T-1 week to Surf City, buildup comparisons with CIM, Eugene and Tacoma

Only 1 week to go. 

The weather watch begins:  looking good with 40's for the start @6:30am and no higher than 60 for the finish around 10:30am for me.  Some cloud cover would be good but I'm pretty happy with this forecast!

This weeks tapering: some fast intervals / tempos / sprints still in there but mileage down.

Date	Miles	Pace	BPM	WHR%	Elev+	Elev-	YPB
2014-01-21 Tue	4.9	8:59	126.0	65.5	20.5	21.8	1.566
2014-01-23 Thu	5.9	8:52	127.7	67.0	22.5	22.8	1.561
2014-01-24 Fri	3.7	9:00	123.4	63.5	14.8	15.9	1.596
2014-01-26 Sun	9.9	9:04	125.1	64.8	34.9	33.4	1.548
Summary	24.4	9:00	125.6	65.3	92.7	93.9	1.562

Sunday was going to be 12 miles at 125bpm but I just wasn't feeling it...dragging a bit and having to work harder than normal at that HR so I cut it short.


Time to compare this marathon buildup with my previous ones....

Here is CIM vs Surf....I'm light on the miles for this buildup due to travel but it's reasonably close. (and still 14 miles to come this week ;) .  You can see I've done a lot more paces for this buildup (green) between 9 and 9:30 m/m. For CIM I had a lot more slow base 9:50 to 10:30 miles (blue). 

I almost never run slower than 10 m/m now except for interval recoveries and such. Average pace 15s/mile faster and of course HR lower.

Eugene vs Surf shows about the same thing....a bit more 5k-10k pace miles under 8:00 pace for Eugene but way less slow miles and more 8:30 to 9:30 miles for Surf.

 Tacoma vs Surf: Tac had WAY more miles..almost 600. It was a great buildup, but the actual marathon was terrible due to too many hills and hot temps. Just goes to show you that stats aren't everything. Even so lots more slow running for Tac but I did a LOT of fast running for Tac at 8:15 pace and 8:45 paces

On the other hand, I was not very satisfied with my long runs for TAC..I only had 2 20 milers and they were not as solid as I like to see.

Conclusion: 

                      I'm ready to go.

                      Perhaps fitter than Eugene (which was 2 years ago)?

                      I have new PRs in the HM and 10k that bear this out.

My plan of record is to run a similar race to Eugene: 8:48m/m on the garmin and bank 90sec or so over a 3:55 MP (8:54 m/m garmin pace) during the first 16 miles and then see how it goes from there.  ( At Eugene I gave back the 90s and just squeaked out a 3:54:54).