6 weeks until Philly

Planned miles: 33
Actual miles: 35
Planned long run: 15
Actual long run: 12
Accumulated pace for the week: 8:33

Links to key runs: Sunday's 2x2mile tempo rune

After averaging over 40 miles a week for the last month plus, this was a planned recovery week, with the goal of taking it a bit easy on the mileage and pace after the Npt Marathon.  The real goal is to make sure that, coming out of this week, I can increase my mileage to 40-50  miles a week (potentially 50-60 if I'm feeling great) and to run 2 long runs of 18 and 22 with long segments at marathon goal (7:30) pace.  Inside of my plan, I had no track work scheduled, but hopefully a late week tempo run followed by medium length long run of 15-16 miles.

In an effort to try and balance my social/family life with my running life, I tried to hit the 15 mile long run (at an easy 8:30-8:45 pace) Sat AM at 7am (to try and begin lining myself up for the philly 7am start time) and the goal was to do 9 miles through PJP along the water to UMass, and then to do the final 6 through some small hills in Milton.  On my return towards Lower Mills, I really wasn't feeling great at all, and a Power Gel w/ water didn't really help at all, so I decided to shorten the run up to 12 miles by running back and forth on the Neponset bike path/trail for a bit.  Needless to say, I was frustrated when I got home, but I was able to rationalize a few things...it had only been 6 days since Newport, and if I rested and came back for only 6 miles the following day I would hit my mileage goal for the week, with the hope that the abbreviated long run would help in the....well, in the long run.

The real kicker was that all last week, beginning with the Newport Marathon, the weather was PERFECT fall weather for running, but the entire time I was slogging through my runs, struggling to drop below 9 min miles at times.

That said, Saturday turned out to be a really nice day for family activities, filled with apply picking at Lookout Farm in Natick and then date night for the BC-Clemson game, and I'm glad for it since it was good to be up and moving around as much as possible.   Most importantly, I got plenty of good sleep both nights and Sunday AM I was feeling as fresh as I had felt all week.

I decided not to run in the AM to give the legs an extra few hours of relief, and by the early afternoon I had it in my head to try something faster, which for me is anything in the 7s at this point.  An FHR runner had mentioned recently that she runs a split tempo session fairly often, which I tried a few weeks ago by doing laps in PJP park.  I gave it a whirl Sunday afternoon with a 1+ warmup followed by 2x2mi tempo runs, with a 4 min jog in between.  When I ran this a few weeks ago, I was right around 7 min miles for the 4 mile laps of tempo, and this time out I was 6:50, 6:55, 6:47, 6:47...that's really good for me!  So, I came home and when M asked me how it went, I gave her a little waist-high fist-pump and told her it was a good run.  Bonus, the extra couple miles for this run brought me up over my goal for the week.

It was a hard week of running, but it ended well and I feel like I'm very much on track for my training.

Sorry, no race pics to liven up this week's entry.

The plan for the next three weeks is:
5 weeks to go: 42 miles with Yasso 8x800, 2x6mile long run totaling 18 miles, short tempo run. STRETCH GOAL: 50 miles
4 weeks to go: PEAK WEEK 48 miles with Yasso 9x800, 5-4-3-2-1 long run totaling 22 miles, short tempo run.  STRETCH GOAL: 55-60 miles
3 weeks to go: 40 miles with Yasso 10x800, 16 mile long run with final 6 at race pace 7:30, short tempo run. STRETCH GOAL: 45 miles

I'll also treat myself to two massages in this time frame.