Feature image by Dietmar Rabich on Wikimedia Commons – CC BY-SA 4.0
,_Brooklyn_Bridge_--_2012_--_6630.jpg){kind=link}
Time flies, and just like that we’re it’s almost time for the United NYC Half Marathon. Seems like just yesterday I was running Fred Lebow – and March seemed a far way off.
This training block started off slowly. The first couple of weeks weren’t great. But in the last few weeks, I’ve hit my stride and felt a lot better.
My long runs have improved, my legs have felt better, and my pace on easy runs has improved. My midweek workouts haven’t been the best, and I still don’t quite feel like my top speed is there. But I’m feeling better and better at sustained tempo efforts – and hopefully that’ll translate to this half marathon race.
I’ve been hanging out at 75mpw for the last few weeks, but I’m going to taper down this week to prepare for the upcoming race. In the past, I’ve just cut out a workout and taken it easy – but not dropped my mileage. This time around, I decided it might be better to drop my mileage, too.
Besides preparing me better for the race, it’ll build in a bit of additional recovery in the middle of this training block. And after I’ve recovered post-half, I’ll have a couple more weeks of hard training before the Jersey City Half.
At the beginning of the week, the weather is the other key variable. Right now, it looks warm(ish) (mid 50’s) with light rain on Sunday morning. Not terrible weather, but not great weather. I’ll keep an eye on things as we get closer.
The Plan for the Week
I’m only going to hit 60 miles this week, in an effort to taper down and rest up. I’ll start with a shorter – but difficult – long run on Sunday, frontload some of the miles early in the week, and wrap up with an easy workout to play around with race pace towards the end of the week.
Here’s how things broke down:
- Sunday: 16 mile long run, 6 mile progression to race pace
- Monday: 6 miles trail AM, 5 miles tread PM
- Tuesday: 6 miles trail AM
- Wednesday: 6 miles easy AM, 5 miles tread PM
- Thursday: 6 mile light workout – M / HM pace
- Friday: 6 miles trail
- Saturday: 4 miles easy
And here’s how things went.
Sunday: Another Cold Progression Run
Every time I think spring is here, winter shows back up for my long run. We’ve had a few warm days this week, but today the forecast is back in the high 20’s and low 30’s.
My plan was to take the first half of this run easy – and resist the urge to push the pace – and then progress in the second half down to race pace.
Things started off fine. Felt good when I left, ran up and over the big hill, down to Millburn, and looped back towards home. My stomach started to rumble, and I needed to make a pit stop. Of course the porta potties at the trailhead were out of toilet paper …
I eased up a little on the pace, and I made it two miles up the road to another porta potty – which was well stocked. Phew. Crisis averted, and feel much better.
Crested the hill and got back to flat ground at the Reservoir right at nine miles. My pace on that first part had been low to mid 8:00’s – nice and easy and comfortable.
From there, the plan was to progress the next six miles down to half marathon pace. I figured I’d do two in the high 7:00’s, two in the low 7:00’s, and the last two in the high to mid 6:00’s.
Eased into the pace, and the first mile went great – 7:41. Perfect. Thought I was sustaining, but I ended up speeding up a bit and the next mile ticked off in 7:19. Legs and lungs felt good, so I wasn’t complaining.
Pushed a little harder in the next mile, and I came through in 6:54. Now we’re cooking.
The next mile was a little tougher. It was starting to feel like work. But also, the wind had kicked up and I ran into a strong headwind for part of this mile. 6:53.
Things were starting to feel much harder now as I picked up the pace. But with two miles to go, I just kept chugging along. 6:45.
The last mile, I pushed it hard. With a quarter mile to go, I switched into another gear like I was kicking at the end of a race, and when I looked at my watch I saw 6:00/mi for my pace. Split 6:29 for the mile. Perfect.
Jogged in the final mile and finished in 2:08.
This was a really good long run, and I was really happy with the effort. I haven’t been all that confident about my chances of hitting 1:25 on Sunday, but this boosted my confidence a little bit.
Monday: Slow, Easy Doubles
Monday morning, I woke up and hit the trails for six easy miles. Went fine. A little slow overall.
I went down a slightly different trail from last week, and I came upon a downed tree. More evidence of the wind we got last week. But I hopped over it and detoured on the way back to avoid it.
In the evening, I hopped on the treadmill for an easy double. 45 minutes – five miles – and done.
A good recovery day.
Tuesday: An Easy Morning on the Trails
I normally would have done the double today instead of Monday. But I had to go down to the office today and stay late for a meeting after work.
So I woke up and went for an easy six miles on the trails. Things felt looser and smoother than yesterday. At the turnaround, I was feeling pretty good. But I resisted the urge to speed up and kept things reigned in.
With the race coming up … the focus is on recovery.
Wednesday: One More Double
I needed to charge my car this morning, so I drove down to the Reservoir and plugged it in while I did my workout. It was a nice, quiet morning, and I didn’t see many people as I did my three laps.
