July 20th-26th Training

Monday: 7.3 miles (7:07). Only ran once because I had an early flight from Chicago.

Tuesday: 10.7 miles (6:22); 5.4 miles (6:50)

Wednesday: 11.3 miles with 12x600m with 1:00 jog rest. Goal was to start at 1:45-1:48 and see how I felt.  Lately, I've been struggling with worrying about the total number of intervals, rather than breaking it into small pieces, which I used to do in the more glory-filled days.  So the goal was to focus on three sets of four. Went out in 1:46, 1:45, 1:45 and it felt really easy so I ran the rest in 1:42-1:44.  It felt pretty smooth through 10, then the last two got a little bit tough, so 12 was the perfect number.  Had to start at 5am and it was still 75 degrees with a 73 dew point.  I'm over summer; 6.9 miles (7:22)

Thursday: 7.3 miles (7:23); 4 miles (8:13); 6.3 miles (6:50)

Friday: 9.4 miles (6:36); 5.5 miles (7:07)

Saturday: 10 miles with four mile tempo in 19:38.  Jumped into the Goodlettsville Classic with hopes of running just under 20:00 as a tempo.  There were a couple of decent high schoolers in the race, so I hoped they would take me out for the first mile but no one wanted to lead. Ran the first mile in 5:01 with a decent lead and then went: 4:48, 4:54 and 4:55. Felt smooth and controlled and I feel like I could have run close to 19:00 if I hammered from the gun.  Good confidence booster after a Chicago bomb; 5.6 miles (7:15)

Sunday: 14.5 miles (6:33). Was going for 20 but the heat got me again.  I made the mistake of waiting until 7:30 to start, and after finishing my 9.4 mile loop, it was already really hot and humid. Once I hit 11 miles, I could tell I would do if I tried 20, so I modified the course and struggled the last two miles. I will start doing my long runs by 6am since finishing a little after 8:00 is much better than 9:30.

Week Total: 104.2 miles. Decent week after struggling in Chicago.  It shows my fitness is there, I just need to be more patient and have more mental focus for the longer stuff.  Since I'll be shifting to longer intervals and more marathon-type stuff soon, I should be able to improve on that.  I have a few more weeks until my first race, so I should be able to get in some solid training to wrap up the summer break.