Retribution and backup retribution

I need to retract an opinion I shared in my previous post. I was not aware that Josh Duhamel was married to Fergie, and he just shot up a notch in my eyes. Glad I got that off my chest.

As Kari posted, 26.2 retribution will hopefully be ours at the Delaware marathon on May 12. In order to prepare, we are trying out a modified (shortened) version of the Run Less, Run Faster plan. Because I'm a hipster dork, I just picked up the book from the library.

From here on out, it will be referred to as RLRF.

Even though I've always been all like "I love cross training! People who run too much are crazy!" (too much being a relative term), I got pretty comfortable with my 40-50 miles per week and the idea of running less, much less, to prepare for a marathon is scary. But you know, the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and expecting different results and all that.

The plan is also frightening because when you do run, you run really hard. But that doesn't start until Tuesday, so that's future Alyssa's problem. Current Alyssa has her own problems, which naturally we will delve into in this post.

First of all, let's discuss workouts this week. Kristy recommended really easing back into training in a sort of reverse taper method, and since she's an expert coach and Boston qualified runner AND has been successful on the RLRF plan, we listened. Last week I ran ten miles, did two yoga classes, and one short Jillian workout. 

This week included slightly more exercise, but not too much. 

Monday: Hip Hop Abs

Tuesday: 6 mile easy run (9:20 pace)

Wednesday: 30 Day Shred, Level 2, aka 25 minutes of intense pain

Thursday: AM - 5 mile "tempo" run with 3 miles at GMP (goal marathon pace, 8:49, overall pace 9:13), 

PM - Bikram yoga

So here are my problems.

1. The goal marathon pace miles this morning felt like an all out sprint and my heart rate was through the roof. That pace is less than 10 seconds per mile faster than the pace I ran the marathon last week. In laymen's terms, I could barely run 3 miles a tiny bit faster than I just ran 26 miles. I understand that even though I'm not sore, I'm still recovering from that effort, but, WTF, I want to be all better NOW. 

2. I'm addicted to my new treadmill. Imagine this scenario: you wake up early, it's dark outside, the temperature is the 20s, and there may or may not be wind, snow flurries, sleet, or ice on the ground. Here's the options you are faced with: put on a billion layers, knuckle lights, and pepper spray and run in all that crap, OR put on shorts and a tank top and run while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I'm completely addicted to, by the way. Which would you choose? Obviously, I've been choosing the latter recently. But I started pumping up the incline to 1% at all times!

I can't think of a smooth way to segue into this, so I'll just throw it out there. I signed up for a backup marathon two weeks after Delaware, a super small race in Pennsylvania (about an hour away) called Bob Potts. So if Delaware isn't going well, I can throw in the towel and try again, and if it does go well, I'll run Bob Potts easy for fun. It makes perfect sense, right?

Any suggestions for how I can get back to normal running extra fast?

What are your current problems?