Hit a snag, but back in the groove now

I hit some health issues, unrelated to running, late August into early September forcing me to stop running for nearly two weeks.  That meant after recovering a ramp up taking another couple of weeks with a total time loss of nearly one month.  To ease me into the training regime, in the first week that followed my coach had me do a 30 min run, a 40 min run and a 60 min run without regard to pace. Since that went well the following week we resumed the three key runs at a fairly moderate level  - intervals were 400m's and the long run was 12 miles.  This week we are back on full throttle with the long run at 17. Even though the long run is Key Run #3, I take that as the first run of the week.  So, yesterday I went for the 17. I was beginning to get worried about getting in the required number of long runs before the marathon. So I decided to focus on completing the distance. Further, I was having lot of trouble finding more flat sections to include in the route as we have mostly hills in our neighborhood. The search for flat sections pushed my route towards the town center. More flats should mean easier run, but I always had trouble breaking that down to mentally handle the distance. Perhaps it was because I wasn't very familiar with those roads, or it was the crowded streets and traffic. Somehow that route seemed to drain my energy.  So I decided to spend more time on my usual hilly routes in the neighborhood yesterday. Although the runs would be harder I figured it would be easier to get my head around the course. A 4 mile hilly route with 2 miles up and 2 down formed a major section of my regular runs before the marathon training pushed me to athletic fields, and other areas looking for a mix of hills and flats close to the NYC course.  I went back to that section and stuck a gentler one mile detour on the way up and the same mile on the way down making it a loop of about six miles. That worked pretty well. About two thirds of the way through I felt good enough to extend the run by an extra mile and ended up running close to 18.5 instead of 17 (Yay!!).  Although I was two seconds behind the targeted pace, this run was a confidence booster to face the 20 miler coming next week. I did run out of drinks again in the last 5k or so and the calves began feeling tight, but I was able to run and have a strong finish. In addition, also had the energy to do 10 burpees in the end to energize my legs!


If I can run, u can run