In advance of the Philadelphia Half Marathon, my long runs have been getting longer and longer. All along, my plan has been to increase my total weekly mileage by 10% each week. The increase has been coming on my long run, for which my goal is to run 20% more than the the half-marathon distance (13.1 miles) the week before the race.
Training for Philadelphia's Broad Street Run in the spring, I had increased my long runs to 10 miles. I'd wanted to go further, but I didn't start early enough to increase my mileage safely. This time, though, I planned better than before. During the previous two weekends, I've run 11 and then 12 miles. During the next two, I plan to run 14 and then 16. Barring schedule conflicts, I run two four-mile runs on the weekdays.
The last two runs have been among my most difficult. On the Saturday before last, I woke up later than I'd planned, and, constrained by a tight schedule, went straight from the bed to Forbidden Drive. To suggest that I was unprepared psychologically for the run is an understatement: within the first five minutes, I was already thinking about how long the run was going to be (i.e., interminable). Nor did my attitude improve appreciably during the course of the run. By the time I reached mile 6, I was asking myself why I ever signed up to run the half-marathon in the first place. Unfortunately, hanging it up midway through the run was not an option. The best thing I can say about the run is that I finished.
This past Saturday's run went better, but it was not without its difficulties either. I left from my house and took a route I'd not followed before, running about a mile-and-a-half to the woods at the top of the Wissahickon Valley. I then followed the trail that led down to Forbidden Drive, where I planned to run the middle eight miles of my run. I felt much better about this run. The first four miles went well, and I the third and fourth miles rather hard--too, hard, in fact, for so early in the run. Unfortunately, I had eaten a big lunch, and by mile five, it was coming back to haunt me. Again, I found myself around mile 7 or 8 puzzling over why I had ever committed myself to undertaking a half marathon.
Nevertheless, the route I had chosen offered a number of psychological advantages that made the last four miles easier. I turned around at Bells Mill Road to return home; the very familiarity of the route helped me to bolster my attitude. I then made my way up Valley Green Road--slowly, to be sure, but with no sense that exhaustion was waiting to overtake me. Finally, upon reaching the top of the hill, I resumed a normal pace and continued it (with a couple of walk breaks) until I reached the 12-mile point.
Still, this was a run about which I felt much better in retrospect than during the course of the run. I shouldn't have eaten so much hours before the run, nor should I have run so hard in the early stages. Although I didn't feel tired while I was running, when I stopped running at mile 12, I was surprised at how exhausted I felt. I learned a lesson about pacing, and I gained some confidence not only for the 14- and 16-mile training runs I have coming up but also for my performance on race day.
