Sept 15th - 21st

Another great week of training that was even better than last week. My body is taking the mileage fine which I was a little suprised about right away with the shaky month of August I had, but the more I thought about it, it made sense. I realized that it wasn't that much of a jump in mileage from the stuff that I had been doing on a regular basis for the later part of the summer. I added a couple of runs and made sure that I was getting everything in. Also I started running a little slower than normal and have been feeling great. Here is the breakdown:

9/15 11 miles 1:16:45 HR 141
Nice easy day

9/16 11 miles 1:12:55 HR 161
Great workout today and here it is:
3+ miles warmup (22:40)
3 x 1mile (5:14|(170), 5:08|(180),5:03|(175))
5 mile cooldown (36:00)

Well I tried this workout last week and granted it was only a couple of days after the 1/2 marathon this workout was worlds of difference. I thought that this was going to be a pretty good week right after this workout and I was right. I could have done one or two more of these repeats, probably not any faster but probably around 5:10. I figured that I didn't want to push it to much just because I had no clue how I would react to it.

9/17 AM 4 miles 32:40 HR 156
PM 9 miles 1:02:40 HR 162 ( so many anomalies in this run with the HR??)

9/18 11 miles 1:17:00
Easy

9/19 AM 4 miles (29:35) HR 163
PM 10 miles (1:10:00) UND CC meet today ran before and then during the meet and ran home.

9/20 10 miles 1:02:48 HR 173
Well I got about 4 hours of sleep last night and then worked all day. I got home at 6 PM and took an hour nap and then headed out on my run. Work really put a damper on my plan today so I cut my run short as I was planning on going long. I wanted to go about 14 miles with the last 5 at about 10 mile pace 5:30. I got three miles in and decided to push the last five miles
and see what happens. I ran 35:30 through 5 miles and then picked it up and here is how it went:
5:41 | (195?)
5:37 | (201?)
5:22 | (194?)
5:17 | (182?)
5:15 | (181?)

5 miles 27:12

Pretty good run for being completely dark outside. I did wear my flats so that helped with the time a bit but I think the darkness was a way bigger factor. The only time I ever looked at my watch was when I beeped at the miles just to see what the pace was. Well if I would have hit it a little bit harder at the beginning and not run it at night and what ever other factors you want to put into this to make it seem not as optimal for running I figured I could have run close to 26:30. I felt really good when I finished and could have made it another mile no problem which would have put me right around 33:30 for 10k which woud have been fine by me. Overall it was a great day and a great party afterwards.

9/21 11 miles (1:16:20)
Easy hangover run. It was hot out and I was dehydrated quite a bit. I stopped for water 4 times on the run.

Week total 81 miles.
MTD 215

Overall it was a great week of running and I never felt all that tired. I really enjoyed the morning runs this week as they really got me going in the morning and I usually felt pretty good for the afternoon runs. I'm going to drop down a bit for the next two weeks to taper for TC 10 mile. If I don't run better than I did last year I may quit running. Seriously, if I don't I am running for another 1.5 years just to do Boston in 2010 and then I am done. This probably won't happen but it tis ny initial thought. A couple of morning runs this week and probably no mre than 70 miles this week and 60-65 the week after before the big race. Not sure on what is going to happen after twin cities but I might try and get in a couple more races this season.

Red River Run 15k
Halloween 5k (Maybe)
Veteren's Day 8k

Those would be the only races I do until at least late January. I will probably try and get a couple of mile/3k/5k races indoor this season and maybe a 5k/10k outdoor as well. I am working out the details for my marathon debut but I got some ideas of when and where it is going to be...