Go slow to go fast.

Easy 11 mile loop around south boulder creek trail with 10 X 10 seconds of hill sprints at the end.  Feeling good.

Wow, up at 5:01 AM this morning because I have a full day and needed to get the run done early.  

Ran 11 miles with 8 X 2 min. fartlek in the middle with the intervals at about 5:45-6:00 pace (half marathon pace effort). 1:28 total time.

Home, showered and out the door by 7:15 for a breakfast meeting with some friends down town.  

Very unlike me to get up that early.  But it felt kind of nice to be so efficient with the time, and I was in bed by 9:30 so I got plenty of sleep.

 Feeling really good.

Easy progression run on tap for the day.

 It dumped snow on us last night, so I opted for the Club with Nan instead of outside since I'm a soft road runner these days.

I liked it.

 We ran the indoor track, which is less monotonous and more enjoyable in my opinion than the treadmill.  I ran 102 laps - 12 miles.  Ran the first 6 with Nan in 45 min (7:30 pace).  I'm so glad she's back up to running every day again, and 6 miles today!  Nice.  Her longest run since before surgery 3 months ago.  

Then I picked up the pace a bit and rand the last 6 miles in 39 min. (6:30 pace).

 I'm really pleased with how easy 6 min. pace feels these days.  It didn't feel like an effort at all.   

Feeling really groovy this week.   I take that as a really good sign since I'm now going into taper mode for my marathon attempt in 10 days.

Ventured out to do a workout in the 19 degree morning.  Brrrrrr.

I double layered on top, bottom, and gloves and was just fine and not too cold actually.  And the paths were mostly dry, but had some ice spots I had to slow down for occasionally that affected my pacing and made it harder to be steady.

Today was my last real marathon pace workout.  2 miles easy, 2 X 4 miles @ marathon pace w/5 min. active recovery, 2 miles easy - Did both the 4 miles segments in 6:20-6:25 avg pace.  It was COLD, and pretty icy sometimes.  I didn't feel as solid today as I did yesterday.  But I was going faster and the conditions were much less than ideal.

It was a good feeling workout though.  It feels good to be able to look back now and see the results of my efforts the last few months.  I'm getting excited to test out my fitness at the marathon distance next week.  

So far the forecast is looking mostly sunny and no snow for the next 9 days which is positive. 

Slow and easy 6 miles around the creek paths.

I had a really nice/ easy medium long run early this morning.

I saw a runner up ahead about 3 miles into the run out on the south end of marshall, so I decided to catch up rather than trail behind him a minute indefinitely.

We were running a similar pace so I just picked it up a little for a while going down cherryvale and caught up to him after 5 or 6 minutes.  It ended up being Nick Pedatella, which was a nice surprise, and we were heading the same way for the next 7 or 8 miles.  So it was nice to have some company for an hour or so.

After Nick turned off for home I also turned for home the other way and ran the last 3.5 or so at a quicker pace..6:30-40 ish.  It was a nice last long run before the marathon next week and everything is still just feeling remarkably good.

I have really enjoyed this marathon training block, and have noticed significant aerobic fitness gains.  I'm kind of bummed its coming to a close actually!  

Not sure exactly what I'll focus on next....I think I would like to see how low I can get my 5K and 10K times this winter.  I think I may just do that with a focus on shorter faster intervals for the first couple months to start out another longer marathon training block for a spring marathon.  But I will wait to be the judge on another marathon until I actually do it next week.  I have loved the training!  Will I love the actual event is yet to be seen.

Although while I have been loving the long tempo and marathon pace runs, I do kind of miss the lung/heart burning short/fast stuff lately also.  And I'm pretty curious to see how the increased aerobic fitness will benefit me as I train again for the shorter distances.  I'm guessing it's going to come in handy.

15 miles for the morning in about 1:50.