The double bubble

I am well into the weeds of my latest marathon cycle and am starting to see an increase in both volume and intensity of workouts.  I mentioned the main differences between my past training cycles and this one in this post.  One change was the addition of up to 5 double running workouts during the week. This week is my first 90-mile week, and I had 5 doubles scheduled on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  In my first week of many doubles, I believe I hit the double bubble.

[Nerdy side bar]: Actually, I have run 104 miles in the last 7 consecutive days (this is a fun game I play with myself).  Last week's schedule got a little buggered up, and I ended up doing my 23-mile long run on Sunday.  With 21 miles today (Saturday), I will have a 104 mile "week".  I am always intimidated by my 100 mile weeks and am quite pleased right now with how good I feel.  My body seems to be asking, "is that all you've got?"  To which I retort, "Slow down there big fella'.  There's a lot of asphalt ahead."   

In the past, I've normally done 3 doubles, maybe 4, during my 90-100 mile weeks.  The reason for the double is explained well by Pete Pfitzinger in this article.  I also like that he cautions against the double for most athletes and gives rules for when you should introduce them.  The bottom line is, when you're doing high mileage, two shorter workouts allows your body to recover more quickly than the equivalent mileage lumped into one run.

Since my mileage has gone up along with my intensity, doubles make a lot of sense.  However, they are a pain in the butt to schedule around everything else in my life not to mention that 12 running workouts requires 12 changes of running clothes (I'm not yet willing to recycle clothing from my morning run for the evening run).  I was able to knock out Monday and Tuesday's double days without a major problem, though the 13-mile treadmill workout that I finished at about 8:30 Tuesday night was no fun.  Getting up the next morning at 4:45 for my morning Rave Run with the girlies was even tougher.

There's only so far I can push my body, particularly when it comes to sleep depravation.  I hit that limit Thursday morning when, after going to bed at 10:30, my dog, Tunavicious, decided to throw up at 1 a.m.  I heard the telltale heaving and knew she was on the only square of carpet in the hall way.  Determined to arrive on scene in time to push her onto the hardwood floors and save a carpet cleaning, I jumped out of bed and started pushing her butt forward just as she let go of the last nugget onto the edge and fringe of the carpet.  Sweet.  It was relatively fresh food, and I knew she'd want to re-eat it, so I left her to clean it up (is that gross?).  By the next morning, you couldn't even tell she'd puked.  She's such a good girl.  Nonetheless, the shot of adrenaline that coursed through my body in that few seconds from bed to hall left me restless.  I didn't get back to sleep until 2.  As I tossed and turned, I shut off my 4:45 a.m. alarm and decided I'd be better served by sleeping in.

Thursday's plan had me running 9 miles in the morning (including hill repeats and hill bounds) and 5 (including strides) in the p.m.   Of course, I had to work all day too.  I got up too late to get even the 5 miles in and still get to work on time, so I made a command decision to lump these workouts and run 13 miles in the evening after work.

I also realized that I needed some rules about lumping and splitting workouts to help me make decisions on the fly when necessary.  I know that my coach puts a lot of careful thought into my workout plans to maximize my training and decrease risk of injury.  I sent her a message explaining what had happened and asking for some rules.  Her first question was, "Is there any way you can quit your job for 3 months?  (Just kidding!)"   A running sabbatical.  That's what I need.  She gave me some great advice, as usual, about when it's okay to lump and split and how to go about it.

This week's long run

For today's long run, I had the pleasure of starting off with a large group of women that had gathered to celebrate the "coming of age" (40th birthday) of one of our fellow runners, TP.  I ran 8 miles at a moderate pace engaged in quality conversation with Sprinkles and then headed in for a date with my favorite treadmill, Tready.  My morning workout was 17.5 miles and included:

• 8 mile warm up
• 10 minutes up a hill at lactate threshold (LT or tempo) effort;
• 2 minute jog
• 15 minutes at 1/2 marathon effort
• 3 minute jog
• 10 minutes up a hill at LT effort
• 2 minute jog 
• 15 minutes at 1/2 marathon effort
• 4 strides

As you can see, this one is not really possible to complete on the roads, even if you have a 10-minute hill nearby because of the short rests in between.  So, I ground out 9 miles on Tready.  I generally keep good track of what my settings are on the treadmill when I do hill workouts, so I looked back to a similar workout from last August to get the settings I should use: 4.5% grade and 8.3 mph (7:13 pace).  That turned out to be just about right for today.  I ran the 1/2 marathon effort segments at 6:03 pace and that felt quite comfortable.  Now, I just have another 3.5 miles tonight with 1 mile at goal marathon pace to complete my last double for the week.

My legs will see 94 and 103 miles over the next two weeks, and many more doubles.  I'm going to try to run my plan as written but won't sacrifice (too much) sleep to do it.  My coach's advice was to forgo the second run of the day if there's a choice between running and sleeping.  She told me my body would thank me for the extra sleep by ticking seconds off of my racing times, and I bet she's right.