The last thing I wanted to do Friday evening was hop on the treadmill. As usual though, once I got going it wasn’t that bad. I managed 10 miles in 83 minutes while watching the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics. I know a lot of people couldn’t care less about the winter (or summer) games, but I like them. I like to watch people compete – especially in the “big events”. I’m not much of a golfer, but I like to watch the Majors. I don’t play tennis, but I’ll watch the Grand Slam finals. I like to watch the best in the world (in whatever event - okay, except figure skating) and see their focus, determination and desire. I like to see who cracks and who rises up under the pressure.
Saturday I managed a nice 12 mile run. My legs felt really good and I picked up the pace during the second half of this run. That gave me 92 miles for the week on 12 runs. That’s more runs than I’d like to get to 92 miles. But as I mentioned earlier in the week, I ran a couple of doubles just to help with my recovery from the half marathon. Next week I’d like to get back in the 95-100 mile range on 9-10 runs.
I grabbed my Yaktrax today and headed to my favorite trails. I hadn’t been on them in awhile and it was good to be back. After 1:45 I decided to hit the roads for the last hour or so. The first 3 miles on the roads were into the wind in 25 minutes. The last 4 miles I tried to increase my focus. I wasn’t necessarily focused on going faster, just trying to relax as much as possible, keep a quick turnover and listen to my breathing – especially on the hills. I ended up running 7:40 pace for those 4 miles. That gave me my first 20 miler this time around and also put me back at 100 miles for the last 7 days. Best of all, it didn’t wipe me out for the rest of the day. There have been a few long runs where all I wanted to do was lie down the rest of the day.
Finally, a new addition to my blog. I like how Mario ends each post with a quote of the day, so I thought I’d try it too.
“The long run is what puts the tiger in the cat.” – Bill Squires
4 comments:
100 mile week? awesome.
yeah, i hear you about the long runs. sometimes it's hard to even get into bed afterwards. :)
Holy schneikies. That's a lotta miles. :) Great job! Like the quote, too!
In the interests of bringing out your "evil" #3 side, your inner Duncan or whatever -- I'm not sold on high mileage singles -- do any of the top distance runners do this ?
Paul Tergat runs 50-70 minutes on most of his training runs, doing doubles whenever he's not on a plane. Likewise, Gebrselassie runs 13 times a week. Even for 140 miles a week, that's 60min/run + a 2hr long run. If that's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.
Thanks Curly Su. Don't get me wrong. I would have gladly taken a nap if my wife had said something like "Wow, 2 hours and 45 minutes, you must be tired. Why don't you go lie down for another hour?"
Susan, you probably like gymnastics too.
Sara, so that's how you spell "schneikies." Thanks.
Miler, part of me feels guilty for needing 12 runs to get in 92 miles, but part of me says "screw it, it's 92 miles." 100 miles in week in 7 runs or 17 runs isn't enough to bring out my Duncanesque side. As Evan would say, miles are miles.
But I do look at Mike's blog and Lydiards schedule and realize his 100 is very different from mine. Nobby is not going to let me mention that I'm following Lydiard if I keep it up.
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