Week 17 recap - Schedule change leads to dead legs on the 20 mile slogfest

Schedule change have me seriously altering my training plan for the first time in the MCM build-up. I will have my lowest mileage week in quite some time, but I went out yesterday to keep the long run streak alive. My training 6 weeks out from the marathon went like this:

• Monday: rest
• Tuesday: 8 miles at easy run pace 8:34/mile
• Wednesday: Speedwork - 7 mile tempo run at 8:04/mile (off my goal of 7:36/mile)
• Thursday: rest
• Friday: Long run - 19.28 at 9:49/mile (way off my goal of 8:46/mile)
• Saturday: rest
• Sunday: rest

Weekly total: 35.35 miles

I tried to run a new route on at a different time than my normal long run time (11:30 am as opposed to 6:00 am) on a different day - too much change. I had to move my long run or likely not do it at all, which would've probably been a worse choice. Because of the time I ended up running it was full 85 F degrees so a slower than expected time was already expected. However, I was unprepared for the complete deadness of legs I developed around mile 14.

Mile 1 - 8:10, Mile 2 - 8:34, Mile 3 - 8:36, Mile 4 - 9:20, Mile 5 - 9:03, Mile 6 - 8:45, Mile 7 - 9:13, Mile 8 - 08:54, Mile 9 - 08:55, Mile 10 - 08:42, Mile 11 - 09:18, Mile 12 - 10:10, Mile 13 - 09:35, Mile 14 - 10:59, Mile 15 - 11:53, Mile 16 - 11:33, Mile 17 - 10:54, Mile 18 - 11:02, Mile 19 - 12:58, Mile 20 - 09:20

My back was a little unhappy with the amount of sidewalk running I did. Believe it or not the concrete sidewalk is a lot more hard to run on than asphalt. Other than that my slow down was merely a lack of energy. I willed myself to go faster several time from mile 16 on, but I couldn't go more than a few steps before I slowed to walking again. This kind of positive split cannot happen on marathon day. I will have to learn to conserve more energy at the beginning.

I did two laps of Lake Artemesia and College Park, which caused me to run through the Greenbelt Metro station twice. I guarantee the people there saw more strange things than a sweaty, salt-caked, shirtless man wandering around the train station, but I few crazy looks.

Oh well... not the performance I was looking for, but I learned a few lessons. One, if it is hot when the marathon is going on I will have to adjust my expectations. Two, NEGATIVE SPLITS! I have to save the energy to have more left in the second half than the first half.