I'm looking at just under 4 weeks until the Circular Logic Marathon in Indiana. Holy crap that came up fast, but the fact that it takes place so early in the spring is exactly why I chose this race in the first place (among a few other reasons.)
1. I'm fairly sure it won't be suddenly 70 degrees on April 2nd like it was on May 3rd last year for the Wisconsin Marathon. If it is, then I honestly throw my hands up in the air and give up because I will have the worst marathon luck ever and no plotting and planning can overcome that. 40-ish degrees and cloudy is my jam though and all signs point to this being the weather conditions on race day.
2. Flat, flat flat! I'm a flatland runner for sure. Although I've definitely gotten better at hills and incorporate them into my training more frequently, a nice pancake race course is always better for me than a hilly one. I can turn off my brain and go on auto pilot like I'm on a track. Zoooom.
3. The Circular Logic Marathon course is actually a mile loop that you run 26 times so it's *kind of* like a track anyway. Again, not a lot of thinking will be involved other than me hitting that sweet spot of an 8:10-8:15 mile pace every lap. Plus, I get to run by the aid station with my water and nutrition 26 times which is great! Literally everything about this race is set up pretty perfectly for what I want to accomplish.
So... what's up with my training these days? This past weekend I drove to Chicago to do my 21-mile run along the lakefront there. I've been doing a lot of long runs on the trail at Lapham Peak or at the indoor track this winter so I wanted to get in a solid road run this week- but wasn't feeling super inspired with my usual routes here in Milwaukee. I'm so glad I took the time to spend the day in Chicago because it really was a shot of inspiration I needed. The plan was to start out slow and increase my pace by about 15 seconds per mile every 5 miles and I
completely nailed it. I'll actually be back in Chicago again this coming weekend as well to race the Get Lucky Half Marathon and I'm super excited about that. Hopefully I'll be able to improve on my Icebreaker time and possibly even snag a PR (because let's be real that's what I'm totally going for there.)
After the Get Lucky race I have one last 20 miler planned for two weeks out and then it's taper. I'm going with a two week taper instead of a three week because this training cycle has been pretty short. I figure I need a little more build up rather than rest at this point and sometimes a three week taper can leave me feeling a little sluggish and rusty instead of raring to go.
That's the super short version of what's been going on here in Tracey Training land. I can't say I'm feeling nervous or super confident or really anything right now. I've basically just been logging my workouts, building miles and doing a ton of hot yoga for my cross training (although that's a blog post for another day.) Right now I'm just looking forward to seeing how fast I can crank out a half and then we'll assess from there. This is quite possibly the most "Robot Lady-esque" I've ever been in marathon training- probably because I've done this so many damn times. I'm literally all business lately and about Getting Shit Done. I'm doing the work, just waiting to see the results.
Can a girl get some results already?
What I was up to last week:
Monday- 8 easy miles with strides
Tuesday- 9 miles with 5X1000 @5K pace + Hot Yoga
Wednesday- 6 recovery pace miles
Thursday- Hot Yoga
Friday- 21 miles progressive with a fast finish
Saturday- 8 easy miles with Sara
Sunday- Vinyasa yoga with Ava
Total 52 miles
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| A favorite view on one of my favorite routes. |
