looking back on this training cycle

I'm wrapping up this training cycle, spending the remaining time before Comrades doing some tapering the best I can.  I'm happy with what I've done to prepare, but let the second-guessing begin.

These graphs were produced by SportTracks and its Training Load plug-in.  This first one just summarizes my weekly mileage from the start of the year.  It looks fairly well planned - some four to five week mini-cycles of increasing intensity, then an easier week at the start of the next slightly more intense cycle.

2012 - Weekly Mileage

This brown line on this next graph is a sliding 7-day sum of mileage.  Because a value is computed every day, it is a lot more 'jagged' than the weekly mileage chart above.

Daily Training Load

For long runs, I had 31 runs of 10 miles or more, a number of ~15 milers, and one marathon.  Maybe I could have/should have done more long runs, although I am so slow that the hours it takes to do a 15 miler really does qualify them as a long run.

You can see the 'training influence' line crosses zero (and goes negative) today, telling me the time for hard training for Comrades is gone.  My total mileage so far this year has been 914 miles.  January was low mileage, my Comrades training cycle really didn't get going until February.  The mileage total is still high though, for me, and I hope it will pay off.  The mileage, and Mary's new interest in vegan cooking (it's been great but I'm actually not a very strict vegan) were probably big factors in losing the weight that I did.

I did focus on increasing turnover, and ran several short road races that I think helped get me a little more leg speed.  But I could have spent more time with long intervals or tempo runs at the higher heart rates - it's almost like I've created a bit of a heartrate 'ceiling' at about 80% of my max ...

So, am I ready?  Here is a link to a paper I found on the web, that the author (Lindsay Weight, a two-time Comrades woman winner in the 1980's) wrote to summarize the results of a survey taken of Comrades finishers in 2005.  Runners were asked what they weighed, how many miles they did to prepare, what their qualifying time was, and how they finished (and more).  It's nice to be able to compare your own numbers to others who finished.  I note that I still am at the high end of the weight scale of those who finished, but other than that, my stats compare pretty well.

I'm as ready as I'm going to be.  Wish me luck.