sitting right in front of me.  I am also battling what I like to call the grind.  My motivation is still high to get the workouts in and my body is still cooperating to execute them, but the grind just makes things a little extra blah.  For lack of a better term, "blah" simply means that it feels like you're going through the motions.  Still executing, still improving fitness, but without that big fire.

However, there have certainly been moments of doubt where I let that blah feeling take over.  Take this weekend for example.  I was out of town officiating a few triathlons and had every intent on getting my long run done after the race.  I had the motivation and even set out running immediately after getting back to my hotel room, but I could tell something was off.  I knew it was a combination of spending all morning on my feet at the race and barely eating anything for 7 hours while working, but I still had it in my head that the run was going to happen.  I started off and felt horrible, but I wanted to give my body a chance to respond.  I've felt tired and off before, so sometimes it just takes a few miles to get that good feeling back.  However, I wouldn't recommend running up and down mountains as a way to do that.  Unfortunately, Luray, VA sits within the Shenandoah Mountains, right along Skyline Drive, so there is nothing but hills and mountains.  After about 4 miles, I knew my long run wasn't going to happen, so I ended it.  At the end of a recovery week with some serious weeks ahead of me, I found little reason to use that extra mental energy it would have required to finish the run.  The purpose of the week was to recover so I can hit my next phase of training hard, so recover is what I did and I have no regrets.  While a missed long run isn't ideal, it isn't going to determine the outcome of anything.  It was simply one run out of hundreds that I'll complete before race day.  So I've put it in my past and am ready to move on. 

For me, this grind period usually lasts a week or two, when I finally get to the point where the race feels real.  Fighting through the grind means you have to stay persistent and keep at it, even though you might not quite feel like it.  But is also means being smart and knowing when it is ok to pull back a bit.  Recovery is required in order to get stronger, so if I am going to miss a workout, I'd rather it be now as opposed to a key building week.  The training that happens at this point has a direct impact on my ability to execute many of the simulation workouts that come toward the end of the training cycle, where I'll determine if my pace goals are realistic, so letting off the gas could mean that my goals for NYC might slip.  With this recovery week and unexpected lower mileage behind me, I am putting my head down and going back to "work", taking it one day, one workout at a time.  And before I know it, the grind will be over, race day will be here, and I'll be able to run the race I've trained for.

While we all love to run, every run is not always rainbows and unicorns.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is naive or lying.  But what we can all agree on is that there is no feeling quite like crossing the finish line of a goal race with a shiny new PR.  And at the end of the day, that is what this is all about.

Creating Marathon Fitness Building Blocks - A Training Update

My weekly mileage progression

With this past week in the books, I've wrapped up the first week in the next phase of my marathon training cycle - the general build phase.  In this phase, the focus is still on adding volume as it was in the base phase, but more importantly, starting to progress into more marathon specific workouts.  Training for a marathon is a process of patience, persistence, and letting go of your ego.  The best laid training plans can go awry with the snap of the fingers if you don't incorporate all three of those elements.

- Patience: The marathon training cycle is a long time (typically 4-5 months), so you need to make steady progress, one workout at a time.  Jumping in too deep before it is safe can lead to overuse injuries and setbacks.  There is such a thing as training too much too soon or too hard/fast.  This often results in fitness peaking well before your goal race, leaving you exhausted and flat by the time you get to the start line.  Patience always rewards those who let their fitness come to them.

- Persistence: Training for marathon is tough - there's no doubt about that.  Fatigue sets in pretty quickly after you've been at it for 4-6 weeks, as the cumulative toll starts to eek into your body.  This is good though, because your body adapts and gets stronger.  So you do eventually get used to the "always tired" feeling, but it takes some persistence to keep yourself going.  Its easy to take extra days off when you feel fatigued, but that takes away from your training.  Fatigue is normal, pain is not.  Know the difference.  You want to be persistent, but not injured.

- Lose the ego: One of my favorite sayings is "Your ego is not your amigo".  Don't fool yourself into thinking you are fitter, faster, injuryproof, etc.  When things are going well and you feel the fitness starting to pick up, it is way too easy to keep pushing.  But know that your ego is the one tell you to keep going farther, further, faster, not your body.  Eventually it all catches up.  If not now, then later, but know that it does.  Stick to your plan or consult your coach if you think you should be increasing your workload.  In most cases, you probably should just stay the course (ie have patience).

Now as I mentioned in my last training post, I had laid out some short term goals to get me through the initial base phase of training. Let's review those goals and see how I did:

Short term goals:
1) Slowly increase weekly volume to a sustainable (for me) level in the low to mid 50s
In the past month, I've shown a steady progression, where I moved from 47 mi/wk up to 52.  I would have liked to get that number a bit higher, but life got in the way, so I had to take a few unexpected days off.  I still had 3 weeks of 50+ miles, so I'm right where I need to be.  This past week, as my first week of building, I was up to 58 miles with no extra fatigue, so I can tell I was ready to start this phase.
2) Run consistently 6-7 days/week to get into the routine to support higher volume
I've run at least 6, but typically 7 runs in every week over the last 7 weeks.  This has worked out to 6 days of running, with 1 double.  In this next phase, I'll likely be running 7 days a week as my body allows, but one of those days will simply be a 30 minute easy run as my rest day.
3) Add one double run per week on the same day as speedwork
As noted above, I've been doing a double on my speedwork days.  This means I do an easy 4-5 miles in the early morning, followed by my speedwork in the evening.  There are a bit more than 12 hours between workouts, so it is actually a pretty large gap.  No different than doing an evening workout followed by a morning run.  This has worked well and hasn't impacted my ability to nail my paces or leave me overly fatigued the next day.
4) Gradually begin incorporating more dedicated strength routines following hard workouts (2x/week)
I always do my strength routines after speedwork, so that is good for 1x/week.  I occasionally do a 2nd dedicated strength routine later in the week, but more often, I do a little bit of this and a little bit of that at different times throughout every day.  For example, while brushing my teeth, I often do single leg stands/squats.  What I am doing right now is ok, but I need to make time for a 2nd dedicated strength workout.  I know it will help me be a better runner.
5) On easy days following each run, incorporate 5-10 minutes of mobility to aid bloodflow/recovery
This has actually been one of the harder items to achieve, simply because I haven't had the time to always do this.  Because most of my easy runs are done in the morning, once I step through the door, it is usually a rush to shower and get everyone ready to head back out the door and onto work/daycare.  Doesn't leave much wiggle room.  When I do have the time, I have done the mobility work or done it later in the day.  So for this one, I am still getting it done, just not right after my runs.

So as you can see, I was able to exit that phase of training while hitting pretty much all of my short term goals.  Because of that, I've been able to pretty easily transition into this next build phase.  The 58 miles I ran this past week, seemed easier than some of the early weeks in the base phase.  This included 2 weekday workouts and an 18 mi long run, so it had a fair bit of quality in there.  I'm hitting that point where the patience and persistence early on in my training has paid off.  I just have to let my ego keep its thoughts to itself while I progress like I planned.  So as I continue down the road to longer and more challenging workouts, I hope to feel the same way as I do right now.  Stay tuned...