Less Than 5 Weeks to the TCS New York City Marathon

Published by Ryan Vail on October 1, 2014

Last week was a planned down week in terms of volume and workouts. The down week was originally planned for a week earlier, but after committing to pace Shalane Flanagan at the Berlin Marathon, we decided to swap weeks for obvious reasons. We had a 2 x 4 mile workout planned for Wednesday, but I could tell during the warmup that my body was not ready for the prescribed pace of 4:40-4:42, so I opted for a fartlek instead. The previous week was probably the toughest week of marathon training I've ever had (see previous post), and I felt it for a few days. I backed off the intensity and volume for the second half of the week, and I bounced right back. I generally have one or two brief points during my marathon training blocks when I push a little too hard and am forced to recover for 2-3 days. I have learned not to become frustrated when these come up. I simply give myself the required recovery, and then I am ready to continue where I left off.

While Shalane did not meet her goal of setting the American marathon record, she did achieve a huge personal best as well as a top-3 finish at another Marathon Major. She requested an aggressive pace through the half-marathon (69:36), and she gave it everything she had the last 10km to try to hold on. She was hurting so bad at 20 miles, I am astounded at the mental toughness she showed to power herself to the finish line. I was thankful to have Rob Watson by my side for the pacing. While I was confident in my ability to hit the pace, having a partner really helped take some of the pressure off.