Training Recap Week 7: Feb 27 - Mar 04

Another very good week of training is in the books. Like last week it featured a contrast in weather (Florida/vacation then back home to New England where I endured two downright messy workouts in snow and rain). It also included new personal mileage records (58 miles for the week, and a single long run of 23 miles)!

M: 3.5mi, 30:36 easy pace, barefoot running on the beach at Lovers Key State Park
(map)
I was thinking about sneaking in the next day's longer, faster workout here. However, there are tons of hard, sharp shells on this beach and it just wasn't going to happen. I had to watch every step and adjust to avoid painful landings. So I took it easy and that was fine by me after logging lots of miles in the previous week including 15 and 8 miles in the prior two days.
 
T: 7.8mi tot: 1.7mi warmup, then 3x {8 min at ~6:30/mi pace, 2min recovery), 1.6mi cooldown
(final workout in Florida, early a.m. before flying home in the afternoon)

W: 11mi in 1:19, lots of miles in the 7:10s and 6:33 final mile - feeling good!

T: 7.2mi in 53:50 easy 7:30/mi pace in some very sloppy conditions with lots of water and some snow accumulated on the ground

F: off

S: 23.25mi in 2:54, 7:30/mi overall in very sloppy weather conditions.
More snow had accumulated overnight and we had some light freezing rain at the beginning of this long run. The plan was to run a 25 mile (yes 25) tempo run at 90 to 95% of goal marathon pace. The route included two 12+ mile loops. I was very well soaked by the time I ran by my house after "lap" 1. I decided to keep going since I really wanted to have another 20+ mile run logged at this point after having only run one several weeks ago. So I soldiered on and got a lot more soaked including getting sprayed with snow by the tires of oncoming motorists - about 4 or 5 times (I practiced some hand gestures and voice work at this point :-). I cut about a mile from the end of the second loop to simply put an end to it. Had some pain in the feet on one of the late downhill sections, and then my leg muscles all wanted to cramp / spasm after I finished running.

S: 6.2mi tot, 4mi race!
The training plan was to run 4 miles easy. My training partner Joe Loureiro had signed up for The Claddagh Pub 4 mile race so I decided to join him and add a little flavor to an otherwise mundane training run. I wondered if my legs would be up for this but I did some stretching between saturday's long run and this day. Well, the legs did just fine - I ran a 6:18 first mile, 6:37 mile 2 that featured quite a hill climb to the mile marker. Then, I used the downhill at the beginning of the 3rd mile to build a fast pace that I ended up holding the rest of the way to the finish line! Miles 3 and 4 were both 6:01/mi!

6:20/mi pace for the race, 14th place overall, and 4th out of 159 runners in my age category! That felt good!