Last week

My training log for last week was pretty ridiculous.

Monday - 8 mile recovery run in :57

Tuesday - 4.5 Treadmill Progression (5 minutes @ 7:30, 5 @ 7:00, 5 @ 6:30, 5 @ 6:00, 3 @ 5:30. Recovered before last one)

Wednesday - 7 mile recovery run in :51

Thursday - 4 mile warmup @ ~7:15, 4 miles @ 5:42, cooldown

Friday - Mile repeats: 25 min warmup, 3 X Miles (5:46, 5:42, 5:39), cooldown

Saturday - Off

Sunday - 12 miles in 1:27

I had NO idea how much the workouts would take out of me, especially the Thurs/Fri ones. I was hoping to do 4 mile repeats but I honestly just couldn't make myself do it. My legs were so dead and it was extremely difficult to get into any sort of rhythm on any of the miles.

Even with the rest day Saturday my legs still felt completely dead Sunday. No soreness, just a ridiculous lack of energy in them. By mile 10-11 I was having a hard time getting up hills on the trail. Even though I felt completely dead I was still managed to average a 7:19 pace, which I was very surprised to find out about post-run. I felt like I was hitting 9 minute miles on my last loop.

That was definitely the hardest week of running I've had so far and with the race this Saturday I'm trying to makedamnsure I toe the line completely fresh. I'll probably only hit 30 or so miles this week (if that) to be positive of my levels of freshness.

Once this race is over I'm going to start going above 50 miles/week to try and get in shape for some longer races. I still have a 5k scheduled for late April but I'm not going to train specifically for that. I want that to basically end up being a speed workout for that week. I'll taper but not in the sense that I'm tapering for this race. Of course, I say all that now but who knows how I'll feel about it in a month?

My long term running goals for this year are to do at least one half marathon this summer and a marathon later on in the year (Oct-Dec). If I do end up moving to Philadelphia I'd really like to try and get in on the Philly Marathon. All of this depends on so many factors that it's hard to even fathom what kind of shape I'll be in this fall, let alone this summer.

I'm going to start try and incorporating some mountain biking into my training to make sure that I'm not completely 100% running all the time. Duathlons and triathlons are also in the mix, but I'm really not in cycling shape at all. Mountain biking duathlons would be awesome if I could manage to find any or get in the mood for one.

Weather is awesome.