Well, it’s that time of year again – I’ve arrived in Grand Cayman for some much needed vacation downtime, but that also means it’s only 9 days to the 2017 Cayman Islands Marathon. Thankfully, that gives me just over a week to adjust to running in hot, humid weather conditions and prep the legs for another sub-3 hour marathon attempt.
This year I figured I’d do something different and jot down some daily training thoughts to document the marathon build-up. Here goes with Day 1…
After a longish travel day yesterday, I decided to just run an easy 5 miler at MAF effort this morning – basically keeping the heart rate at or below 135 beats per minute. (You can read more about MAF here). Back home in Virginia I can comfortably run 5 miles at MAF in about 36 minutes right now (7:12/ mile pace). Factor in the heat and humidity of Grand Cayman, however, and my pace slowed dramatically to about 8:30/mile for the same effort this morning.
Splits:
- 7:55
- 8:03
- 8:25
- 8:58
- 9:16
It was a bit frustrating to have to run relatively slower this morning, but thankfully the legs felt great and I’m hoping the pace will get faster as race day approaches. We’ll soon see.
Time to sign off now and get back to relaxing on the beach and catching up on a few books I’ve been meaning to read for a while. Tomorrow will likely be more easy miles with maybe a few strides to test out the legs. Happy Black Friday!