Second Wind

Rest.

When I checked the temperature outside this morning, I thought 54 degrees would be pretty nice.  Then I stepped outside and felt the wind chill and had to step back in and grab a sweat shirt.  The wind ended up being in our faces a few times this morning and it made running a bit more difficult.  Kept the pace pretty easy today as Met is still recovering from a cold.  Picked up the pace a little the last couple of miles after Meg ended at 6.  I have been studying the schedules in the Advanced Marathoning book by Pete Pfitzinger and have been thinking about using the 18 week 70 mile schedule to train for my next marathon which will either be Ogden in May or SGM.  The first week of the schedule starts out just over 50 miles and contains some midweek runs of 11-16 miles which could prove to be difficult to complete given my work schedule.  In order to complete these runs I will have to get up about 30 minutes early than usual........or just run a lot faster.

Time: 8:41/mile

A.M.  Decided to take a much needed rest today to let some nagging pains have a break.  Will hopefully resume tomorrow.

P.M.  Well so much for the rest.  Took my daughter to softball practice where I would be sitting around for an hour and a half with nothing to do so decided to go running.  The ball fields are located on the far west side of Vegas and the area is quite hilly.  I have this fear or dislike of running hill, especially up, because it is so much work.  Well I started off my first mile exploring the area to see if I could find some level ground to run on but it just wasn't happening.  I decided to run loops around the softball complex which included a nice downhill, a long stretch of farily level ground and about a half mile uphill section.  the loop was 1.6 miles so I ran it 4 times after logging my first mile and then added a littl bit more at the end.  I was very surprised to see that my mile splits were in the low eights even though I really dislike hills.  Running uphill seamed to come easier this evening for whatever reason.  I don't run hill very often so maybe it was just a result of my improving fitness or maybe it was just one of those days.  The evening whether was pretty nice with mild temps and only a slight breeze which happened to be a headwind on the uphill section.  Glad I got the miles in today after all.

Time:  8:16/mile

Wasn't sure if I was going to be able to run this morning based on last nights run.  When I got up I felt pretty good with only a little residual fatigue from last night.  I decided to go out and run this as a slow recovery run and just take it easy.  As it turns out it ended up being a regular aerobic run at my usual 8:30ish pace.  The effort seemed a bit faster than the actual time probably due to the fatigue from the night before.  Wheather was the same with the temp around 57 and little to no wind, nearly perfect.  Sure beats the dog days of summer here in Vegas.

Time:  8:36/mile

Was up later than normal last night at Jamie's softball game which started 40 minutes late due to the umpire for the previous game showing up late.  I'm not sure why they don't make adjustments in situation like that considering this is a school night, because we didn't leave the park until 9:45 and we were in bed by about 10:20.  Just a little bit late for a 9 year old in my humble opinion.  They did end up winning, 13-7!!  Jamie had a walk, and a fielders choice hit with an RBI.  Anyway, I still managed to get up and get going this morning even though I was about 10 minutes late getting started.  Wanted to go 8 miles today, then considered 6 during the run, settled on 7 because I was able to pick up the pace and get done at a reasonable hour.  For some reason the effort today didn't seem very hard for the pace.  I guess the fatigue from Tuesday nights hill run had worn off and I was able to pick it up.  Maybe it was the fact that I was in a hurry to log the miles and get done at a decent hour.  Whatever the reason, things went well this morning and the faster pace felt pretty good, not easy, but comfortable, could have kept going at that pace for a while.  Weather was a tad warmer today at 63 and breeze was fairly light.

Time:  7:53/mile

A bit of a recovery run today due to yesterdays semi-fast run.  Left knee was hurting a little for the first 2 or 3 miles and then didn't notice it again for the rest of the run.  Decided to pick up the pace for the last mile and see what I could do and ran a 6:45.  Not where I would hope to be but not bad.  Coming up on the end of another 50 mile week this will make two in a row.  I don't know that I will increase the mileage much for the next couple of months as I will let my body adapt to going this distance on a regular basis.  Hopefully the body will allow me to continue to do this so I can eventually reach my goal of doing a 70 mile week next year sometime.  The weather was perfect again today with temp around 59 and no wind.

Time:  8:24/mile

What a perfect day for a run.  Weather has been great these last couple of weeks.  Decided to run today a Pfitzinger describes the long run and go at 20% slower than marathon pace for the first half and 10% slower for the second half.  For me that is 9:00/mile and 8:15/mile.  Ran with Meg for the first half of the run and since she was only doing 10 and didn't want to go at the faster pace she dropped of and I picked up the pace to 8:00-8:15/mile for the last 7.5 miles.  Felt pretty good throughout the run and didn't have much problem maintaining the faster pace.  Legs did begin to tire and cramp a little at about mile 12-13 but was able to shorten my stride a little and hold the pace.  It's been a long week with a lot of miles for me.  This week is again a personal high for me at 52 miles for the week.  I think I will cut back the mileage by 5 or 6 miles next week just to take a slight recovery before trying to increase again.  Meg and I signed up for the new Snow Canyon half marathon on November 17 and we are excited to be racing again so soon.  Having a race on the horizon is always good motivation to keep you training hard.

Time:  8:31/mile