This is my Indianapolis Monumental Marathon training week 4 recap covering every run from August 3–10, 2026. Marathon training week 4 brought 27 miles, a speed workout I was accidentally running too slow, a Saturday easy run with bad calf pain and porta-loo stops, and a brutal Sunday 12-miler with half marathon pace pickups that left my quads wrecked and my torso chafed raw from my running vest. Summer marathon training is something else.
Week of August 3, 2026 · 4 runs · 27 miles, a speed workout I was running too slow, a brutal 12-miler, and the worst chafing of my running career
The trail. It has seen things this week. 🌿
Deload week is officially a memory. Week 4 brought 27 miles, a speed workout I was accidentally running at the wrong pace the entire time, a Saturday with calf pain and porta-loo stops, and a Sunday 12-miler that left my quads destroyed and my torso chafed in a way I would not wish on anyone. Summer marathon training continues to be an experience.
There are people who say running never gets easier, you just get stronger. I have been running consistently for about three years now and I think about that a lot. Most of my runs are still hard. I have maybe one or two genuinely good ones in a given week. The rest require convincing. It is what it is, and somehow that makes the good ones feel more earned.
Indy Monumental Marathon Training Week 4: The Runs
| Day | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday, August 5 | 5 Miles Easy | Hot again, but heart rate is trending down — heat training is working 📉 |
| Wednesday, August 6 | Strength Training | 20 min stair master, leg extensions, seated leg curls, weighted calf raises 💪 | Thursday, August 7 | Speed Work — 10K Pace | Felt too easy — turns out I had my 10K pace wrong the whole time 😅 |
| Saturday, August 9 | 5 Miles Easy | Bad calf pain to start, porta-loo stops, but got through it 💪 |
| Sunday, August 10 | 12 Miles with HM Pace Pickups | Brutal heat, quad destruction, and the worst chafing of my life 🔥 |
Tuesday: 5 Miles Easy
Another hot Tuesday, another easy run that required more effort than easy runs should. But something is different lately — and my Garmin data backs it up. My heart rate has been trending down on runs that used to push it much higher. The heat training is doing something. My body is adapting even when it does not feel like it out there.
I am genuinely curious to see what happens when fall arrives and the temperatures drop. If my heart rate is already lower in the heat than it was a month ago, running in 50 degree weather should feel like a completely different sport. That thought is carrying me through a lot of these summer miles right now.
Post-run coffee. A non-negotiable. ☕
Wednesday: Strength Training
One win from this week worth mentioning — I actually got a strength session in. Twenty minutes on the stair master followed by leg extensions, seated leg curls, and weighted isolated calf raises on the machine. Given that I have been saying for weeks that I need to be more consistent with strength work, finally doing it felt like progress. The calf raises specifically are something I need to be doing regularly given the Achilles situation, so getting them in was a step in the right direction.Thursday: Speed Work (At the Wrong Pace)
The structure of Thursday’s workout was a 15 minute easy warm up, four rounds of five minutes at 10K pace with two minutes of recovery between each, and a 15 minute cool down to finish. It felt manageable — maybe a little too manageable — and I filed that away as a good sign and moved on.
A few days later, while reviewing my pace goals for each type of run, I figured out why. I had my 10K pace completely wrong. I had been operating under the assumption that 10K pace is 30 seconds slower than half marathon pace. It is actually 30 seconds faster. So the entire workout I was running a full minute per mile slower than I should have been. No wonder it felt easy. I was essentially running an easy run with a speed workout label on it.
There is not much to do about it except fix it going forward, which is what we will do. Next time this workout comes around it is going to feel very different.
Saturday: 5 Miles Easy
Saturday started rough. The calf pain was back in full force from the first step, which is frustrating at this point in the training block. I also had to make multiple stops at porta-loos along the route, which is never how you picture your easy runs going. The first two miles were a grind.
And then, somewhere around mile two, things shifted. The calf loosened up, the stomach settled, and the run became something closer to what it was supposed to be. That happens more often than I expected when I started running — the first couple miles feel like the worst thing in the world and then the body just decides it is ready. It does not always happen, but when it does it is a good reminder to not make any decisions about how a run is going until at least mile two.
Sunday: 12 Miles with Half Marathon Pace Pickups
Sunday was a lot. The structure was four miles easy, two miles at half marathon pace, one mile easy, two more miles at half marathon pace, and three miles easy to close it out. Twelve miles total with pace work buried in the middle of an already long run in the heat.
Those pace pickups within a long run are there for a specific reason — they teach your body to run fast while already fatigued, which is exactly what the later miles of a race demand. They build the kind of durability that does not come from easy miles alone. That context does not make them any less brutal when you are sweating through mile eight and your legs are asking serious questions about your decision-making.
By the final miles my quads were on fire. Two days later as I am writing this they are still angry. I have been doing magnesium soaks which have helped more than I expected — highly recommend if sore muscles after long runs are a recurring issue for you.
The quad pain was bad enough. But the worst part of Sunday was the chafing. My running vest rubbed my entire torso raw over twelve miles. I have a thick, painful burn all the way around my midsection — it genuinely looks like I was burned. I knew chafing was a thing. I did not fully appreciate how bad it could get until now.
The fix is simple and I should have done it already: anti-chafe stick before any long run where I am wearing the vest. I use one on my thighs regularly and it works well. I just never thought to apply it to my torso. That oversight will not happen again.
Honest Check-In
Week 4 was hard in the ways that matter and educational in others. The heart rate data trending down is genuinely encouraging — the adaptation is happening even when the runs feel terrible. The 10K pace mix-up is corrected and will not happen again. The calf and Achilles are still something to keep an eye on, but I did get a strength session in this week — stair master, leg extensions, seated leg curls, and weighted calf raises — which is exactly the kind of work that should help if I stay consistent with it. And I now own the lesson about anti-chafe stick the hard way.
Good food helps. Post-run eggs on homemade sourdough is a recovery meal I can get behind.
Post-run recovery done right. 🍳
You can follow along with the full journey on my Training & Progress page.
- Plan is custom week to week — check back Sunday for the full recap
- 10K pace corrected — speed work will look different next time
- Anti-chafe stick is now a required part of the pre-long-run routine
