McMillan Custom Marathon Plan: Week 20 Day 1

by
Tweet
Pin
Share
0 Shares
Week 20, Day 1
Phase: Peak
Workout: 40 to 50 minute Easy Run
Purpose: Build Endurance
Here we go; Week 20 of the McMillan Marathon Training Plan. Well, I’ve made it this far and things appear to be in pretty good shape – I’m not injured, I’m highly motivated to run well on Saturday and I believe I’ve almost completed the best marathon build up of my running career.

Naturally I’m a little nervous about how the Richmond Marathon will pan out. I’ve put so much into this race that anything less than a new lifetime best (sub-2:51) will almost be a failure. That may sound a little crazy to some of my regular readers, but that’s what I’ve set myself up for over the last 19 weeks.

I’ve logged over 1000 miles preparing for Richmond which equates to roughly 125 hours on my feet with just two “rest” days since June 30th. Remembering a conversation a couple of months ago, I think my wife Ally nailed the importance of the race when she said:

Hours and hours of training, and all to shave 60 seconds off a 26.2 mile race.

There’s not much I can do at this stage to improve my fitness, but I can help myself by making sure I eat and drink well and get plenty of rest this week.

Tonight’s run was just an easy 45 minute endurance builder. Nothing special, but I did feel good. Actually it was difficult to keep the pace down as I found myself slipping into tempo mode. I guess that could mean I’m almost ready to race…..

Tweet
Pin
Share
0 Shares

7 thoughts on “McMillan Custom Marathon Plan: Week 20 Day 1”

  1. Failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you aren’t afraid to fail, then you probably aren’t working hard enough. If you make your goal, everything went according to plan. If you don’t, then you failed and its time to recover and start on the next plan. And if you blow your PR out of the water? That’ll just be sweet…

  2. Good point, Blaine! Steve, I think it’s all about turning that nervous energy into fuel for your race day performance. As you said earlier, it’s all about controlling those “wild horses” in the beginning, so you can ultimately run to your full potential.

  3. Thanks for the comments! You’re both correct and just making it to the start line of another marathon could be viewed as a success.

    Anyway, I’ll be giving it my all and we’ll see what that translates to in terms of time. Of course a finish time is just a number and dependent on many factors. Should be an interesting 3 hours on Saturday morning….

  4. Long time no check in… but it sounds like you are chomping at the bit. It’s gonna be hard for you to look at it any other way. But, remember that you worked your tail off and anything can happen over 26.2 miles. I’m sure it will go great!!

Leave a Comment