Health: OK

Injury: Recovering from lower back pain

Weight: 160lb (72.7kg) – lost 1 lb

Resting heart rate: 44 BPM

Location: Chicago all week and New York on the week end

Weather: Nice in Chicago and warm in New York

Preparing for: Paris Marathon

Total training volume: 14 hours

OVERALL WEEK REVIEW:

This week was about getting back into running after my lower back injury of last week. I focused on running with limited stress on my back. I took Monday off and then ran everyday. I went slowly on Tuesday and Wednesday, pushed the pace on Thursday and took it easy on Friday and Saturday. The main event of the week was a long run with Stephane and Peter (also a Warren Street master runner). They are both very talent runners with better track record than mine. The plan was to do 22 miles at 6’40’’ pace (2h55 marathon pace). This was meant to be a serious test of my marathon overall fitness. We ran the first 4M loop at 6’15’’ pace. Although we were conscious of going too fast, we let our egos do the running. Realizing that we were significantly above the pace we slowed down for the next 5M loop and did it in 6’28’’ pace. After talks of negative spilt, the egos took over again and the next 5M was done at 6’19 pace. At this stage Peter who was coming back from being sick let Stephane and I go. At the beginning of the next 4M loop, I had a little back scare. I felt the beginning of a pain coming and significantly slowed down for a quarter mile. As the pain did not seem too threatening, Stephane and I resumed the previous pace. We actually gradually pushed the pace and finished hard. The last loop was done at 6’14’’ pace despite the slow quarter mile I mentioned earlier. I rounded up the 22 miles with a little bit of short fartlek and an easy cool down. The bottom line is that we did 18 miles at 6’19’’ pace in the hills of Central Park (2h45 Marathon pace). I must admit that it was an unexpected result after the difficult weeks that preceded this session. It is encouraging. The next test will be in 2 weeks with a 15K race.

Overall I did a total of 14 hours of training. I did a total of 75 miles running and I kept the swimming and biking to a minimum. I did not go to the gym at all.