I only run on days that end in a "y."

Chilly morning but the sun was coming up.  I could definitely feel the calves this morning.  I thought it would be a good idea to get them stretched out a bit so I went for a super easy run.  9:09 AP.

6 SLOW miles on the trial near the office in the clogs - 9:10 AP. Yes, the calves are still sore.  Leave it to me to try those flats out on a 17 mile run. (It was worth it though.)

There is supposed to be a 10 mile MGP run on a hilly course in the am tomorrow - that may end up being more of a progressive run for me with the last couple fast.  Not sure the wisdom is there to go and run a 10 mile MGP run after this last Saturday.

A big group of Boston marathoner's are headed down to San Marcos on Sunday to run Moe's, a hilly half marathon.  I am going to pass on that and get 22 in on Saturday.  I don't want to race it (I think the San Antonio half took something off of my CIM performance) and I don't need to run it as a MGP run as I can do that for free. :-)

70 miles for the week seems like a long shot unless I don't take a day off.  We will see how it goes.

Misty, foggy, humid morning.  The workout for the day was a 1 mile warm-up followed by 10 miles at MGP with some killer rolling hills from mile 3-7.  There was one hill, man, me and Russ about died, unfortunately, it was not the last one, we still had the long climb on Scenic on the way back.  

Russ and I had exchanged emails yesterday and decided to go for MGP but back off if it was not happening.  I wasn't sure how my legs would react. They were still a bit sore.  They actually felt OK during the run, until the last mile when I could feel the fatigue. My breathing was in control the whole run and I never felt from an aerobic perspective that I was working too hard.  Trying to hit MGP after a slow 9:00 mile warm up was difficult, especially on the trail - my legs were like "what are you doing?!"

One of the coaches had set up a water table at the halfway point, so it was grab-and-go to simulate race conditions.

All in all a good workout, good confidence booster to make it through the hills at MGP.  Energy was not an issue - 3 slices of whole wheat bread with Nutella before bedtime. :-)

9:00 warm up mile followed by: 6:58, 6:47, 6:44, 6:37, 6:44, 6:48, 6:50, 6:41, 6:44, 6:29.

4 x 50m strides with .15 cool down jog back to the annex from the trail.

PM - 6 easy on the trail near the office.  Wow, the first 1/2 was slow - I hope I know what I am doing here, I am definitely stressing the legs.  Moreover, I had average pace showing and I thought I was glancing at current pace - it made a difference the first mile was close to a 10 minute mile but I finished with 8:34 AP - the last couple were close to 8:00 even.  Faster than I wanted.  Tomorrow will be a short recovery run day.

5 super easy around the trail near the office.

Woke up to a nice cool morning.  After Tuesday's MGP frolic through the hills on top of Saturday's hard long run, we decided to run some fartleks on the trail this morning.  Time to stay on a soft surface and get in some good turn over. We ran 8.5 miles with 20 x 1 min fast with 1 minute easy in between.  It was good to make it through these feeling strong, though I was really glad it was over when we finished.  

Ran 1.5 miles warm-up and met the group at the annex - then 8.5 miles with 20 x 1 minute fartleks for a total of 10 miles.  Paces for the first 5 were around 6:20, then dropped to low 6:00's, with the last 5 around 5:40 - 5:50 pace.  7:40-7:50's pace during recovery minutes.

3.2 miles of fast stuff.

Legs still a bit on the fatigued side and on the last fast minute I felt a pop in my right hamstring.  Fortunately, it feels fine now, and I think I will take tomorrow off.  We have a 21 mile long run with nothing but hills scheduled for Saturday.  Fun.

low 50's and pretty windy.  I gotta say that I am getting tired of hills.  First half of the long run reached a peak gain of over 300ft, then back down, and close to the same on the second leg. Lots and lots of rolling hills.  It has been good though - I am feeling more confident on the hills than 4 weeks ago. 

The groups got mixed up with those running 14 - who were running at a pretty good pace - and us running 21 - who ended up also running a good pace because of the other group.

I held back a little bit on the second half - the hills took a toll - the last 8 days have really taken a toll.  I could barely do easy strides at the end.  Tomorrow is my Birthday, so I plan on taking a day off, and I just might take Monday off, too.  My wife is traveling on Wednesday for a few days, so this week is going to be light mileage.   Probably just what I need.  

My quad held up pretty good.  A couple times I felt it but it was because of a miss step.  It's sore so I am icing it.  A couple days off would be good for it I am sure.  I think we are very close to being in race shape at this point - need to maintain, sharpen a bit, and arrive fresh and healthy. 

Splits all over the place due to the hills:  8:37, 7:45, 7:37, 6:48, 7:03, 7:01, 7:16, 6:54, 7:08, 6:50, 7:07, 7:16, 7:20, 7:12, 7:05, 7:05, 6:51, 6:57, 6:58, 7:00, 6:44, .5 with some strides. 

21.5 miles @ 7:10 AP.