David Taylor Gonzales

9/25

It’s my brother Zach’s birthday. He’s 27 years old. He got engaged and graduated college a few months back. His future wife, Katie, is really an incredible woman. It’s been amazing to see him grow and change in the years since Covid. We fought a lot when we were young and it led to a lot of distance and resentment in our late teens. We restored our relationship about 7 years ago. He’s an amazing man. I’m really proud to be his brother.

Today is my sprint workout since I took Tuesday off. I am doing 10 intervals for 15 seconds at 4:20/mi pace. I haven’t done a sprint workout in a month or two but with my increased fitness, I think this workout should go fairly well. I’m excited to get the fast twitch muscle fibers activated!

Okay that was a pretty tough workout. I found a small hill and decided to do all of my intervals up the hill to reduce the impact on my joints. I think that was a good decision overall but it made the 15 second intervals feel like an eternity. Regardless, the soft tissue in my legs don’t feel beat up and that’s a win (but my quads are smoked).

9/26

I had another sleep in day. I think my body is fighting something off which is unfortunate. I may try to run a couple miles to shake things out before my long run tomorrow morning. I get frustrated when I feel like I’m falling behind and missing workouts. This is a good reminder that sometimes the training is as much mental as it is physical. Taking unscheduled rest days can cause me to feel shame and I have to remind myself that training while sick/fatigued would actually be counterproductive. Still, any time I’m not putting mileage on the legs or weight training, I feel like I am doing something wrong. The glass half full outlook would be that I’ve so consistently integrated my training into my daily life that when I take a day off, it feels like a task is incomplete. This training cycle and this race won’t last forever. There’s a hard deadline to the season of training that I have been in. I’m trying to make the most of everyday in training but I know Lane is looking forward to having her husband back (I am looking forward to spending more time with her as well).

I thought about doing a shakeout run this evening in preparation for tomorrow but decided against it. With the accumulated fatigue from the last week, I think relaxing and getting quality sleep tonight is going to do my body more good than an easy mile or two. My buddy Elliot, who has the same sub 4 hour goal as I do, is going to run with me tomorrow. We’re going to do a RPE style workout for 17 miles

9/27

It’s long run day! I woke up at 5 and started the pre-run ritual: pee, hydrate, eat overnight oats, foam roll and light stretching in the basement, then lace up. I feel really good today. My heart rate variability improved a bit last night so I know my body appreciated the sleep and taking a day off. Elliot’s gonna be arriving at 6:05 AM. Here’s the workout structure:

4 miles at conversational pace
2.5 miles at RPE 6/10
2.5 miles at RPE 6.5/10
4 miles at RPE 5/10
2.5 miles at RPE 6/10
2.5 miles at RPE 6.5/10

Elliot’s running 18 today so I’ll cut the last interval short since I only need 17 miles. This will put me at 34 miles for the week. It’s a bit lower than I wanted, but given the fatigue and poor sleep on Friday, it’s a solid training week overall.

I really enjoyed running with Elliot. Like I said in the video, I had way more juice because we were together and I think it would’ve been really challenging to do this workout without him. I probably would’ve just done an easy run if I was by myself (nothing wrong with that, I just liked the change of pace). Total stats: 17.01 miles, average pace 8:59/mi, average heart rate 142 BPM. The rest of the day is going to revolve around family time and eating enough food to make up for the 2,023 calories we burned this morning.

After my shower, I went to Men’s Breakfast at my church. I ate 7 biscuits to get some carbs in me. The message was on Jonah, and what it looks like to live in obedience to God. I told the guys sitting at my table that obedience was something that I thought was optional in the early years of following Jesus. I assumed, foolishly, that because God’s grace covers me, I could proclaim Jesus as my Savior while changing nothing about my life. After a few years of living that way, I hit rock bottom and realized that this “freedom” I thought I was living in wasn’t freedom at all, it was the opposite. It was keeping me chained to a life that I didn’t want anymore. I realized that obedience to Christ wasn’t the path to the boring and limiting life that I was fearful of. I had some time to reflect on what life has looked like since fully committing my life to Christ. God has given my life more adventure and meaning and fulfillment than I ever had in the debauchery of my youth.

The rest of the afternoon, we went on a family walk together and ate really good food. I received a $100 Pappo’s gift card from work so we picked up pizza and chocolate chip cookies from the Battlefield location around 6 PM. I walked almost 37,000 steps today. Pizza and cookies were the perfect meal to end the day.

9/28

Today I slept in a bit, hoping to see my heart rate variability continue to improve so I can go into this next week of training with good health and recovery. I woke up around 7:30 and my HRV was 130 ms so my body is clearly back to baseline average. We went to church at 9, went on a short family walk around the block (I went barefoot, something I haven’t been doing lately). After that, Joy and I played at her water table outside in the front yard and then grazed on leftovers for lunch. I am thinking about doing a blog on what I eat on a daily basis just to give y’all an idea of what I’m doing day to day as we approach the peak of my marathon training. I think my nutrition has been pretty good overall but I know I make plenty of small (and sometimes big) mistakes day to day.

