{"id":346,"date":"2018-10-07T13:02:22","date_gmt":"2018-10-07T17:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/?p=346"},"modified":"2018-10-13T22:11:26","modified_gmt":"2018-10-14T02:11:26","slug":"weeks-10-12-just-one-more-big-week-and-then-the-taper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/2018\/10\/weeks-10-12-just-one-more-big-week-and-then-the-taper\/","title":{"rendered":"Weeks 10 – 12; just one more big week and then the taper!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another big catch-up post (finished 10\/13). Blogging has taken a back seat for a few reasons. The training isn’t a novelty this time and it’s far from the only thing I have to focus on. It’s going very smoothly; in fact one of the things I love about marathon training is what a huge task it seems under normal circumstances (long run = 5 miles) versus how manageable it feels when it’s underway. The actual running and prep is very time-consuming, but I don’t need to think much about it in between. For my first marathon it was top-of-mind all the time, from obsessive re-reading of NRMT to fantasizing\/worrying to research, whereas now I have so much else going on (2 jobs, school, family commitments, multiple book groups, etc.) that the training is almost on auto-pilot. Maybe when I start tapering I’ll be able to do the posts I’d planned on fuel, shoes, CityStrides, and weight, but we’ll see. So just a few notes and some pictures once again!<\/p>\n

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Week 10<\/strong> (9\/18 – 23, Tue – Sun): total ~35 (5.1\/8.3\/5.2\/16.38)
\nAvg resting HR: 54
\nWeight: 116
\nCityStrides coverage of Northampton<\/a>: high fifties?
\nLong run: 16.38 miles; avg HR 150; time 3:43; average pace 13:36<\/p>\n

A fun exploration of trails in the Turkey Hill area (Mineral Hills Conservation Area) followed by some neighborhood exploration. Coincidentally I saw a flock of wild turkeys on the 8 mile run (on Maple Ridge Road), as well as these sheep at Smith Voc on the 5 mile run (under two miles from downtown!) On the long run I found this weathervane (a dentist’s house?) \"wild<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Week 11<\/strong> (9\/24 – 30): total ~36 (5.2\/8.2\/6.2\/16.67)
\nAvg resting HR: 59
\nWeight: 114
\nCityStrides coverage of Northampton<\/a>: 63% – passed the previous leader and hit the leaderboard!
\nLong run: 15.59 (plus another mile plus, see below) miles; avg HR 159; time 3:17; average pace 12:37<\/p>\n

For his birthday on the 30th, I had planned to “draw” my dearest Jonathan a message in my CityStrides map. Experimenting at Smith Voc the previous week showed that “H ♥ J” was about the longest I could manage since it had to be big enough to pick up on the GPS, but also led me to realize I needed an area that was sizeable and also had markers to guide me, and that I only had one shot per “canvas.” Plus I wanted it to be in Northampton. It came down to a giant parking lot that would be empty, the inside of a running track, or maybe tennis courts. I tried in Look Park on Thursday and on Saturday at Northampton High School, where it turned out the track wasn’t open to the public and I made an attempt in the football\/baseball\/soccer fields. Neither came out well, so my last chance was the Smith College track at the beginning of the long run. I brought a lot of plastic ID cards and carefully tried to lay out marker points on the chalk lines, but even so I screwed up bits of it—too big to really see where I was going. But it was good enough and he loved it! All 3 attempts are permanently inscribed on my life map<\/a> (as long as I remember not to run over them again!) I love you, Jonathan!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The rest of the long run took me through two local co-housing communities connected by a walking trail (with this sign for dogs), out along Park Hill Road with some amazing views and unpaved trails, dipping into Easthampton and back along the bike path. Good pace too! \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Week 12<\/strong> (10\/1 – 7): total ~36 (5.1\/8\/18.9\/3.6)
\nAvg resting HR: 60
\nWeight: 114
\nCityStrides coverage of Northampton<\/a>: 71%!
\nLong run: 18.9 miles; avg HR 150; time 4:06; average pace 13:03<\/p>\n

Second short run was the Cutchins SuperHero 5K<\/a> , a very low-key run that doesn’t even post results so I’m not going to do a whole race report. But it was fun. Cider donuts and coffee, my favorite pre-race fuel! I wore my NanoWriMo superman T-shirt and a Superman cape freebie from Six Flags as an easy costume, but there were some great ones even though it was a tiny field (I think 27 in the 5K). I was very happy with my time, around 30:40 as I recall—pace under 10mn. Because it was a Sunday race, I did the first of my two 18-milers on Saturday, picking up a lot of streets and getting me over 70% of Northampton. I had planned on completing all the streets in the VA medical complex, but it turned out there was lots of construction going on so I re-routed on the fly; it all worked out distance-wise. Great views from Bear Hill (a new housing development just south of the VA):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Two interesting houses on Grove Ave, one brand-new and one the original mansion:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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and running alongside the little train in Look Park!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another big catch-up post (finished 10\/13). Blogging has taken a back seat for a few reasons. The training isn’t a novelty this time and it’s far from the only thing I have to focus on. It’s going very smoothly; in fact one of the things I love about marathon training is what a huge task […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":384,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions\/384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}