Mercedes Half Marathon RR

Feb 6 - Feb 12

S:  14,800 yds - 3hr 42min
B:  71.06 mi - 4hr 33min
R:  52.26 mi - 6hr 26min
Total:  14hr 41min

Biggest run week ever...that about sums it up.  And it all culminated with Mercedes Half Marathon on Sunday.  As this clearly wasn't a race that I was trying to rest up for, I didn't quite know what to expect in terms of how my legs would handle it and what kind of pace I would be able to sustain.  That being said, the game plan was to go out the first 3ish miles at a semi-conservative yet still pretty quick pace, try to pick it up a little bit in the middle portion of the race, and then really crank it up if possible for the last ~5k.  Well, this is how it unfolded.  It went pretty much exactly according to plan, which is of course always a good thing  In hindsight, I might could have gone out a little bit harder...but I knew I wanted to be more cautious than aggressive for the first couple miles.  All things considered, it was a good early season performance indicator and I'm pretty encouraged about the upcoming season! 

Random Thoughts
The past couple of months of running have been lots of mileage, but almost exclusively at an aerobic pace (with the exception of some short fartlek type efforts).  Even though I haven't been doing very much fast running, it was still possible to run a fast half marathon.  And by fast I mean something fast relative to what the majority of my training has been at.  This should speak volumes to the benefits of 1) what building an aerobic base can do for you and 2) the benefits that you get from having your body make specific adaptations to high run mileage (running economy, etc).  It seems as if there are always arguments against high run mileage, like "you'll get injured" or "your time is better spent elsewhere."  As with anything in life, it is an opportunity cost problem.  At some point, maybe you do reach diminishing returns or the risk of injury is too high.  But the general idea that you can get faster at running off of less running is contrary to, well, everything.  If you want to get good at something (traithlon, playing the guitar, solving math problems, etc) then doing more of it is the way to go, isn't it?  Sure, you can improve as a runner off of limited mileage, but the flaw in that analysis is that you should be comparing to what you could have done if you had run bigger miles, not what you have previously been doing.  Of course it's a little more complicated for triathletes because of the whole 3 sport thing, but in general I think that people have been conned into thinking that running a lot is bad for you!