Miles without Smiles

If you don't like it, don't do it. You will end up injured, depressed or burnt out (or all of the above). There are alternatives.

Sorry, sounds a bit rude... just my view :)

yeah, but you have to at least try right?

If you set a goal for yourself you should try to do it. If you pick your race date for a marathon and you know it's something you want to do you should try and do your long runs. And DO them unless you have a risk of injury.

The only reason you should quit on those is if you decide that long running isn't for you.

If it helps, I go through those bouts of boredom with the "maintenance miles". What I have done is to literally "kick it into gear". Try Dave Albo's 200s. Just do some total all out sprints of 200 meters or so. It gets your blood moving and makes you feel like a kid again.

-lml

"If you set a goal for yourself you should try to do it."

Yes, but... it's your goal, you can do what you like with it. You don't HAVE to do it. You are "allowed" to scale it down (or up), abandon it, come up with a better/more appropriate goal -- because circumstances change all the time and, in running, injury sometimes intervenes. Some of my more bizarre goals have been dreamed up late at night after several pints of Guinness... you know, the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" kind of goals.

Whatever, my point really was that there are more than one ways to skin a cat (isn't that a horrible phrase?). You don;t HAVE to do repeated sessions of long miles to turn out a decent marathon. Some runners are [physically unsuited to cranking out big mileages and endless long runs. And let's bear this in mind... our friend cselland appears to be doing these runs because "Hal Higdon" told him to...

and that's not even the REAL Hal Higdon, personal coach, who knows our pal's strengths and weaknesses and has written him an individual program, but "Hal Higdon" writing a generic program to "fit" thousands of unknown runners. What I'm saying/asking is, why follow this plan when you're not enjoying it, when there are other plans available?

You're very right to say that the problem is I really dread the grind, so if you think there are ways to get ready without them I'd love to hear more.

Yes I got my Higdon advice from a book, as well as a bit of Jeff Galloway.

I just find this 'miles every day during the week and a big run on weekends' routine takes a lot of the fun out of running, which I otherwise DO enjoy!

Littlemamalopez has the right idea, I reckon. From what you've told us in your posts as you prepare for the Chicago marathon, it looks like you do all your road miles at the same pace -- around 10 minutes a mile. What you have to ask yourself is what is this training you for? Apart from being able to grind out 10-minute miles, that is :)

Allow for the fact that I may well be talking through my butt, as I scarcely know you any better than Hal. But I DO know some things he doesn't. Like, you've run two marathons before, you started preparing for Chicago with 75 days to go, and you're not enjoying your running right now...

so I would guess that you are NOT worried about being able to go the distance; I guess that your goal is to do it faster. In which case, what I'd suggest is you change up the pace on two runs a week -- do your 10k runs either as tempo runs or with surges, and consider doing a very-much-faster session once a week, such as 800m repeats on a track, or one-mile repeats on a stretch of fast, flat, smooth tarmac or golf course grass.

Like LML, I find breaking out and running "fast" makes me feel goooood. And like more knowledgeable people than me have said, if all it took to run a fast marathon was a diet of long steady miles, then everybody and anybody would be up with the elites. There's obviously a lot more to it. I'd also bear in mind that while doing a "mini-base" period starting 11 weeks out from your target race is cool, that is far too late to take on a serious marathon-conditioning/getting in the miles phase. In my opinion.

Alternatives to cranking out the miles: many and various. The currently best-known (and used by one or two other people on this site) is the FIRST method. This is often dissed as a three-days-a-week program - it's not. Check it out at the Furman Institute website here. Check out the schedule they have up here; given the work you've already put in you should be able to jump right in at the 10-week mark or wherever... there is a full explanation of the different paces on the site.

The mixed-pace work will take the drudgery out of your training for sure and, let's hope, put the JOY back!