February 12th Preview

This Sunday starts the pattern that will continue through the rest of the training program – following a long run with one about half the previous distance. You can treat it either as a recovery weekend (same pace for shorter distance) or speed training (faster than the week before).

Your distance on Sunday is six miles. You’ll run the first three with our half-marathoners, who are going nine miles.

The route (with an eight o’clock start from the Eugene Running Company): Oakway and Coburg Roads to Ferry Street Bridge and don’t cross. Turn right onto bike path, past Valley River footbridge, to “0.75” milepost. Turn AROUND there and come back the same way, to Ferry and store. GPS distance is 5.98.

Bring a drink for delivery at 2.5 and 3.5 miles (Delta Ponds). Weather forecast: starting temperature near freezing with little chance of rain.

WEEK SIX LESSON: YOUR MILEAGE

Question: You never mention how much weekly mileage I should total. Why not?

Answer: Weekly mileage is one of the most misleading figures in the sport. It causes you to run too far on days that should be easy, penalizes you for taking a day off (which you need), and can leave you tired for the ones that really count. Put your emphasis on the length of your long runs, and on recovering in between with easy runs and days off. At least for the life of this marathon-training program, stop counting weekly mileage. If you count anything during the week, make it minutes – which help insure that those runs will remain easy. As noted earlier: no more than two hours of running between the weekends, and no run lasting longer than one hour.