A Lot of Running

Today marks the end of two of the highest mileage weeks I've run and I'm happy to say that I'm still feeling strong.

Last week I ran 62 miles which was a new personal high. In the past I've always felt like I started to break down when I approached the mid-50's, but last week I felt great the whole time. I was very surprised considering it came on the heels of racing the Zilker Relays and running the Nike Human Race 10k pretty hard. The week was capped off with a 20 miler on Sunday that I ran with Travis. We made up a route that included Mt Bonnell, Balcones and Barton Hills and we both felt strong enough to drop down to MGP in the last few miles.

This week was our peak week and Mac had us scheduled for 70, but that included a 5 miler on Friday that I decided I wasn't going to do. Sixty-five miles would be enough with a 24 miler on Saturday. I didn't feel near as good this week as I did last week. My legs started hurting and I was feeling the normal aches and pains that I feel during peak weeks.

Tuesday we did 6 mile repeats at 30secs below MGP. Two were on the track, two were on the trail, and two were on the grass at Zilker. I managed to keep them all below 6:20/mile with a couple at 6:00/mile. At Zilker we ran into a little trouble because some guys playing soccer decided to use Mac's cones for one of their goals. When Mac ran over to take his cones back, this one loser soccer player got mad and started getting in Mac's face about disrupting their game. His argument was that we shouldn't leave cones on the field and if we did, he was going to use them if he wanted to. He couldn't get it through his small little brain that they were not his cones and that they were marking our course.

Saturday was my longest scheduled run of the season. We did 24 starting at Gateway and ending at the Rock. Due to the different distances everyone was running, I did most of this run by myself. I figured it would be a good character builder. I felt pretty strong for about 20 miles and then just had to gut out the last 4. Part of that was heading west up Enfield from Lamar into the strong winds that Ike gave us. I was definitely slower the last 4 miles, but still managed to average 8:04/mile for the whole run. That's just about right where I wanted it.

I sure thought today's 8 miles was going to suck, but I really didn't feel too bad. I was a little tight for 1/2 mile, but ran pretty well for the rest of the time. It was great to finish knowing the worst was behind me and having set a new personal high (65 miles). I've never felt this healthy 3 weeks out from a marathon, so I'm hoping it's a sign of good things to come.