Week in Review

77 miles
12 mile MLR
6 x mile on track
20 Miles Long Run

This week I nailed all of my workouts.  Leading up to my finals, I worried that the heavy workload from accounting and managerial effectiveness would take a toll on my fitness and affect my ability to successfully complete workouts.  In fact, running still seems to be an outlet for stress relief, rather than building more stress.  If it becomes a stressor, then that means I need to take a day off.   This week I had Billy's company for a mile repeat workout on Duke's track and then Amanda and George joined me for a long run on the ATT.

Mile Repeats:
Splits (Rest)
556 (56)
547 (1:26)
542 (1:59)
533 (2:25)
528 (2:59)5:24 
The goal here was to get faster each mile and to increase the rest after each interval. I was told to stop whenever I could no longer hit the split at 8 seconds faster than the previous.  This workout was great because it gave me an option to stop whenever my body told me enough was enough.  I really wanted to hit sub 5:20 but I think that another part of me just wanted to workout to be done.  Billy stepped out for a couple of laps on this one and, when I was solo, my pace faltered on that last interval, preventing me from hitting my goal of sub-520.

Point-to-Point 20 miler in 2:15
The goal for this workout was to run a 10 mile progression steady (620-640) at some point during the run. Since Matt graciously decided to pick us up at the end of the Tobacco Trail, Billy, Amanda and I set off from her house, with the only way to get home literally 20 miles away.  It was a great way to make a long run fun.  Fortunately, my legs felt fantastic, so after coming through 10 miles in 70 minutes, I hit the accelerator and began cruising.  From 10-15 miles, we were hitting about 630-640 pace. From miles 16-20, I felt really good and began hitting 610-620 pace and closed the final, 20th mile in 5:59 pace.

I was really excited about this workout.  Not only did it tell me that I've still got a lot of strength and endurance, it told me that I hadn't lost my marathon touch.  After this long run, I am a bit bummed that I couldn't work it out to do a full marathon this fall, but I just keep reminding myself that I truly do have the rest of my life to continue pursuing my marathon dreams and chipping away at my PRs.