16 miles...

On Saturday I ran my first 16 miler of the year.  16 miles.  At this stage in the year with the Riverbank approaching I should be peaking at around16 miles, but I have a completely different plan for the season.  I am not really training to run the Riverbank run in May,  I am 100 % focused on building my endurance so that I can run the Chicago Marathon in October.  October may seem many moons away, but here is how I plan on pulling off my maiden voyage into Chicago.
Currently, I am running a modified version of my marathon plan for this 25k.  I am peaking at 50 -60 miles around May 1st and then using the base that I have built to carry me into the summer training cycle. My tempo pace is a little bit faster than it will be in July, but all in all its the same plan.  My plan for Chicago is to peak somewhere around 75 -80 miles in September.  For the month of June I am most likely to linger around 40 miles per week and start my build up at the beginning of July.  My speed work has been great and I am sure with the added endurance and hill training I will have no problem running RB at a strong pace.  I would love to use RB as a corral qualifying race, but my focus and attention has to be on building up my strength.  My problem historically has been not having a strong enough base.  Yesterday, I blew through the first 6 miles of my 16 in 44 minutes.  I took it easy for 3 and then ran another 3 miles at my steady state pace..  I died on the last 3-4 miles.  This is on a 16 mile run.  I can not even begin to understand how I am going to make myself strong enough to cover the entire 26.2 miles at 3:19 pace.  I am ready to work all year long to figure this one out.   I still have an 18 mile, 20 mile, 16,  and 22 mile long run in the works between now and May 12th, and I am excited to see how these runs help me build my endurance.  The nice thing about doing this cycle for riverbank is that I can adjust my plan for the marathon if I find that I am not getting what I need from it.  I can not wait to run that 22 mile training run in September and feel like a strong ass running machine.
I am going to return to the treadmill a little bit this week for some of my easy runs so I can avoid a little stress and strain on my body.  This week is a 75% week, which puts me at 37 miles for the week with 3x2 mile @ mp  and a 5k or a 10k time trial at the end of the week.  No long run this week so I have to put in a lot of easy mileage to meet my quota..   Exciting stuff. 
On another side of my training I am starting to really focus my attention on my nutrition and have been feeling that this might just be the most important piece to my marathoning success.  I have been working really hard to keep myself hydrated throughout the day and while running, eat a giant salad for dinner, lots of lean protein for my muscles and a carb rich afternoon lunch.  I have been supplementing my diet with a muscle milk shake.
I am carefully watching my weight, and am still working on getting myself down to a healthy 150-152 pounds as a racing weight.  Today is a day off, and I am fine with peaking at 47 miles this early in the training cycle.