Friday
After a hard effort at track last night, today’s scheduled 50 minute run was a very, very easy shakeout run through Bellevue in my Saucony Hattoris. The weather was awesome with sunny skies and temps in the low 50s. This felt very nice after the hot conditions last week and early this week.
As the run started my legs and ankles felt pretty achey, so I kept everything extremely chill with an initial mile of 10:15. Slowly the aches and soreness began to leave my legs and the run ended with things feeling much better than when I started. I guess this is the sign of an effective shakeout effort. Overall I got in just over 5 miles in the 50 minutes with an average pace of 9:48 per mile. I haven’t gone back and checked, but I’m guessing this is one of my slowest runs of the year (if not the slowest).
Saturday
Our group run this morning consisted of the 11.2-mile main drive through Percy Warner Park. This is a busy day for the park because of the annual Steeplechase horse race (which is more of a socialite / partying event than a race), and we were hoping to be able to run by the course before the crowds started rolling in.
My schedule called for 12 to 14-miles at an easy pace, and I was initially hoping to land in the upper part of this range by adding a little extra before or after the group run. The temps were again very mild with overcast skies and temps in the mid 50s. I was only able to get in about a 1/4 mile before the group started, but just figured I would add a little bit to the end.
Our pace started off very easy and we slowly picked it up throughout the run with some fluctuation due to the significant elevation changes (a single loop of the 11.2 has a cumulative 1,500 ft of elevation gain). My overall pace for the run was 8:45 per mile with a range from 10:10 at the start to 7:54 at the finish. Throughout the run my legs felt very good, even when going up some of the more significant climbs. However, even though my legs felt great, I could tell that my body was tired and I decided to not try and push the run to 14-miles. I added just a bit to the end of the group run to finish with 12-miles total and am happy with the decision to not keep going.
Right now I’m in the middle of a couple of easy recovery weeks before John and I get started on more targeted training for the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon in October. For some reason this has put me in a bit of a reflective mood. My total mileage was just under 44-miles on an “easy” week, and that made think back to when I first started running. I remember the first official running goal I set was to complete 10-miles over 3-weeks. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined running 44-miles in a week, much less 50, or 60+.
Beast Mode…ON!