7/31

12.6 for me tonight (12.9 according to Strava, but since I went with Strava once last week for the extra .3 I won't take it this time!). Legs were still pretty tired after Saturday and I was not in danger of running too fast. :-)Nailed my (aerobic) goal pace but it didn't feel very easy--today should have been a recovery run, but I need to do my 20 on Friday night so I'm having to move some stuff around.

192 for July...not too shabby.

7/29

18 for me with 10 @ MP (9:09). I gotta be honest, I was pretty nervous about this run, to the point that I was feeling sick to my stomach until I actually started the MP miles and they were doable. (Well, by the end my legs were trashed and I wanted to stop.) First 4 were at 10:12/mile and I was so mad because I was using the Garmin virtual pacer to hit 10:30 and I was really worried that the too-fast pace would mess me up later. Next 10 were bang on at 9:09, even though the splits were a little ragged individually (9:05, 9:17, 8:55, 9:15, 9:08, 9:10, 9:37 (stopped to stretch my calf), 9:05, 9:10, 8:52). I mostly did a good job routing this around flattish or gently rolling stuff, but at 8.5 in to the 10 at MP (12.5 overall) I ran up a 5% grade from the river bottoms up to campus and it was not pretty. Totally talked myself into pushing it the last mile so that I could hit the MP overall and then I walked for about 3 minutes and ate my granola bar, so the next mile (15) was pretty slow at 11:46 and then I ran semi-normally again and averaged 10:35 for those last 4 miles, including the walking one.

Overall I'm happy with how this run went--I think that the 4-hr marathon is POSSIBLE but it may be a stretch, based on today and how tired my legs were by the end. But I also ran 3 double-digit runs this week, and I haven't even run 2 yet this cycle, so this week was a big jump up for me!

50.3 miles this week and 179.4 for July so far.

7/28

7/28:

Aerobic-paced 7 with 8 x 100 meter strides this morning with the jogging stroller and baby Meb. SO HOT AND HUMID already!!! Hard to believe it's supposed to be 52 when I start tomorrow.

7/27: my birthday! SRD and took a nap. :-)

7/26: 10.3 miles @ 9:44. Same route as Monday. 

7/25

10 really fabulous miles last night--it was a beautiful evening and the miles felt effortless. 9:57 overall (one slow mile at 10:30 on the 1.2-long uphill and then the last 3 miles were about 9:40).

5 recovery today--I think I'm going to switch over to the Pfitz 18/55 plan I used for my last marathon. I'm a little behind since I should be doing the first 20 this week, but I think I've worked it out so it will be okay and still give me time for 3 20s and recovery between each.

7/21

7 every day for the last 3 days; skipped my rest day as we're booked this weekend and I won't have time to run. 40 miles this week for a cutback week (just realized I forgot to post last Saturday when I ran 15 and ended at 45 for the week).

129.1 for July so far.

7/18

Easy 7 today.

7/17

12 for me tonight on the bike paths--didn't really plan on that many but it was a good night for running & I figured I could get my cutback week LR in since I'll be traveling Saturday morning. I was worried that my legs would be dead with back-to-back LRs but I felt surprisingly good and actually ran about 15 seconds/mile too fast (I did pretty well for the first 6 but once it got dark and I couldn't see my pace anymore I ended up accidentally negative splitting it).

7/14

7 miles at 9:40 on the TM

7/12

8 yesterday, 7 easy today. I'm pretty tired.

7/10

8 TM miles at 9:43. Good run.

7/8

Beautiful beautiful 14.1 this morning...I love these runs where I feel so good! Pretty decent weather until mile 10 or so when the heat hit. 4 miles through the woods, which helped bring my pace down closer to where it needs to be...should have been running a 10:30 average and managed to hit a 10:16, so better than I did earlier this week. (Woods miles are always slow.) 44.1/week

7/7

Oops, not doing so hot on posting this week.

In Michigan for Monday & Tuesday's runs--ran 8 miles both days and got some good hills in. 9:21/mile Monday and 9:48/mile Tuesday. Both runs felt great. Easy 7 late Wednesday night on the TM, Thursday was a rest day, and today was a good-effort sub-10 7 miles on the TM. Always feels harder on the TM than outside so I am just mentally not worrying about hitting the same paces as long as the effort feels the same.