This Week in Training
Week 4 of 15 | 32.42 miles
I’m fit enough to feel what’s coming. That makes right now the most dangerous part of the training block.
Week 4 of 15 is done. 32+ miles. One of the top three mileage weeks of my life. And I feel good — which is exactly the problem.
Not a bad problem. But a real one.
When you’re deep in a building phase and the fitness starts arriving early, something shifts. The question stops being “can I do more” and starts being “should I.” The answer, almost always, is not yet. The plan exists for a reason. Phases exist for a reason. What I do in Week 4 is protecting what I’ll need in Week 10.
That discipline showed up a few times this week in concrete ways. A half marathon PR was sitting right there on Saturday’s long run. I left it. There was no point in taking it. It’ll come when it’s supposed to — inside the plan, not ahead of it.
The Saturday run almost didn’t happen at all. Life pushed it to noon. That’s been the pattern the last three weeks — something delays the long run, and the first two weeks it didn’t happen. This week there was no question. Just “when,” not “whether.” That’s a different place to operate from.
Something else shifted this week that’s worth naming. Being fully inside a training block didn’t make me neglect my obligations. It made me stop negotiating with them.
When the training matters, wasted time costs something real. So I stop wasting it. Tasks that used to get deferred just get done, because I can see clearly what the delay is costing me. The priority structure sharpens everything around it, not just the running.
But I want to be honest about why. It’s not just discipline. My wife is crewing for me at Prairie on Fire this year. My family is making the trip. That changes something. I’m not just protecting the training — I’m protecting the experience we’re going to share. Every obligation I handle without dragging my feet is margin I’m building for her, for us. The race isn’t just mine anymore. That’s a powerful motivator to stop negotiating and just do the thing.
What the Week Actually Looked Like
I hit every prescribed run and maxed the mileage on each one. The workouts were a different story — I missed a couple. That’s part of working everything out inside a real training block with a real life. The running is locked in at something close to identity level right now. The supporting work is still finding its place in the week. I’m not alarmed by it, but I’m not ignoring it either. Those workouts exist for a reason I felt on Saturday’s long run — more on that in a minute.
The Topo Phantom 4 got its third run this week. I’ve capped them at two runs per week intentionally. They’re allowing my foot to function the way it’s supposed to, which means my posterior tibialis tendons are doing work they’ve been offloaded from for years. It’s adaptation, not injury. Two runs, same pattern — some protest in the first twenty minutes, then steady improvement. Getting better each time.
What the Body Is Telling Me
Saturday’s long run was 11.55 miles with 6,729 feet of elevation. Two hours and fifteen minutes. I had enough left at the end to know a half marathon PR was available. I left it there.
What I took instead was information.
Around mile 5, my HR spiked. I knew what it was — under-fueling. I got something in and it settled within half a mile and never came back. My body told me exactly what it needed and when. Fueling is the next thing to dial in. I’m hitting every 30 minutes, but the quantity needs to scale up to match the effort. That’s the work between now and September.
I also caught something on the descents. My knees were caving inward, which was causing overpronation. My body was compensating to relieve pressure on my patellar tendons — a workaround it developed somewhere along the way. I caught it, corrected it, and ran the rest of the descent with intention. Nearly 20,000 steps in that run. That’s nearly 20,000 reps of reprogramming.
This is what the building phase actually feels like from the inside. Not just miles accumulating, but the body revealing what still needs work. The runs are the diagnosis. The rehab is the treatment. You can’t separate them.
What I’m Learning About the Building Phase
I used to think feeling like garbage was a sign of hard work. That suffering was the metric. By Wednesday of last week I was crushed. This Wednesday I felt good. Same program, one week of adaptation, completely different experience.
I’m learning that hard work and misery aren’t the same thing. A well-supported training block — fueled, slept, structured, with rehab built in — feels different than grinding. The output can be the same or greater, but the internal experience is completely different.
Thursday evening’s run taught me something else. I didn’t want to go. Sinus headache. Tired legs. Had to help my wife with something after work. I went anyway. It was miserable by every metric.
But I didn’t become the misery.
That’s the distinction that matters for a backyard ultra. There will come a moment, deep in the night, somewhere past where I’ve ever been, when everything hurts and the question is whether to go out for another loop. I haven’t been there yet. But when I get to that hard yard — and I will — I’ll know how to handle it. Thursday evenings in June are how I’ll get through it.
Week 4 Done
After 11.55 miles and 2+ hours on Saturday, I came home and played airsoft with my kids. My stepson is in the Army. He’s aggressive and reckless. I’m aggressive and wise. I was least shot and most hits.
I’m 48, built more like a lifter than a runner, and I just put in one of the top three mileage weeks of my life and felt good doing it. Last year at this point in training I was feeling like garbage. This year the data and the body are telling the same story — something real is being built.
32.42 miles. Every run hit. A couple workouts missed. One PR left on the table on purpose. One Thursday evening run that was miserable and necessary. One bedroom AC unit finally installed, because sleep is not optional when you’re doing serious work.
Week 5 starts tomorrow.
Show up. Do the work.