This evening, I did a strength workout focusing on the usual: posterior chain, (more specifically, calfs, hamstrings, glutes, lats, and traps) quads, shoulders, upper chest and few sets on the biceps as well. Here’s the full list of exercises and sets:

Dead hang 45 seconds (warm up)
Pull-ups x 4 sets
Barbell lunges x 4
Weighted shrug x 4
Barbell shoulder press x 4
Trap-bar deadlift x 4 (light weight, I am being very careful with my back)
Weighted single-leg calf raises (one 35lb dumbbell in hand)
Dumbbell lateral raise x 2
Hammer curls x 3

9/29

Today was the first speed workout of the week. I set this as a seven mile steady tempo run. I wanted something challenging, but shooting for a pace that I can hold for about an hour. I estimated that that pace was 7:40/mi. I woke up a bit late, so I decided to shorten it to a 10K so I could be showered before Joy woke up. One mile in, I felt pretty good. 7:49/mi average pace. From there, I picked it up and the legs felt springy going into mile 3. Maybe it was the improved leg turnover from the sprint workout last week, maybe it was finally getting good rest. It was around the 24 minute mark where I realized I had a very good chance of breaking my previous 10K PR (47:51) so I sped up. The per mile pace I needed to break was just about 7:36/mi and I was averaging 7:37 when I decided to accelerate. I was holding a steady pace in the 7:10-7:25 range, plenty of speed to bring my total average pace down below 7:30/mi. I didn’t feel out of control at all. The pace felt really easy to hold without having to stare at my watch. I set a new PR today. Total stats: 6.28 miles in 46:43, average pace 7:27/mi, average heart rate 150 BPM.

Seeing such consistent progress in these speed sessions, especially in the last two or three weeks has been really encouraging. I am eager to get to race day but we’ve still got two weeks of peak training to get through before we taper. Two goals are in front of me now: stay consistent but more importantly, don’t get injured. If I show up at the starting line with my body intact, I’ve got a really good chance of breaking four hours on November 2nd.

I feel well rested and recovered for the training ahead. I drank my magnesium tonight to help with sleep. Tomorrow is an easy 6 mile fartlek run. Here’s the structure:

1 mi warm up (9:30 pace)
1 mi on (8:00/mi pace)
2 mi off (9:30/mi pace)
2 mi on (8:00/mi pace)

9/30

I woke up and pressed snooze on my alarm. Didn’t wake up again until 7:20 AM. This was the best night of sleep I think I’ve had in 2 weeks. I feel really well rested. I’m bummed about missing my run, but I honestly think it’s for the best. I have a VO2 Max workout tomorrow and I feel confident in my ability to execute well with the extra day of rest. All the research I’ve seen points to long runs being more important than weekly mileage so, even though this week I’ll only hit 32-36 miles, I haven’t missed a single weekend long run in training and I don’t intend to start this week.

I got home from work and grilled up some chicken for caesar salads. Lane is on a 5k stroller run with Joy while John takes a cat nap. I’ve decided I’m going to do some light weight training in the garage just to get some exercise benefit despite the day off. I kept the volume and sets super low today: 3 sets of pull-ups, 3 sets of barbell skull crushers, single-arm dumbbell rows, and 5 sets of barbell bicep curls. I am excited for tomorrow’s run. Since I know my body needs about 10-15 minutes to warm up on these mornings, I’m giving myself a full 15 minute zone 2 warm up before the intervals start. Here’s the workout structure: 15 minute zone 2 warm up, 2 x 15:00 @ 6:45/mi pace, 10 minute cool down (no pace target). If I feel good tomorrow, I’m allowing myself to speed up to 6:20/mi and if I feel rough, I can throttle back to 7:10 pace. 6:45/mi is Garmin’s estimate of my lactate threshold so this one should improve my high aerobic capacity. I’ve been doing these workouts consistently throughout the year and they have helped me maintain faster paces without burning out.

10/1

It’s October. It still doesn’t quite feel like fall. The high will be 88 degrees and sunny today but I’ve noticed the sun setting earlier and earlier with each passing day. These morning runs have been getting dark as well.

I got out the door by 6:15. I am going to shorten my cool down a bit so I can be home in time to help with the kids. I completed 12 minutes of my warm up and felt good enough to start the intervals. I could tell in the first 100 steps of this run the legs felt fresh. The intervals were the exact right amount of challenging, about an 8/10 by RPE. I wasn’t sure if holding pace at 6:45/mi was sustainable because I haven’t done intervals this long at my estimated lactate threshold before.

It wasn’t as “flowy” as some of my speed workouts the last few weeks but I was able to hold the pace for both intervals. Interval 1 was run at an average pace of 6:45/mi and the 2nd interval was an average pace of 6:47/mi. I was in the pain cave for portions of this run but I was able to get my heart rate down to 134 BPM during my recovery interval in between which helped going into the 2nd interval. The last 45 seconds of interval 2 was run uphill and I was able to get my heart rate up to 175 BPM, the highest heart rate I’ve had in months. I’m very proud of my mental fortitude today. I’ve learned over time that these speed runs require more mental strength than physical strength. I had so many mental off ramps, opportunities to quit on this run but I didn’t take the bait. In prior training sessions I might have. I didn’t cheat myself today and that’s as big a win as the workout itself.

If the weather holds up tonight, I’ll jog to group. I haven’t had a low mileage easy run in awhile and that might be a nice shakeout after this morning. If I do that, I’ll take tomorrow off and get prepared for 18 miles on Saturday. We’re driving to St. Louis for my sister in law’s wedding shower so I’ll be doing the long run out of town. The terrain in the in law’s neighborhood is very hilly but I am looking forward to a new route! I may drive down to Grant’s Trail and run there. Since I did a workout last week on my long run with Elliot, I’m going to keep this one easy and mix in some marathon pace in the last 3 miles.

Keep Going!