Another 80 mile week in the bag.  Taking a look back at the last month, my training would seem pretty flat with week after week of 80 miles.  I have really been modulating it quite a bit, though – with lots of micro cycles of bigger or more intense efforts mixed in with very easy days or even complete days off.  I got all of my mileage this week with two complete days off.  Exact same mileage as last week, 3 minutes longer.  Hopefully this will cause enough of the right kind of stress on my body to get it to respond and compensate during the easy times.

My 100 mile race is 12 days away.  Hard to believe it’s here and I will be lining up for one of those things again.  I would like another month’s worth of training behind me, but I feel about as ready as I can be at this point.  I’ve gotten 7 runs of over 20 miles in over the past 5 weeks as well as a couple more days with 20 total split over two runs.  I’m looking forward to a good long run and seeing a bunch of old and new friends.

Nothing really set this week, will probably shoot for 50-60 miles with one hard effort and one medium length run.

Monday
10.4 miles
New Balance Minimus Trail

Felt pretty good coming off the 23 on Saturday. Got after it a little on some small hills.

Monday
5.6 miles
Saucony Fastwitch

Night run around the neighborhood.

Tuesday
13.3 miles
Saucony Kinvara

This was an interesting experiment. I wanted to do a fairly hard 13 just like last Tuesday, but knew I’m a little compromised fatigue-wise from the load I’ve been carrying for a few weeks now.

I pushed up into the higher tempo zone right from the start and felt about like I expected. Not too zippy, but able to do the work.

I knew it would be tough, but I at least wanted to match last week’s time.

Things went alright until about mile 8. Then I started having an overwhelming feeling to just stop in my tracks. This is where the experiment comes in. I wanted to see how long I could stay in this state of maintaining pace when everything was saying stop. How much power does the brain have over the body?

I was trying all kinds of mental tricks, telling myself – do not quit – just keep going – almost done – etc. It’s not like I was even going all that fast, but I was beat-down tired. My form sucked, my legs felt like lead.

I cracked badly at mile 10. Stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Regrouped, then shuffled the last 3 miles.

Sometimes I think it’s good to go deep like this. It seems to get down under the first layer of muscle that is always used to doing the work and forces the more dormant ones to pick up some of the slack.

Wednesday
3 miles
Nike Free

Easy AM treadmill.

Wednesday
6.6 miles
Mizuno Ronin

Easy jog after work.

Thursday

OFF

Friday
21 miles
Saucony Kinvara

Long run home after work. Only needed the headlamp for the final mile. Took it pretty easy as I am getting up at 4:30 in the morning to run back.

Saturday
21 miles
Saucony Kinvara

Same routine as two weeks ago. I have to do some weekend work, so I planned ahead and ran home Friday night leaving my car and supplies at work so I could turn around and run back in Saturday morning. I got an early start, and other than my cranky heels, felt really good. I cruised back at a comfortable 8:42 pace and made it with plenty of time to spare for my 9:00 scheduled start. I did both of these runs with a fully loaded hydration pack, and really enjoyed keeping my phone in the chest pocket and letting Pandora play through the speaker. Much better than earbuds.

Sunday

OFF

Total: 80.9 miles / 12:06 / 816 TSS

Pic of the week:

Sold one of the herd this week.  Raising some cash for a camera purchase.  Gonna miss this one, it was a really good bike.