Less than 7 days until the Big Sur International Marathon! One nice thing about the timing of Big Sur is that it’s only 6 days after the Boston Marathon, so I’ve been channeling the excitement building around Boston towards Big Sur. I’m sure that watching the race tomorrow will only make me even more eager to run on Sunday. (FYI, you can stream the Boston Marathon live at baa.org.)
This past week was the 1st week of taper (out of 2 weeks of taper total). I went into the Oakland Marathon without a true taper, and my legs were pretty much shot by mile 16 — with a little help from the relentless 700′ climb up to Montclair. Obviously, I’m hoping for a different outcome at Big Sur. My focus this past week was to decrease my total mileage while maintaining intensity with 1 short speed session and 1 hill workout. More importantly, the “big picture” goal was to make sure that I didn’t over do it (because I sometimes have a tendency to get carried away with meeting my training goals), so that I’d have fresh legs that are ready to go next Sunday.
Here’s how this past week played out:
Tuesday: 2014 Timed Mile Project – April edition. My legs were still sore from Sunday’s long run, but I went for it anyway. I ended up running my worst time so far – 7:53, despite a very hard effort. The Gypsy Runner said that the dirt track probably slowed me down by 20-30 seconds, so that’s what I’ll keep telling myself.
2.9 miles @ 9:56/mile
Wednesday: Easy run, no Garmin.
3 miles
Thursday: Met up with KP at Lake Chabot, with the intent of running up a gigantic hill (Live Oak/Towhee). However, my legs were already suffering during the warm-up on the relatively flat portions, so I asked KP if we could skip the hill. She graciously obliged. 🙂
6 miles @ 10:30/mile, ~310′ elevation gain
Saturday: Easy miles on the Bay Trail. Ended with 5 sets of strides.
6 miles @ 10:30/mile
Birds near the Hayward Shoreline. (A bit blurry since I took this while I was running.)
Sunday: Easy, conversationally-paced miles with bt and FL at Sawyer Camp Trail (paved).
8.85 miles @ 10:33/mile, ~250′ elevation gain
Sawyer Camp Trail and the Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir
Total for the week: 26.75 miles
Well, it was a slow training week pace-wise, but I think I made the right call in canceling the hill workout on Thursday and taking it easy during my weekend runs. I’m feeling much less beat up tonight than I was a week ago, which is, of course, a good thing. For this coming week, I have 3 short runs planned: an easy 3 miles at Lake Merritt #RunForBoston event organized by Oakland Running Festival, a short speed session on Wednesday, and a 2-3 mile shakeout run on Friday. I’ll also be focusing on sleeping as much as possible and eating and drinking all of the healthy things. Finally, I’ll try my best NOT to worry about race day forecast, which has vacillated between 0-100% chance of rain and 10-30 mph winds. Nothing I can do about that, and worrying won’t help one bit!
Howdy! My name is Jen and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I like to eat, run, and blog, but not usually at the same time.
Running Tangents 
Dirt tracks are lame – #1 had to race on one a few weeks ago, and ran her slowest 1600 of the season, off 15sec from her PR. Don’t judge your time too harshly!!
Good to know! Thanks!
Let me know when you’re on Sawyer again – we can run together 🙂
That would be great! I think Angela said she’d be interested too… blogger fun run!
A dirt track! I agree with GR.
Good luck this weekend, I think the additional rest is going to end up paying off!
Thanks!!
The dirt track’s definitely not ideal if you’re trying to run your fastest mile, though I prefer the resistance of the dirt for other types of track workouts… I feel like it’s good for quad-strengthening.
Four days (yikes) to Big Sur… and sunny skies are on their way! Should be an absolutely epic day for a leisurely run along the Western edge of the world. And I agree with you, Boston will still be strong in nearly every runner’s mind.
I wouldn’t usually mind the dirt track as long as all of my runs were done there. Having a consistent baseline is more important to me than time. That said, I think I’ll be going to the Castro Valley High track from now on for timed miles.
Who are you? Since when do you NOT worry about race day weather…this whole “I can’t control that anyway” attitude is so not you…and not overdoing it on your training, you are getting wise in your old age.
Good luck this weekend!
Hey, who are you calling old?? (Luckily, I’ve got the Asian genes that belie my age.)
Thanks for the good wishes!
How did it go? Looking forward to reading about it. I’m sure the views were amazing. I just did the Shakespeare Half on Sunday and got a personal best! Totally unexpected.
Congrats on your PB!! The unexpected ones always seem sweeter.