I’m not superstitious, but for unlucky week #13 of training, things went pretty well. I had a solid week of training and my long run went really well. That doesn’t mean I was running on clouds all week and my runs were without effort, because there were some tough moments during each of them. But I finished this week with a new personal distance record and a new weekly mileage record. And I’m not even that sore!

Monday- Solid 7 mile track workout, in the form of 7 x 800. I dropped my Yasso 800s goal time down to 4:25 and was able to meet my goal on each interval: 4:23/4:25/4:22/4:22/4:20/4:18/4:09. I was really happy with how this workout went, and finished feeling accomplished and strong. I love that feeling you get from a well-executed track workout. It also felt great to be outside breathing fresh air after that morning’s skunk incident.

Tuesday- Rest.

Wednesday- 7 miles with 4 at marathon pace. My legs were feeling really tired, so I used that opportunity to pretend I was in the later miles of my marathon and practice pushing through. I had a tough time hitting my 10:18/mile marathon pace goal, but I did get in some good practice mentally dealing with tired legs. My marathon pace miles came in at: 10:21, 11:01 (no idea what happened there), 10:43, 10:04.

Thursday- 7 miles at Bisset Park in Radford. I decided to move my Friday run to Thursday to give me a rest day before Saturday’s long run/10 mile race. The first mile I was feeling as rough as I did on Wednesday, but then I started feeling a lot better and ended up having a pretty good run.

Friday- Rest.

Saturday- 16 mile long run, a new personal distance record! Barry and I traveled to the Lynchburg area for the weekend and ran the Virginia 10 miler. We tacked on 6 pre-race miles for a total of 16. This was the furthest I have ever run, and probably one of the hilliest runs I have ever done (hello “hill city!”).

Total elevation gain: 2,189 feet

Overall I had a great day and a solid long run. It was much needed after last week’s less-than-solid 11 miler. I still had a smile on my face at the end, which says it all.

Holding up 6 fingers for 16 miles.

Sunday- Rest.

Total miles: 37 (new weekly mileage record)

This week’s schedule:
Monday: 7 miles
Tuesday: rest/XT
Wednesday: 7 miles w/ 4 @ MP
Thursday: rest
Friday: 7 miles
Saturday: 18 miles
Sunday: rest