August 24th-30th Training

Monday: 5.4 miles (7:41); 3.7 miles (8:21); 5.7 miles (7:20)

Tuesday: 11 miles (6:49); 6 miles (7:39)

Wednesday: 10.4 miles (6:43); 6.7 miles with 8xhill blasts (7:21). Finally starting to feel strong on these.

Thursday: 13.7 miles with 6x2k with 2:00 jog.  The plan was to start just under 6:15 and work down to 5:55ish.  With the temperature in the low 60s and the dew point in the 50s, I was looking forward to this.  I ended up running: 6:12, 6:06, 6:02, 6:00, 5:51, 5:49. The first one was the hardest because I have to run track work really early in the morning and it takes me a while to loosen up. After that, I felt better and better and I decided to run in the 5:50 range for the last two, which felt pretty smooth. I may have run a couple of seconds faster but theirs always football benches in lane one of each straightaway and on the last two intervals, the high school cheerleading team with their rap playing ipods were taking up lane one and two. Good workout session and finally had a chance to see my "real" fitness by running in good weather; 5.8 miles (7:41)

Friday: 10.3 miles (7:18); 1.5 miles (8:13); 4.6 miles (7:31); 126.3 miles in seven days...biggest seven day period in a long time.

Saturday: 6.1 miles (7:29); 5.7 miles with 10x100m relaxed (7:22)

Sunday: 24 mile mixed pace run. The plan called for a nine mile warm-up, 4 miles of 60s on/off at 5:15-5:20 overall average, 6 miles at 5:10, 1 mile jog, 3 miles at 5:00, 1 mile jog.  Needless to say, I was really intimidated by this one.  With the weather at 71 and a 67 dew point, I would be happy to get within five seconds of the correct pace.

I ran the first nine with Spencer at a relaxed 6:44 average.  I didn't do any strides before the fartlek and it took me almost 45s to get under 5:20 pace on the first minute interval.  But I got rolling pretty quickly after that and was around 5:10 average.  I decided to put on the brakes on the jog and keep the intensity high to get in better quality and burn through more carbs and by the end, I slowed down to a 5:17 average.

I ran my six miles on the track and since I had to run in lane two on the straights, I figured the zig-zagging would result in the four laps making up the extra 9.3 meters, so I called it a mile.  First 2-3 miles were really easy and then it felt like my legs were sinking into the track despite the slower pace, which usually only happens in those extensive marathon workouts. Anyway, averaged 5:11 on that and was dreading the three mile.  But the three mile felt better than expected and I averaged 5:03 on that part.  Great workout overall and with the humidity, this was easily one of my most impressive marathon workouts.

Week Total: 120.6 miles. Four solid weeks in a row, with this last one being my biggest and most impressive one yet.  While I felt like a zombie two weeks ago, I'm now starting to adapt to my workouts and am becoming more marathon fit.  I'm also starting to get my marathoner's mindset. While a few weeks ago, I mentally struggled with the patience and volume of the long workouts, now they are not am issue and I'm able to stay focused on each individual interval.

This next week is a down week, which is good timing because I've put in a lot of heavy work and have the New Haven 20k on Labor Day.