September is here, and fall is creeping up on us. I bet most of you are tapering now if you're doing a fall marathon. Cheers to the taper!
My first week of the taper panned out pretty well. Here are the details:
Monday: Yoga! Hot Power Fusion at Corepower Yoga at St. Louis Park with instructor Joseph. Felt amazing!
Tuesday: 8 am miles solo
Wednesday: Surly Furious Five Miler again at Theodore Wirth (i.e. trail run)
Thursday: 8.5 miles at a real live track! One of the run club members is a coach at a local high school, so we were able to access the track to do some legitimate speed work. Four one-mile repeats, with one lap (400m) in between, cooldown/warmup of about 2 miles
Friday: C2 at Corepower Yoga- i.e. Vinyasa Flow
Saturday: 15 miles (tag-along long run to the Capitol Run, see below)
Sunday: 4 easy miles with Matilda
Total: 40.5 miles, 2 yoga sessions, no complete rest days, but lots of rest
It’s amazing how much more time I had for yoga during the taper. I guess when you’re not trying to max out on running, you actually can take a breather every once and awhile!
I went from 60 miles last week to 40 this week. This means that my total mileage decreased by 30%, which is pretty standard for the taper. This week, I’ll probably only run 30 miles, or another 25% decrease, or 50% of my max week.
I try to keep this tip in mind for the taper:
Cut back the mileage: Decrease your total weekly mileage by about 40% starting two weeks out. During race week, reduce your overall mileage by at least 60%. For example, a runner whose weekly training mileage peaked at 60 miles (like me!) should run 36 miles the week before race week, and no more than 25 in race week. During the last four days before the marathon, don’t do any runs of more than three miles. If you’drather take the last two days completely off, that’s okay too. Don’t worry about mileage during race week- you’ll get your fill on Sunday morning!
Next week, (the week before Berlin), I’ll run easy 3-5 milers, but I am going to focus on sleep. I know that jet lag could be an issue for us, so I want to try to go into the traveling time well-rested.
2013 Capitol Run:
This past Saturday was the ever-popular Calhoun Beach Running Club Capitol Run. I wrote about it last year HERE, but if you missed that post, you may be wondering, "what is a Capitol Run?"
What's a Capitol Run???
A Capitol Run is an awesome, well-organized CBRC training run to the state capitol building! This run involves 20-22 miles of the Twin Cities Marathon course; FYI- the Twin Cities marathon ends at the capitol in St. Paul. It's one of my favorite marathon finishes so far!
For the training run, runners are given the option to run 20 or 22, depending on their individual training.
For the training run, runners are given the option to run 20 or 22, depending on their individual training.
The CBRC capitol run starts at the Calhoun Beach Club. The club's location around mile 4 of the course is truly ideal. Runners had to sign up ahead of time on a google doc online. Volunteers dropped their vehicles off at the capitol around 6:15 am that day, and rides were coordinated back to the club so that everyone would have a ride home after the run as well. Planning such an event required a lot of time and logistical savviness! Yet thanks to the good people at the CBRC, everything went smoothly (again this year!)
Since I did my max long run last week, I only had 15 miles on the schedule, but TCM and Chicago marathoners had 20-22 on their schedules this weekend. Dustin had volunteered to provide a support stop at mile 7, so it worked perfectly for me to hop into the run there, and then take a “shortcut” to the Capitol.
The Capitol Run is a great opportunity for Twin Cities Marathon runners to get familiar with the course and the “hills” of Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Several other running groups in the Twin Cities also organize capitol runs this day as well, though theirs are slightly different. For example, Lifetime Fitness’s running group does an out-and-back course from the capitol and back. The Calhoun Beach Running Club runs from our club (on Lake Calhoun) to the Capitol. Our version does take a little extra planning, as everyone who makes it to the capitol needs a ride back afterwards. Fortunately, there were plenty of volunteers willing to drop their cars off early in the morning at the Capitol, and everything went smoothly (thanks in part to Dustin’s hard work planning the event!)
I felt a little like a “cheater” having only done 15 miles instead of 22, but I had my fair share of a tough long run the weekend before, and I was happy to have an easy 15 miler instead. Thirty runners participated in the CBRC Capitol Run this year, and it sounded like most everyone had a good day. The weather was so much better than last weekend, which definitely helped a ton!
I ran my “cheater” Capitol Run with a newer run club member, who was pretty diligent about keeping us on pace. She actually runs 8 min/miles on marathon day, but she is a strong advocate for the SLOW pace on the long runs. She believes that she recovers a lot faster, and is less likely to get injured if she is smart about keeping a relaxed pace on the long runs. Therefore, she started around 9:15 min/miles, eventually picked it up to 9 min/miles, and then finished strong around 8:45 min/miles. It felt great to me to finish feeling great, and I definitely didn’t need much time to recover. Perhaps there is some truth to her methodology!
Nice work runners!
Now enjoy your taper.
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