Bruce Pegg

Week Eight Training Wrap-Up

Yeah–a much better week! Despite taking two days off, I made my mileage and I crushed my nine-mile tempo workout on Thursday. The only downside to the week was my long run today. In addition to the problems I talk about later, I was also battling the fatigue of driving 550 miles and moving my son into his college dorm room on Saturday and my old nemesis–heat and humidity–on Sunday. I gave myself a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for Sunday, knowing that I was not going to be in the best of shapes for the task at hand. But we’re halfway through the program, and I can’t do that too many more times.
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Week Seven Training Wrap-Up

It was bound to happen. After two successful weeks following the Hanson’s program to a T, this week I missed my weekly mileage target in a big way. It was partly a conscious choice: I decided to forgo my gentle workout on Monday to rest up, which is not awful in the grand scheme of things providing I don’t do it too often. But I was also forced to sit out my Thursday night speed workout due to a weather forecast of torrential rain and thunderstorms that ended up looking worse on radar than they did in reality. As my routes are pretty exposed, I decided it was just too risky to attempt a run that night. That’s one I won’t get back.

Wednesday night’s gentle run also added to the general despair, as my body once again melted in the heat and humidity. Thankfully, a gorgeous run on Saturday, under ideal conditions and on a new route (the Genesee Riverway Trail south of Charlotte) restored my faith and paved the way for my first sixteen-mile long run of the program on Sunday. Once again, I had to fight the heat, but slow and steady won the day, even though I ended up over eight miles down on the week.
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Week Six Training Wrap-Up

The week started brightly enough, with a successful tempo run on the same course and over the same distance as week five. Only this time, I crushed it, pacing it just right to finish strong and fast.

But that was the only real highlight of the week. Fatigued from work and from the cumulative mileage of the program, I ran a lackluster interval run, then I crashed and burned ten miles into a twelve-mile long run on Saturday.

Admittedly, I ran further than the program called for and ran strongly and comfortably over the first eight miles, so it wasn’t all doom-and-gloom. But fatigue is starting to set in, and it won’t be going away until the program is over. The major challenge of training for a marathon–dealing with the constant tiredness–is now here.
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