David Taylor Gonzales

9/4

I completed a 5.5 miles easy today. The weather is cooling down. The sun rises noticeably later into the morning now. The sky was dark and full of purple clouds. I was struck by how quiet the neighborhood was. It felt as if the whole city decided to sleep in because of the dark. I didn’t structure in any strides or speed play intervals for this one. I said it in my last blog, my training has been good but it hasn’t been perfect. I’m still playing a bit of catch up from missing my run on Tuesday. I want to keep the legs fresh for Saturday’s 15 miles. That will be the longest run since my distance PR which I set back in late September last year.

I focused on eating carbs today in preparation for Saturday’s run. I heard from someone that carb loading isn’t something you only do the day before, but even two or three days out because those nutrients will still be in your system on race day. I had eggs and sourdough for breakfast, leftover salmon Mac ‘n Cheese for lunch, a protein shake and Lane’s marinara pasta bake for dinner. For desert I had a couple gluten free brownies and three oatmeal chocolate chip cookies later that evening while I watched my Cowboys lose to the Philadelphia Eagles. I probably went a little too hard on the sweets today but I should be fine.

9/5

I ran 3.5 miles with Travis this morning. He and Jenny just had their fourth child two weeks ago and it was really good to catch up and hear about how life has changed and how things are going for them. We kept the miles pretty easy, we hovered around marathon pace for most of the run. I wanted to go slower than that when I made the plan for this week but we both felt really good as we warmed up. I don’t like depriving my legs of faster speeds when I feel up for it. I don’t think it’s going to negatively affect my long run tomorrow. The plan is an early bed time tonight, wake up around 4:45 and start the run around 5:30 AM tomorrow. I want to be done before 8 AM so I don’t miss out on making family breakfast.

9/6

Happy Long Run Day! I woke up at 4:45 like I planned and started eating overnight oats. I tried them cold and I actually enjoyed them that way. Saves time and the texture didn’t bother me so I’m happy with that small change to the race day routine. I bought a honey Stinger Waffle that I brought with me to try during the run. They contain 19g of carbs but are a little high in fat (6g). I got out the door to start the run a little after 5:30 AM. The legs felt fresh so I stuck with the original workout plan today: 8.5 miles easy (average pace: 10:13/mi) followed by 6.5 miles at marathon pace (average pace 8:45/mi). The easy miles felt really easy, in part because it was 54 degrees outside with no sunlight for the first hour and ten minutes of the run. My heart rate never left zone 2.

I ate the Stinger waffle at the 45 minute mark even though I didn’t feel like I needed it. I figured it’d be better to eat it as a precaution (and to experiment with my stomach) to prevent bonking. I ran down to the Galloway area and once the marathon pace miles started, I turned around to head back home. The legs felt really good going into the faster miles. I didn’t consider this until later but the waffle was really easy to digest and I’m glad I had it with me. I’m gonna continue to use them for fuel for these long runs to see if I want them with me on race day. Based on how today went, I think I’ll do one at the 1 hour mark and 2 1/2 hour mark on race day. We’ll tweak that as I continue to train these last eight weeks.

We only have two months left before race day. I’ve been building up to this race for so long, the idea of training being over is hard to imagine. I’ve gotten very accustomed to the rhythm of my training weeks.

9/7

Lane decided to sign up for the Bass Pro Half Marathon so we’re going to run together. Because of this, she has moved her long run to Sunday so that we don’t have to plan for both of us to be gone multiple hours on the same day. She ran seven miles during the kid’s nap while I watched some football. I was able to complete my 50 minute strength training workout this afternoon. I focused mainly on my quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves and back. Because running is my main focus, my gym training emphasizes lower body workouts and strengthening my posterior chain. I did three sets of pull-ups, three sets of walking lunges with dumbbells, four sets of trap-bar deadlifts, four sets of barbell back squats, three sets of single-leg calf raises, and three sets of candlesticks for my core. I also mixed in four dumbbell bench press sets. I’m an imperfect man, what can I say. The “gym bro” workouts are still tempting. In all seriousness though, part of why I did that specific workout today was to see if my Costochondritis issue from July is healed or not. I haven’t exercised my chest since June. This was an anaerobic workout which I don’t do a lot of so I enjoyed switching things up.

