our choices show what we truly are

I am back from 2 weeks of vacation in a small village (200 people during the winter) in the foothills of Mount Majella in central Italy. No internet connection, limited cell phone service and just uphill, downhill trails and a 25m swimming pool. It was cool and at night frankly cold. Most of my miles in the last 2 weeks were just fast hike on some incredibly steep terrain, a typical 3 miler was a 2 hour trip 1 hour and 45 minutes up and 1 hour and 15 minutes down climbing 1200 meters.

Overall it was fun, I also I did some consistent swimming, something I haven't done in a while.

I am back home now and tomorrow I will be back to work. This morning it was an easy 7.5 miler trying to get used to normal running on a flat terrain.

PM 9.5 k to pile up some easy extra miles.

Easy miles to restart my normal weekly schedule.

I got a stomach bug I went running but I stopped after 2 slow miles, I was feeling dizzy.

Tonight I had a friend who wanted to push the pace, but it was not comfortble with my tempo plan. We a modified version instead going steady at 4:05/k for 8k, we would do a 4X2000m with 1k recovery trying to do the first 1000m at 4:05 and the second k 5-10" faster. We did a short uphill 3k warm up and then we started. These were our splits 4:13_4:06, 4:04_3:53, 4:07_3:55, 4:03_3:54, I was quite pleased because I was not all out and I am convinced that I can do a tempo run for the same distance at 4:00/k. We finished with a couple of easy kms. At 7pm in the shade was still humid and hot.

Holiday run, with three running friends we went to the beginning of a rolling trail going mid-mountain on the crater around Vico lake. We went easy and finished the 15.4 k trail in about 1:30minutes.

Easy 6.5 k at night to put some more miles.

Easy 8 miler in the afternoon under a scorching sun. A typical character building run and nothing else.

Unusual fast workout on a hot saturday morning. I wanted to resume my 2 fast workouts per week and this was the only way for this week. I drove to the lake at 8am and most of my route was still in the shade and would be mostly in the shade for the next hour. I could tell that the air was already warm and full of dust, in a few weeks the hazelnut harvest will start and most of the farmers started prepping the soil under the hazelnut trees making giant dust clouds. I warmed up for 3.8 k really slow and then I started. I didn't want to kill myself and most importantly I wanted to finish 12X400 with 200m recovery without bailing out halfway. The first 2 repeats were 88 and 86 just to test whether I could hold the 85" "easily" and then I just went through until the end. These were my remaining splits 82, 85, 80, 85, 85, 86, 85, 87, 84, 85 AP 84.88. I have done better over 10 repeats but today it was more important consistency. I finished with a 5k cooldown (I was overheating by then under the sun high in the sky) and I was really down. Highest mileage week of the year considering that I have done most of the miles in 6 days.