About halfway through training for the Chicago Marathon and things are starting to heat up around here.

One of the benefits of running the same marathon two years in a row is being able to compare training. Over the last five weeks, my mileage has been 90, 91, 98, 87, and 103 miles - a slight uptick of 5-10 miles per week compared to last year. The workouts have been bigger, the paces faster, and considering I was coming off an injury last year, the side-by-side comparison is looking good.

Relative to previous blocks (mainly CIM ’23 - 2:29 and CHI ’24 - 2:29), the biggest differences have been slightly more volume, heavier long runs, non-negotiable recovery and strength work, and mostly just consistency - a whole other year wiser and stronger.

With eight weeks to go, I met the UVU team in the Dolomites for a training camp - what a place, what a time. Most of our sessions were along flowing rivers and rolling farmland. Our two big workouts that week were 3 x 1 mile & 3 x 1 km on the track in Bruneck-Brunico and maybe the highlight of the trip was our long run workout nestled in the valley. I did 23 miles total with 3 x 5k @ marathon pace, it was early in the morning, the sun was peeking over the mountains, cows and horses roaming on both sides of us. Just perfect conditions to get after it.

We left the Dolomites feeling refreshed and focused heading into the biggest weeks of the block. I’ll meet back up with the team in a few weeks for a bit of a fitness check at the Copenhagen Half Marathon.

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