10 weeks to go

After what seems like weeks of beautiful weather, it was pouring at the beginning of the week here. That, combined with laziness and work responsibilities, had me missing running for three days in a row. That meant I had to cram in all my workouts at the end of the week.

Thursday was speed. The schedule called for 2 x 1200m and 4 x 800m. The target pace was 5:23 and 3:31, respectively. I ended up with:

1200 5:07
1200 5:15
800 3:24
800 3:15
800 3:19
800 3:13

Fairly consistent, for me. (As I've said before, I think my target pace should be moved up. I haven't "officially" done that, but maybe I will.)

Friday, I was back out there for my tempo run. I didn't get time until the afternoon, by which time it was pretty hot. The schedule called for 5 miles @ mid-tempo (8:06) pace.



It was weird not having the usual first few easy miles, and you can see it took me a while to get started. Once I did though, I was pretty good. (And still, slightly fast. Ok fine. I'm changing my target paces.)

Sunday was the long run. 20 miles again. (This plan has me scheduled for five of these!) According to my "new" pace targets, this would be at 9:18.

Unfortunately, it didn't really cool off overnight, and at 8:45 in the morning it was approaching 80 degrees already. Fortunately, it didn't get much hotter.


Once again, it took me a few miles to get started. My overall pace was 8:55, but I probably averaged under 8:45 over the last 15 miles. Which explains why my quads are really sore today...

Once again, I can't help but make calculations. Including my bathroom breaks, I ran somewhere between 20.1 and 20.3 miles in 3:02:53. Throw in 6 more 9-minute miles and I've got a 4 hour marathon. Ok to be fair, there was no way I could have kept running for another 6 miles yesterday. But to be fair to me, it should be 20 degrees cooler on race day.

So it's definitely possible. Now, I just have to do it. (Yikes!)