After two days of taking it easy, I decided to work in some strides. The first set were a little slow. But on my final lap, I pushed the pace a bit. I’m not sure if it’s something about the GPS on my watch not updating quickly enough, but the shorter strides (~10-15 seconds) were coming up slow. But when I lengthened them a bit to 20-30 seconds, my pace seemed more normal.
On the last few, I got the instantaneous pace down below 6:00/mi. I haven’t had that speed in a while, so that’s encouraging.
In the evening, I hopped on the treadmill for an easy double. For one reason or another, I was super tired today. And it showed. Although my legs felt fine, my heart rate was creeping up. It could also have been the heat in the basement, as I think it was a little warmer than usual.
Oh well. I stretched afterwards, and I felt pretty good.
Thursday: Some Final Pace Work
This morning’s run was designed to wake up my legs – after a few days of slow running – and give myself one last chance to dial in to race pace.
I planned six miles – with a warm-up followed by 5 minutes at marathon pace, 5 minutes at half marathon pace, 5 minutes recovery, and repeat.
I jogged a two mile warmup and did some leg swings. The tightness in my right hamstring is pretty much gone. It was bothering me at the end of last month, but I seem to have worked it out.
When I started the first rep at marathon pace, I took off with a vengeance. I thought it would be hard to get up to speed – and I ended up overshooting the pace quite a bit. My watch beeped at me for going too fast, and I backed off. By the end of the first five minutes, I had settled in to the right pace (~6:45-6:50). I kicked it up a notch at the beep, and I averaged just over 6:30/mi.
After a five minute recovery, I started the next segment. I was still a little hot at the beginning, but this time I moderated things a little better. Got on track and averaged 6:50/mi for the first five minutes. At the start of the last segment, I was spot on with 6:30-6:35/mi. But for the last two minutes, I had to exit out of the Reservoir loop and run uphill towards home. That incline cost me, and my overall pace for the segment was 6:40/mi.
Still, it was a good workout. I felt good, and the paces were comfortable. It was also mildly windy – and we expect some wind Sunday – so it was a good approximation of race day conditions.
I think I’m as ready as I’m going to get.
Friday: Another Easy Trail Run
Back to the trails Friday morning. I ran by the same route as earlier in the week to see if the downed tree had been cleared. It wasn’t.
Later on, they were also doing some work on the trail – and there was a pile of dirt and gravel waiting to be spread out.
After the turnaround, I took a detour to avoid both of these issues. I was feeling pretty good, and my pace was ~9:00/mi on the way back. Finished up more quickly than Tuesday – but resisted the urge to really speed up.
In the afternoon, I popped over to the city to grab my bib. It was a super smooth process, and it took longer for me to walk from Penn Station to the expo than it did to get my stuff.
Saturday: Some Final Light Work
Friday night, I was away for a work conference. So I was up early Saturday morning for a short jog along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. Just four miles out and back.
Things started out pretty slowly. I woke up extra early, so it took a little time to warm up. But by the two mile mark, I felt good.
On the way back, I worked in some short pickups. Nothing heavy, just ~20 seconds at an increasingly hard pace. The final one I extended out to about a minute at around race pace. Just making sure the legs are awake for tomorrow.
Reflections and Looking Ahead
This was a good week. I had a great long run workout on Sunday, and most of runs throughout the week felt good. Thursday’s little dress rehearsal went well, and I was able to get on pace pretty easily.
If anything didn’t go to plan this week, it was my diet. I ate and drank a little more than I should have. Oh well. I’m really going to straighten things out for the final few weeks leading up to Jersey City.
The weather forecast has improved. The rain is gone, although it’ll still be humid. The temperature will be a little warm (mid-50’s), but not hot enough to be too problematic. It’s still going to be quite windy later in the day, but the winds in the morning should be more moderate.
And it looks like the winds are going to be coming from the south and blowing north. The course is point to point, and it mostly heads north, so we should have a moderate tailwind for much of the race.
My goal coming into this was to try and hit 1:25. That’s the qualifying time for me for the 2026 NYC Marathon. I wouldn’t say my confidence is high, but it is moderate.
It’s definitely possible, and things have been trending in the right direction. Oh, if I could have one or two more weeks, that’d be great. But there’s no more time.
I’ve got some new SC Elite v4’s that I’m going to break in tomorrow. I’ll try to conservatively on pace for the first half, and when we get off the Brooklyn Bridge, I’ll assess how I’m feeling. That’s just before the halfway point, and after the decline off the bridge the next few miles are flat. If I’m on pace – or close – at that point, I’m going for it.
But if I’m struggling with the pace at that point, I might let up a bit. I’ve still got an ambitious goal at Jersey City, and with things trending in the right direction I’d rather save myself than risk pushing too hard in this race. After this race, I’m going to take it easy for the rest of the week – with a down week at 60 miles – before hitting a few more solid weeks of training.
Wish me luck! Good luck to everyone else who’s running, and check back Monday if you want to read the race report.