You'd think I'd Learn my Lesson

Regular readers of this blog may spot a familiar pattern here. It goes
something like this:

Ben realizes that his training is insufficient for an impending race.
Ben ramps his training up rapidly.
Ben gets sick.

This pattern has recurred. I'm not sure I can blame it on the rapid
ramping of the training. As I said in the last post - John has had
croup. When I took him in to the doctor I was just starting to get a
tickle in the throat, and the doctor said I had the same virus, but it
was only in my throat and for the first time ever I heard a doctor utter
these words: "you don't need to change your training - you just might
feel a bit more lethargic during your sessions". I'd just finished a 72K
and a 75K week up from mid 60s.

Well, this turned out to be one of the world's great understatements.
The following day I went out for 13K at marathon pace (target 5:41). It
was an hour and a quarter of pure torture. I think the value of this
sort of session is that builds character - this is how you will feel at
30K in a marathon, and you have to keep running. I took walk breaks at
stumbled home for 13K at 5:55 pace. I pretty much felt like death warmed
up for the rest of the day.

I took the hint - impromptu easy week. The following 7 days came in at
49K of pretty easy running that felt laboured. I'm starting to come good
now, and this morning it was time for another marathon pace run. Marlz
and I did 13.3K at 5:33 pace, and all things considered (including not
nearly enough sleep for the last 2 days) I feel pretty good today.

The plan from here is to resume full training. If I start to fade on
Sunday, my plan is to take walk breaks and conserve energy, but still
cover a minimum of 32K. I've got a hankering to do some 2K repeats for
speedwork on Friday.

I have taken on board the comments about running on how I feel. The main
problem is that having only run 2 marathons 4 years ago I don't have a
feel for how I need to feel early in the race to conserve myself for the
rest of the race. The current plan is to line up with the four hour
pacer, and run with him/her for as long as I am comfortable. If I'm
still in the group at 28-30K then I'll try to stay with it - from that
point it's supposed to be uncomfortable. I remember that much.