Weekly Recap

This week started with what was supposed to be an easy 12.5 mile loop pacing Val at the Umstead 100.   Since she was doing 100 miles, the pace would be slower and we planned to walk up the hills, so I figured it would be a piece of cake.  We started around 6:20 pm, the weather was pleasant, and the 3 hours passed pretty quickly.  I felt pretty good and decided to do a second loop, so around 9:45, off we went. Halfway through the second loop a thunderstorm rolled in, my feet and shins were aching, and I was ready to be done... on top of that I felt like a total wuss for feeling tired when the other people around me had been running since 6 am!  By the time we finished the 2nd loop (Val's 6th!) around 1:20 am, and I had solidified my belief that I will never need to run 100 miles!  I've also had my fill of hills for a while:

Sunday Monte noticed a tear in one of my bike tires, so I haven't been able to ride all week.  It was a good excuse to take the rest of Sunday off though!  The new tire is going on tonight, and I'm looking to logging a lot more miles on the road after this trip. 


On Tuesday I attempted a tempo run with Sara.  I just wasn't feeling very fast and couldn't seem to get it going so we ended up doing a steady-state run rather than a tempo.  I think there were some lingering effects of the 6+ hours in Umstead, and the 3 middle miles were around 7:35-7:40 rather than the 7:20 I was hoping for.  


Fortunately I was able to shake out the lead a little on Wednesday, meeting up with Ellen and managing 6 x 88-92 second 400s.  It's a little disturbing to think of how much faster I could run that distance in high school, but I am twice as old now so I guess I'll take it.  


Thursday Jennifer L joined me for a quick jog after our 5:45am class and then after work I met up with Jessalyn and Mark for an hour of easy running on the ATT.  So two days ago I was complaining about my tired, heavy legs after 25 hilly miles and here is a guy who ran the entire 100 (in 14 hours!) out running again already without a single complaint.  Yeah... nothing like chatting with a really fast ultra runner to make you feel like a slacker.


Sunday: Umstead Pacing run (25 miles)
Monday: Cycling & Strength Training
Tuesday: Cycling & Tempo run with Sara (4.5 miles)
Wednesday: Strength/Core Training (abs are still sore!)
               Speedwork with Ellen (4.5 miles including 6x400)
Thursday: AM / Strength Training, jog with Jenn L (2 miles)
               PM / Easy run on the ATT with Mark and Jessalyn (7 miles)
Friday: Strength Training


Totals for the week:
Running: 42+ miles, 8:49:05
Cycling and Strength Training at Sync Studio: 6 hours
Total: 14:49:05

So basically 15 hours of training... maybe I'm not very good at tapering.  
But I guess there could be worse things to suck at.