A-TEAM

As Colonel Smith of the A-Team would say; “I just love it when a plan comes together!”

That’s how I felt about last week, especially my long run on Saturday. Coming off of last week’s 81 miles, I was able to get in some quality on Tuesday and some hills on Thursday. All I needed was a nice long run on Saturday to finish out another strong week.

Of course, I’ve been in this position before and then something won’t quite go right. For example, it’s 20 below zero, I wake up to 2 feet of new snow, I have family commitments and/or my legs just feel like crap.

Well not last Saturday; the weather was a beautiful 45-50 degrees, sunny with just a slight wind, the family was at a show all afternoon and my legs felt good. So I pulled on my shorts (for the first time this year – at least, for a run outside), laced up my shoes and hit the road for a 20-miler. I’m not worried about pace right now, but it seems to be coming along. I think the first 13 were right around 8:00 and then I picked it up to 7:30 pace for the last 7.

That run gave me another 81-mile week. Now I’ll cutback a little this week, before racing an 8K on Sunday.

Yesterday I ran a little earlier than on Saturday, so I didn’t get the full affect of the nice weather – it was “only” 40 out when I ran. I figured I’d be pretty tired and have to drag myself through 12 miles. However, I felt pretty good once I got going and found myself running some 7:30 miles and feeling pretty comfortable. For me, on a solo run, the day after a 20-miler, that’s pretty good.

I rewarded myself for the solid weekend (and back-to-back 80 mile weeks) by sleeping in this morning. I figure that will; 1) give me more time to recover, 2) let me gradually transition into daylight savings and 3) force me to do some ab and strength work tonight after an easy run.

Quote of the day;

“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” – John Wooden