Feb 8-14: 70 Miles/Week

Not a bad week in terms of mileage, along with the 10M PR I ran on Thurs. I didn't do a long long run(only did 15m Sunday), but it was for a reason. This coming week will be higher mileage with a critical 20 mile marathon pace run I want to do on Thursday(which will be a little over 4 weeks out from the goal marathon). These types of workouts really work well for me in the marathon. Familiarity. I need to get into my marathon pace rhythm and set cruise control the whole way(but also not going too crazy..staying relaxed and controlled the whole way). I did this before Frederick 2009 (2nd place), & Shamrock 2005(my PR)...but interestingly not before Marine Corps..which was of course a bad race. The reason I am going to do this workout Thursday is because I want to recover enough so I can run a good half on Feb 28th. I am not peaking for the half obviously, my peak is for the marathon. But I want to be fresh enough to run a strong half and give myself a little bit of tune-up racing for the full. The idea is to run the half just above Lactate Threshold (5:27 pace) and really work on my turnover so that in the marathon(3 weeks later) when I run a slightly slower pace it will feel a little bit "easier," and if the moment calls for it and I need to crank the last 6.2m of the marathon in the 530s to win, then I will be ready.