The last two weeks

Luckily I have managed not to throw myself in front of any cars since my last post so that is a positive thing! The last two weeks brought another small bump in mileage and quality runs. I am trying to keep my running to only 5 days a week as opposed to the 6 days I ran towards the end of Vermont training but keeping the overall mileage the same. This means tacking a few extra miles onto those mid-week medium long runs which I think helps overall too.

On Thursday 8/28, Bryan and I ran the Twist and Shout 4.2 mile fun run around the river. I have talked about this race series before and how Bryan and I get a little competitive....I've beat him once last year and we've been pretty even this year. Well...I did it again!! Beat him by 40 seconds this time!! I ran in 31:51 (10 seconds slower than my PR) with an average pace of 7:35. My first mile was 8:30 pace because of all the people so I really picked it up for the last three. We have one more of these races this week so we'll see who wins this one!

Last Saturday (8/30) I had a 22 mile run. I met John for the first 13.5 on the Newton hills and then headed down to the river to finish up the last 8.5 miles solo. After stopping at my house to refill my water bottles with John, it was so hard to get my legs moving again! Even though I was tired, I manager to keep my pace fairly even and finished with an overall pace of 9:01....not bad!

The rest of Labor Day weekend was full of activities....a ~15 mile bike ride on Plum Island on Sunday and a 6.6 mile hike up Mount Osceola (4340 ft) in NH on Monday. Man was I tired after all that!

Overall I managed 59.5 miles for the week (it took every ounce of restraint I had in me to not go out and run 0.5 miles to get to 60!!)

Now we are into September, but it sure doesn't feel like it with this weather!

Tuesday - Track workout with 8.25 miles total including 6x600m repeats (90 sec recovery between each). I averaged 2:33 for the 6oom repeats which is only a second or two off of where I was two weeks ago which I was pleased with since I had ran 22 miles 2 days earlier and hiked the day before!

Wednesday - 13.75 medium long run. Its getting darker so much earlier here....not happy about that!! Had to run the last 1.5 miles in the dark :(

Thursday - off!

Friday - My schedule said 8-15k tune up race but its hard to find one on a Friday so I decided to do a tempo run on the treadmill instead. I did 7 miles total with 4 miles at LT pace (averaged 8:03 min/mile)

Saturday - this run deserves its own blog post so stay tuned! Finished the week at 54 miles total.

Overall I am feeling strong and confident in my training. My attitude is completely different this time around, but I think that's a good thing. I am more relaxed and just going with the flow. Two more weeks of "real" training before taper starts....aaahhhh!