Another Week

Wrapped up this week with a father's day hilly run. 17.4 miles with 4 humps. That first one was pretty fun, switchbacks up thru the trees. Runnable the whole way (unlike last week).

Got a little tired by mile 15 and that last 200' climb on the final hump was not a lot of fun, but I kept going.

Weekly total was just under 60, with a medium 12 miler Friday, a 3.5 mile tempo on Tuesday and then 3 7-8 milers filling the other 3 days.

Next week should be pretty similar, but I expect I'll skip the hills and do a flat long run on Sunday.

Weekly Wrapup

Sunday's run was a 4 hump hill run in Rancho San Antonio. Mostly trails, and mostly runnable, but there are couple bits towards the top of the big hump that are a little too steep to run up. Most of the downhill is great running with good footing, except for the first 1/4 mile from the very top - that's a little too steep for me to run comfortably down.

It closed out my first solid week since Ottawa, and the first I'd consider real training. It looked like this.....

• Monday - rest
• Tuesday - 3.5 miles tempo (6:15 pace) - 7.5m overall
• Wednesday - 7.5 miles easy
• Thursday - 11 miles easy
• Friday - 9 miles easy
• Saturday - 5 miles recovery
• Sunday 12.5 miles of hills
• Total - 52.5 miles

Next week should be similar, maybe closer to 60. Will do a tempo tomorrow, a medium long (10+) early Friday and a long (~18) Sunday. The rest will just be easy running.

Hilly Running

Finished the week with a hilly 16 miler yesterday morning. It was my 4th run of the week, bringing the mileage up to about 36 miles.

Ran some very nice trails out thru Arastradero Preserve and into Foothills Park in Palo Alto. Saw a few hikers and bikers but no runners, and no-one at all once I got over 400'. Great trails for running fast thru the trees.

Recovery from Ottawa has gone well and I am feeling pretty refreshed. Next week will be back to reasonably normal running, with 6 runs and somewhere round about 50 miles. Will probably run a few tempo miles on Tuesday or Wednesday, and some strides here and there, but I won't be doing any real speedwork for at least another week.

Chicago training won't start for real until the end of June, so I still have 3 weeks of "just running". I'll probably do mileage of 50, 55 & 60 for those weeks and then jump into a 15 week plan for Chicago.

National Running Day

Apparently it is National Running Day today, whatever the hell that is.

So I am going to go for a run.

Ottawa Pictures

At the start I was in the first, non-elite coral, so started just behind the real fast runners. At this point, just as I crossed the start line I was a mere 10 seconds behind the winner, David Cheruiyot. Unfortunately I was unable to hold the pace and he eventually beat me by 50 minutes....

This was about mile 15, feeling strong, looking relaxed - "Hey, this sub 3 is gonna be easy

About 3 miles later, now I am having to work at it

Into the last mile, the wheels are off and there is no more "smile for the camera" - Pretty surprised to see a picture with both feet off the ground at the same time.

Crossing the line, very happy to be done. I think Cheruiyot was already on the plane home by the time I got there.......