I am learning to cherish my legs. I try to remind myself of how thankful I am for my body overall, but with marathon training, my lower body has been taking a beating. Earlier this year I was spending a lot of time in the gym lifting for muscle growth in areas that didn’t directly help my running. I would do hammer curls, triceps extensions, bench press, lateral raises, and shoulder press. Though those things certainly aren’t a bad thing, they were a symptom of having more time on my hands. Now that my weekly mileage is creeping up into the high 30s and low 40s, that time is diminished. I’m only able to work in one or two weightlifting sessions per week (assuming no rest days). That means if I’m to use strength training to improve my running, my legs need most of the attention. I’m going to focus on unilateral leg movements such as Bulgarian split squats (though this is one that has caused me knee issues in the past so I keep the dumbbells light), dumbbell walking lunges, and single leg calf-raises. I’m going to experiment with single-leg deadlifts with my trap-bar next week. I don’t know if that movement is stable with the trap-bar or not but we’ll find out. If it’s not, I’m okay doing a bilateral movement to strengthen my hamstrings.

9/8

I pressed snooze on my alarm for the first time in awhile. Lane and I stayed up last night watching The Wire and I didn’t fall asleep until 11:11 PM according to my watch. I convinced myself to get out of bed at 6:09 and had to rush out the door. Today was a 6 mile progression run. We started out at an easy warm up pace, which felt great in the brisk 54 degree morning. Then, we sped up 30s/mi for each mile. Total stats: 6.23 miles in 54:38, 8:46/mi average pace. My splits were 10:08, 9:33, 9:03, 8:29, 8:00, and a fast 7:17 to close out the last mile. I have started incorporating more of these progression runs into my training in recent weeks, partly because I enjoy them but also because they teach me how to accelerate in a controlled manner. It’s easy during a run to speed up way past my heart rate zone or pace target and then slowly settle into it but I know that with nerves, excitement and crowd energy, my body is going to want to sprint that first mile. I need to learn how to stay in control of my body so we don’t burn through glycogen stores in the first 15 miles of this race. There’s a reason “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” is one of the most common clichés.

Joy woke up a bit early today, Lane took her to go potty while I was in the shower. That was a good reminder of why wake up on training days has to be 6 AM at the latest. Still, we threw down the miles and I’m excited for this training week. It’s going to be high volume again (38-40 miles total), with a sixteen mile long run on Saturday. Lane is out of town this weekend for her sister’s bachelorette trip so my mom’s coming into town to help me with them when I’m at work. Next week is going to be a recovery week to give my body some rest.

9/9

I completed my threshold workout this morning. Here’s the structure: 10:00 warm up followed by two 18:00 intervals @ 7:00/mi pace with a half mile of recovery in between. This was one of the hardest workouts I’ve completed in this training block. I’m super proud of the effort today. When I first started ramping up my training to prep for the marathon back in April, I did a threshold workout where I attempted to hold 7:00/mi pace for one 17 minute interval. I couldn’t hold that pace and it was nearly a max effort. The fact that my high aerobic capacity has improved this much in 4-5 months is really encouraging. Workouts like these are really intimidating but there’s nothing like that feeling of accomplishment when I complete one, especially if I feel like I executed well.

Total stats today: 6.63 miles, total time 51:04. Average pace: 7:42/mi. Average HR: 149 BPM. This run was also a 10K PR for me. I’m curious what I’d be able to throw down if I fully trained for a 10K. That’d be a fun thing to do in a couple years. I have had some sciatic nerve issues and some ankle pain recently so I’m going to the chiropractor this afternoon so we can get adjusted and hopefully relieve some of that. Turns out, if you run 45 miles in seven days, you’ll be sore. Who knew?

9/10

I slept in today until 7:15. Lane and I stayed up late talking and had a really fun conversation about parenthood, the future and things we’re looking forward to as our kids grow. My body was pretty fatigued from the workout yesterday so I’m going to push the run to tonight after Bible study. I plan on running 4 easy miles this evening and I’m gonna keep them pretty easy.

I ran one mile to bible study and ran a longer route home so I could complete five miles total tonight. I kept the miles easy. I skipped the strides on this run since I couldn’t see that well in the dark. I’m looking forward to my rest day tomorrow! I need to take advantage of those days as much as possible so I can handle the miles on my legs. My peak week is just a month away, I estimate that I’ll run 45-48 miles that week.

I’m excited for Saturday’s long run! It’s going to be the longest run of my life. I ran 16 miles last September to celebrate hitting 500 miles in 2024. I’ll run an extra 0.1 just to pass last year’s PR. My folks will be in town to help out with the kids while Lane is out of town and I’m working. She leaves Friday morning and my job is to keep the house from catching fire and to try to maintain the training routine.

Keep Going!