Week 4 ?!?

I looked at the calendar yesterday and realized that time has flown by so fast this summer. I counted down from Hamilton marathon and to my surprise, I am already in week 4 of marathon training! I do not think it's a big deal. I've been pretty good about keeping the long runs and doing at least one or two speedwork per week over the summer but I expected I had more time to get ready. I still think there is enough time to get faster and stronger and hopefully have a decent shot at a BQ (3h10) in Hamilton.

This week's training started with an interval that totally blew up and ended up being only 8km on Monday. The heat combined with my eagerness to go fast killed the rest of my workout.

Tuesday's slow long run was done by commuting to work. I thought I needed 29km for week two, turns out week 4 is also 29km so I did well :) At an average of 5:15m/km, I am right where I want to be for the slow runs. It felt funny doing detours on my way to work but the scenic view was much better than the usual concrete jungle I pass through to save time and the streets were much quieter earlier in the morning. I was most impressed with my consistency throughout the workout, staying mostly between 5:30 and 5:00.
Thursday's attempt at intervals was a bit better than Monday's with fast intervals of 4:10, 4:12, 4:12 until it fell apart again with my last intervals at 4:57, 4:49, 4:56. Slow intervals were 4:34, 4:50, 4:57, 5:12, 5:18 and 5:36. I guess I have to slow down a bit more for the slow intervals so I can keep up the fast ones. I should know better by now :)

Today is Friday the 13th so I wanted to even out the badluck and set a goal of 13km at 13km/h. I guess the 13 is not that unlucky for me since I was able to complete this feat within 12 seconds of my goal. Wooohooo. If I can do this 3 times in a row, I can probably qualify for Boston :) I could get used to seeing so much green on the heatmap!
Tomorrow will be another run to catch up to the total of 75km that week 4 requires. Now that I know which week I'm in for sure I'll try to stick with the program...