August 20th-26th Training

Monday: 8 miles (7:02); 5.6 miles (7:10)

Tuesday: 7.4 miles (6:43); 6.7 miles with a few strides (6:57)

Wednesday: 4.6 miles (6:56); 9.2 miles (6:27) with 4 miles of 2:00 on/off.  My plan was to get in a semi-workout without stressing my body too much.  I haven't had a quality session since Sunday and haven't had any fast running since last Friday, so I wanted something in before Hood to Coast.  My goal was to start a bit faster than half marathon effort and work down to just faster than 10k effort.  Ended up with six "fast" sections and averaged: 5:26, 4:55, 4:55, 4:35, 4:28,  4:40. The first three had some good climbs, and the last three gave me some downhills.  Felt great.

Thursday: 4.8 miles (7:25)

Friday: 4 miles (7:41); 2.4 miles of warming up/short cooldown after my first leg; 6.96 miles (4:56). Weather sign said 72. Warmed up well for this one and got moving a little too quickly, so I caught myself and backed off. Felt really relaxed and ran almost entirely down a greenway. Portions of it were on dirt, and my shoes were causing me to slip some, so I ran on the grass when I could. Backed off a bit the last 1-1.5 miles to save up for legs two and three. After finishing this one, I started feeling sick and feverish, which only became worse throughout the night.

Saturday: 5 miles (4:56) Weather was probably lower 60s. No warm-up at all for this one. The BAC guy had about 1.5-2 minutes on me, so I took off trying to catch him. Caught myself running too hard, so I backed off that third mile. The conditions were terrible for this one. It took place down a gravel road, in the middle of nowhere. Several times throughout the run, there was not a runner or van in sight, which was the equivalent of running through a fog machine, due to all the dirt/dust in the air. I could feel it caking on my teeth and ran off the road a couple of times and did a lot of zig-zagging. Unfortunately, I beat our van by about six minutes, so we lost a lot of time. This could have been a lot faster and it was definitely the easiest feeling leg, but I was limited in my speed due to visibility; 7.72 miles (5:03) Weather was probably lower 50s. Didn't warm-up at all and when I started, all I wanted to do was lay down in a ditch and sleep. I knew if I could run 5:05s that I would average sub 5:00 for my legs, but I figured I'd only be able to run 5:10s on this. After the 5:08, I kept in the groove and wanted to knock out that 5:05. With 1.5 miles to go or so, I started getting some dry heave type pains but it never became too big of an issue. Finished up without killing myself and was glad to be done running. Course has some bigger hills in the beginning but turned into small rolling ones later on. This was the prettiest leg of the day for me, but I was too much of a zombie to appreciate it.

Sunday: No Running.  Went to bed early because I felt really feverish and woke up with a bad headache and threw up a lot.  Later in the afternoon, I started feeling like death with severe chills, stabbing ear pain and a blazing hot forehead.

Week Total= 72.4 miles.  A bit lower than I wanted but that was with a day off and lack or warm-ups/cool-downs during my races.  I'm really happy with my overall average at Hood to Coast.  I was hoping to average around 5:05-5:10, so sub 5:00 is motivating, especially with a beat up immune system.  I feel like I am close to 65:00 half marathon shape (fast course, good weather) but on another note, I feel like I'm still pretty raw right now and haven't done the work to make me really fit yet.  I was hoping to start marathon training this week since there is only eight weeks to go, but this sickness is whooping me.  You need to start something when you are ready, not when the schedule tells you to.