Hills for breakfast, hold the gnats

Sounds like you ran a little harder yesterday than you thought. Sorry about that, focus on recovery tomorrow and be ready to come back strong next week!

18 miles is a long run after your fast one yesterday! You deserve a break. Doesn't this make 8 days in a row now?

15 days. Thanks for pointing that out. I think I can get used to running with fewer days off, but I cannot expect hard efforts 2 days in a row to lead into a successful *long* run. The superpowers I ordered are stuck in the mail.

You know, I am not sure why you feel the need to run with fewer days off? Are you trying to increase mileage? I am not intimating you *can't* do it, I am just trying to understand why you feel the need to not take a day off? I know it might interrupt the comfort of your current schedule to reorganize, but if the only reason you are running 7 days/week is so you can run with the Saturday group, I don't understand why you can't just take a different day off a week?

That said, it will, as changing things up always does, take a little time to get used to it ... so you will adjust. Just watch out how many things you are altering at one time (e.g., both intensity and volume).

Take Care Sno!

15 days!? 6 days a week is good, but you have to rest sometime. I like to take a day of rest before my long run.

I wonder if the leg pain had anything to do with the ST3's. That's your longest run in them isn't it?

Runners are funny. 99.8% of the population would consider an 18 mile run an accomplishment of a lifetime for themselves.

I second it! You probably need a day off before the long run, or a day of crosstraining or something. Sorry your long run didn't go as long as planned, but that's still an awesome number of miles! Don't give up on your group because of it!

Like others have said, it was probably a combination of the hard effort yesterday and the 15 days in a row. I agree with Bonnie that if you're going to run with the group on Saturdays (which I wholeheartedly endorse), you should probably take off some other day during the week.

Also, I'm rereading Hudson and early on he writes about peaking too early and connected with that idea he seems to concentrate the 20+ mile runs in the 6 weeks before the marathon. I'm thinking that 18 is plenty long enough for you at this point. But feel free to ignore me if you don't agree with my advice.

i think you should make tomorrow a wine day! LOL...just kick back with some knitting and a glass and relax for a day. You deserve it!

whooo April, except for the knitting, I like that idea!

Thanks, everyone, for your concern, but I think this is getting a bit blown out of proportion. Now that I'm in this running club, it's just going to take a little trial and error to figure out days off, or active recovery days, depending on how I feel. I don't think running 7 days a week is inherently damaging; lots of people do it. It was the last 3 days that were out of balance but I learned what I needed to know. Anyway, thanks for caring.

JD, the 20 miles last week was my longest in the ST3s. The leg pain I mentioned is that kind of generalized achy feeling one gets towards the end of a marathon or a super long run. Needless to say, 14 miles is a bit early! It was actually a pretty valuable piece of information though, because it tells me that the Friday and Saturday runs, at or close to MP, stressed the muscles enough to require significant recovery time. I don't know whether you remember your comment to me on June 1 about recovery runs, but that's the kind of run that was missing I think.

p.s. I know you won't believe us, Bonnie, but knitting rocks! lol You are so busy, but when you need a little chuckle break, this is a really funny video about knitters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuccwU4CoUQ

Wow 18 miles! Good job! When is your next marathon? :)

Hi Merri,

I am running the Seattle Rock n Roll mar. in 3 weeks, just for fun. No time goal, and I feel like it will be a slow one. My next marathon after that is Victoria BC in October.