My mileage continued to increase this week, but I’ve been feeling pretty good. My legs are in a constant state of fatigue, but they’re holding up. It seems like my calves have been feeling rough since training picked up about three weeks ago. This past week I started putting a focus on lots of stretching, foam rolling, and icing after every run and it seems to be helping.

Oh yea, and I’m halfway through training now. Eeeek!

Monday- Easy 5 miles with Sven (the treadmill). My calves were a bit sore but overall I felt pretty good. I enjoyed watching the first half of the Blind Side while I ran. Football season is finally here (almost)!

Tuesday- 6 mile track workout. This week my intervals continued to increase and I had 5 x 1,000 meters with 400m recovery on tap. I felt really strong during this workout and it was a big confidence booster for me. I’d say this was my best track workout so far during training.

It was in the mid-70’s outside and rained on an off, with steady rain during the last half of my workout. The gnats were really bad and I had them all over my face, arms, and chest. It was disgusting! I kept getting them in my eyes, too, which really sucks.

I completely forgot to check what I was actually supposed to run my intervals at before I left the house (oops!). So instead I just ran them at the same pace all the others have been at. For 1,000 meters that equated to 5:37. My splits were: 5:34 / 5:35 / 5:36 / 5:32 / 5:29. When I got home I found out I was actually supposed to run them at 5:30. But the good news is I was usually backing off right at the end of the interval to come in above 5:30, so I feel alright about that.

Wednesday- Rest day. My kingdom for a rest day!

Thursday- 8 mile tempo run, 10 miles total with the warm up and cool down. This week I jumped from 5 miles to 8 miles for my tempo run. There were a lot of strong storms moving through the area, so I ended up doing this run on the treadmill. Hopefully next week I can do my tempo run outside. There were a few times where our power flickered and the treadmill would kind of stall and then start up again. Luckily I was able to get my run in with no catastrophes. My middle 8 miles were right on marathon pace, which is not surprising since all I had to do was set the speed on the treadmill and run.

Friday- Easy 6 mile run. Once again I ended up on the treadmill (lots of treadmill this week). When I got home from work I was tired and just didn’t feel like running outside. To be honest I didn’t feel like running at all, but I got it done. The treadmill has become very convenient for my occasional introvert tendencies.

Saturday- I decided to take it easy in the morning and sleep in, because my body was really tired. I had a low key morning with the dogs while doing some stuff around the house. Around midday I headed up to do my easy 5 miler on the Huckleberry Trail (about 40 minutes away) because I had other errands to do in the area afterwards.

I had a decent, leisurely run. It’s not hard to hold myself back to my easy pace when my legs are already tired 🙂

Sunday- 15 mile long run on the Dora and New River Trails. Kim joined me for the first 3.5 miles, and then I was on my own from there. I had a pretty good morning for a long run – mid-60’s. It was 100% humidity outside, but it didn’t feel that bad initially.

I was feeling pretty good initially, but then I hit a rough patch shortly after 3.5 miles through 5 miles. I actually stopped when I got to 5 miles and stretched briefly and took some fuel. With my head on straight I continued down the trail to my turn around point (7.5 miles). My turn around point was just a bit after the Draper junction. It’s pretty neat when you run to another town as part of your long run 🙂

I stayed pretty strong from miles 7.5 through 13, but after that hit another rough patch for the final two miles. I fell off my pace a bit but I never stopped or walked, which took a lot of willpower. Overall I finished with an average pace about 10 seconds slower than what my goal long run pace is. But I’m not beating myself up too much. It was a high mileage week (a new personal mileage record, in fact) and I have plenty of long runs ahead of me to nail my pace.

In the evening we celebrated Scout’s second birthday with some puppy ice cream!

Total Miles: 47 miles