Monday, December 7, 2009

2009 marathons: a retrospective

As 2009 wraps up, I am looking back on my two marathons from the year — a useful tool as I start planning for the next one.

I've now run five full marathons, one in 2007, two in both 2008 and 2009. While that has been pretty good for me, as far as scheduling/timing/training all go, I think I'm ready to try three. Or at least two and a really strong half marathon.

Ah, but there I go, jumping ahead of myself. If we don't learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat it, right?

Both of my races this year were alright performances. At Boston, I struggled with some GI issues but muddled on through for a race just 68 seconds slower than my time at Memphis a few months prior. On a much tougher course, I considered the day a draw.

Marshall, though, I definitely under-performed. I am chalking it up to the serious lack of proper face-stuffing the morning of the race in particular. If the car has no gas, it won't go. I was lucky to not fall apart more than I did, and I will credit hard training and general bull-headedness for that.

You can see the weekly mileage from those two races in these graphs, and here's a nice table for comparison, too.

MPWBostonMarshallPfitz Plan
Avg496775
High729087
Low244854
Result3:16:163:11:54?!?!?



I feel like my training for Marshall didn't follow the plan closely enough for me to reap all the benefits of the Pfitz mesocycles. And I think the high mileage weeks were a little too sporadic. There should have been a more consistent build-up process and better recovery weeks. Granted I had the Bourbon Chase not long before my taper, which kind of threw things off, too.

For my next marathon, I am going to try following the schedule more consistently and make myself do all the workouts. No skipping tempo, or MP runs, or strides, or anything else.

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