Right now my brain is stressed which is not the stress you want for running performance. I can physically feel the negative implications during my powerless jogs I manage to squeeze in daily.
The good kind of stress is mostly physical. I say mostly because pain threshold training is of mental kind and one of the key factors in endurance fitness.
In the final 8 weeks before a race I believe in specificity. But before that an experienced athlete will only improve by applying new stress to the body. Successful fall marathon campaigns for me have always been based on summers spent on the extreme ends of training. Think about doing an easy 50k run followed by a track 5k race three days later. The 50k gets you comfortable for the distance while the track 5k moves your pain threshold.
Marathons are hard to find during the summer for obvious reasons which is a bummer because they are the best catered long runs - as long as you don't race them. Check your local calendar. Here in New York we have the Self Transcendence Marathon at the end of August that does loops around Rockland Lake. I did it back in 2011 and put it in my calendar to go back. I jogged a 2:44 back then. Would be an all out effort now!
(Picture: Fukuoka Marathon starts and end on a track.)
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