Marathon Preparation

Good gosh almighty it’s getting close to Christmas time. Lauren has the house all decked out and ready for Santa to come and deliver my new Zipp Wheels and Zoot Wetsuit. Yeah, probably won’t see either of those underneath the tree this year. In fact, I think the only thing Tri related that I put on my list was a Nike + attachment for my ipod. Where are my priorities? Either that, or I’ve spent way too much money on acquiring Tri junk that I couldn’t possibly fit anymore in my closet. Never! There’s always room for more Tri junk!
You know, with more and more Christmas parties moving toward the Dirty Santa gift idea, it’d be kinda cool to do something like that with all this extra Tri junk that I’ve accumulated. Water bottles, bottle cages, half empty (or half full for the optimists out there) canisters of Perpetuem powder, Jerseys, E-Z laces, tire pumps, etc… Wow, they seemed so needed at the time. Now, not so much.
It’s been another good week of running in preparation for the Mercedes Marathon in February. This past weekend’s 21 miler left me hurting for a few days, but I was back at it this week. Per Paul’s (err Recovering Runner) request, here’s what my typical week looks like.

Sunday – recover (off to a good start eh?)
Monday – cross train – core exercises, light weights
Tuesday – track work – ½ mile sprints at 2:50 pace
Wednesday – Easy 6-7 miler – nice and slow on a treadmill to force a slow pace
Thursday – Tempo Run – 7-8 miler – try to keep a 7:00 pace
Friday – rest and recovery
Saturday – Long run – this week is only 16 woo hoo! Race pace is the goal – 7:17

My schedule has my long runs looking like this in the coming weeks: 16, 18, 22, 16, 18, 22, 14, 10, Race!

That’s all for now. Peace on Earth. Good Will and all that stuff.