3rd week recap

This week my mileage pushed upwards of 76+ miles. This included an 8 mile tempo run on Tuesday, a mid-week long run of 14 miles on Thursday and a 22 mile effort on Sunday(today).

My 8 tempo run felt the same as the one last week but the difference showed up in the splits. After a mile warm up, I shifted each mile in to a progressively higher gear. I was able to drop the last mile in 6:21 over a rolling hill course on a rather warm and muggy morning.

Thursday morning, I caught the group running out of the Dowd Y for 9 of my 14 miles. The miles felt brisk but bearable. We ran this long loop that finished with us returning along McDowall and Morehead back to the Y. David, who was finishing up this own 14 miler, hung with me for another mile. Then, I was solo for the last 4 miles. I loved the assist. They made the first 9 miles fly by quickly.

Fast forward to this weekend, my training schedule had my long run on Saturday and an easy run on Sunday. Luckily for me, I switched them around.

Sunday, I left my house with the sun just breaking over the horizon off to the east. While in the west, far too many ominous looking clouds were headed my way. May be 4 miles, a steady rain began to beat down on me. This lasted through about 8 miles when it stopped. I half expected the clouds to clear out and the temperature to rise quickly, but they never did.

Most of the run I felt like I was struggling. Then, with 3 miles left, I started just pushing the pace. Kicked in a nice 6 something mile for mile 22 which was a nice sight to see in my Garmin.

This places me 3 weeks into my marathon training plan, and I have just another 4 week of training before Lehigh.  I feel like I have way more work to get ready than I have time to do it.

 

Sharing one thought at time,

The Cool Down Runner