Rough road ahead

A neglected blog is never a good sign.

This blog has been neglected.

My last few weeks of training has not gone as planned. From the Reach the Beach relay until now, I've had 2 extremely disappointing training weeks, 1 okay week, and 1 1/2 taper weeks. A quick recap:

After the RTB relay I got really sick, leading to a full week off.
The following week was an okay week of training, but I backed off of the volume because I had taken a full week off. I ended up with a 25km long run, and about 70km of volume. Not bad, but I would have liked another 10km or so.
The next week was extremely busy at work. We launched some new software, which led to me putting in 2 14 hour days to kick off the week, and only 2 shorter runs during the week.
Last week was okay again, but it's taper time, so the volume was lower. A 20km long run was the biggest part of a 55km week.
This week has been easy so far. I've run about 30km, and I should run about 8-10km tomorrow. Saturday may bring an easy 3-5km, but just enough to shake the legs out.

So, I'm going into the race less confident than I was 5 weeks ago. I came out of RTB extremely confident that I was going to be ready for a very good run. Now, I'm not there. I know I've done enough work overall to be in fine shape to reach the finish line upright. Ideally, I would have had another run over 30km, another 2 or 3 over 25km, and probably an extra 175km or so since then. So, I'm not exactly where I thought I could be. That being said, I did get some very good training in. I have 4 runs of 35k or longer in. I have several weeks of 80km or more. If there was a stretch to have training be weak, I would prefer it to be now, when most of the work was done.

I haven't published any time goals yet. Heading into this, I had a general idea of what kind of shape I thought I could get into, knowing there were a bunch of factors that would impact that.
After RTB, I was fitter than I thought I could get to. I figured I should be aiming to run somewhere between 2:35 and 2:40. 2:35 would have been ambitious, but I felt really strong, and thought a few more weeks of quality training would have brought me in at least under 2:40.
Now, I've backed off  that and gone back to my original general idea. I think I'm still okay for 2:40-2:45. I would like to be closer to 2:40, but, after talking to Mark Linseman, seeing the WR splits from Berlin, and seeing a friend of mine run 2:42:52 with a 6-minute negative split in Chicago last weekend, I'm going to go out on the slower end of that goal range, and see if I can finish strong. Right now, I'm planning on going out on 2:45 pace for the first 25km, then trying to cut down pace to the finish. A negative split would be huge. Of course, there is the chance that I will completely blow up and run a big positive split (see Run for the Toad 25k, 2010).

I'm going to try to write another post on Saturday, maybe while I can't sleep in the hotel the night before the race.
If you're interested, Sportstats will let you follow my race on Twitter or Facebook. Our Twitter handle is www.twitter.com/therunningworks, while you can hunt me down on Facebook. You can also watch the race  live at www.stwm.com and see if local boy Eric Gillis, or former local boy Robin Watson can take a shot at Drayton's 38 year old Canadian Record.