ALMOST SHOCKED

Today's my seventh and last day off in a row from work, so I'll make this a quick training update and then hopefully get back in the blogging routine tomorrow.

After Friday's 22 miler, I ran a very easy 5 miles on Saturday. I think I felt every step of the previous day's run during those 45 minutes. That gave me 76 miles for the week on 6 days of running and 7 total runs.

Last Monday the Vikings were on Monday Night Football and I was able to get in a nice progression run on the treadmill during the game. This week they played on Sunday Night Football and I decided to jump on the treadmill again - besides, it's been snowing like crazy around here, so getting on the treadmill didn't bother me.

Anyway, rather than progressively pick the pace up over the course of the entire run, I did more of a marathon paced workout. After a 3 mile warmup I was at 7:00 pace and gradually dropped down to 6:26 pace. To be honest, I was almost shocked at how easy sub-2:50 pace felt.

Looking back at my log from a year ago, I see a 10 mile run with 6 miles at 6:48 pace - during which my HR was 170-180. Sunday's run was 12 miles and it included 8 miles at 6:36 pace - and get this, my highest HR was 172.

It seems like I'm doing something right.

This week is going to be a cutback week for me. Monday I ran an easy 6 miles. The biggest news from that run is that it put me over 3,000 miles for the year. Yesterday I ran an easy 8 miles on less than ideal footing. My Yaktrax helped, but they can't do anything about the areas that have 6 inches of powder.

Quote of the day;

"Are you in this simply to do mindless labor or do you want to improve? You can't improve if you're always sick or injured." - Bill Bowerman