up and at ’em
my morning constitutional was a bit zippier than usual today. my route took me down comanche then west along the glacial drumlin trail. after 4 miles i turned around with 34:40 elapsed, which translates to 8:40 pace.
on the way back the sun started to rise and i could see a bit better. as i approached my house i opted to do a quick half mile out and back on a side street to add another mile to the effort. it’s a wicked little spur as it’s essentially all uphill for that first half mile then downhill back home. regardless, i stopped my watch with 1:13:50 elapsed after covering 9 miles and hit the shower. overall, it averaged out to 8:12 per mile pace and the last 5 miles averaged 7:50 per mile.
i’m now over 200 miles for the month. august is only the 3rd month in 2008 that i’ve been able to put in that amount of effort.
here’s some ANALysis regarding the twelve week window before a marathon. looking at the volume of training in the first six weeks of that window – for my top 10 marathon efforts – and my resulting finishing time.
1st 6 wks result
291 miles 3:08 (10/2006)
374 miles 3:08 (10/2001)
382 miles 3:09 (10/2004)
256 miles 3:18 (10/2000)
324 miles 3:24 (4/2002)
324 miles 3:27 (4/2007)
229 miles 3:27 (4/1995)
225 miles 3:28 (10/1997)
326 miles 3:32 (10/2002)
218 miles 3:32 (10/1996)
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
315 miles ?:?? (10/2008)
conclusion: training volume is only one piece of the puzzle. also to be considered would be training intensity, weight, terrain and weather conditions. all that being said, i would say that the more miles i have piled on the better i performed.