Long runs and walk breaks

Yesterday's 12 mile long run went okay.  Lately, I've been doing all my runs at the SERF on their tiny little .10 mile track.  I used to never have the patience to run more than 4 miles on the track, but with some earphones and streaming Pandora, it's now enjoyable and preferable in fact to the icy, snowy roads through the Arboretum.  Snow, I'm SO over you.

What's also nice about the track at the Serf is that 9.5 laps is a mile, which gives me a nice way to pace through my shorter runs.  A lap a minute makes for 9:30 min/miles.  Looking back on my race results from last year, that's about the pace I ran Black Earth, and roughly the pace for the Madison Mini.  It feels like the right pace for me.  Of course, I have no hopes of actually keeping this pace for the full marathon.  But one can dream. 

Yesterday, I did the first 6 miles at roughly 9:30 min/mile, but the next 6 miles was much more of a struggle and my pace fell by the wayside.  Clearly, I'm still not pacing as well as I need to be for the long runs.  Also starting around mile 6, my big toe and little toe on the left foot was really REALLY bothering me.  I was feeling blisters forming on both, and I start to limp a bit through my run.  I thought about quitting early, but I soldiered on.  Afterward, I examine the foot, and the little toe was actually blister free, but the big toe has a blister/callus.  I think it's still deciding which it wants to be.

I'm supposed to do a 14 mile long run next week, but I'm a bit concerned at this point.  My foot is telling me that I need some recovery time, and my body is starting to feel the fatigue.  But I can't afford at this point to slow the training. So I started reading around online about training plans.  One thing that struck me in particular is Jeff Galloway's style of training for a marathon, i.e. incorporating walk breaks into the long runs and on race day.  He suggests lots of walk breaks early and at a ratio of about 3:1 for a a 10 minute pace.  The theory is that the walk breaks paces you better early in the race/long runs, gives you recovery time during the run and lets you keep to a strong pace at the end.  Some 3:30 marathoners swear by walk breaks.

A ratio of 3 minutes run to 1 minute of walking seems incredibly incredibly slow.  But I don't know.  I might try this for the 14 miler and see how it goes.  Normally, I'd take the week off before a big race, but I don't have the luxury with the marathon, so I need a better and faster way to recover.  I'm thinking that I might not stick to the 3:1 ratio, but do more of a 4:1 ratio.