With 26 days until NYCM, where am I? If I follow my calendar correctly, this week marks the last of the build-up. Taper begins after the 22 miler (last 10 at MP) this coming Sunday. Assuming all goes well, I will have put up four 20+ milers, a 19, two or three 18s, etc. Bottom line is that the endurance bit of this training business will be in the can. That in itself is a minor victory. I imagine that I will enjoy the taper. Rest and me tend to agree. I’ll focus heavily on speedwork (Tuesday nights), plus more striders at the end of easier runs. Also, I plan to take vacation days during marathon week, with my legs in the air (more on that in a later post).
It’s interesting how the training comes together. I spent most of July (192mi) fumbling in an effort to develop a plan that works for me. August (228mi) is when I felt like I finally got it right and began progressing. September (213mi) was the physical breakthrough month, in that the body started acclimating and accepting greater distance and intensity. Preliminary view of October (74mi) is the sharpening of the mental edge has begun. Rather than focusing, “ok, let’s get this 18-miler over and move on.” It’s “let’s add yet another positive story to the memory bank to draw from on 11.7.2010.” I’m still a 26.2 virgin, but my take is if you put in the physical, all that is left is the mental. Meaning that when the waves of feeling terrible come (and they will) it’s critical to be able recall that rain-soaked 21-miler, that tempo progression (4 x reservoir loops) when I competed hard and executed well with a much faster crew or grinding thru 20 degree CPTC tempos in February.
No doubt the fight is largely physical. It will hurt. There is no getting around it. Nonetheless, the ability to draw from these positive training experiences will be the difference between getting lost in the pain or sidestepping it until the good feelings re-emerge (and they will).