Another great week of running in the books. I ran a tempo run with a couple of people from work - both of them faster than I. In the sixth mile I started pushing the pace and while they kept up, they were both commenting on how they couldn't believe I had anything left in me. I banged out that mile at a barely sub-8:00 pace. While they were running behind me I garnered a "Your legs are ripped" comment too. I'm still glowing over that one. On speedwork day it was snowing and raining. Instead of our typical rest between intervals we decided to do some fartleks. We ran 4 miles and did so quite fast for me, about 30 seconds slower than my 1600 interval times. It may have been being cold and wet that pushed us faster, but whatever it was we were moving.
After that run I decided to re-assess my plans for a 5K this weekend. My original plan was 8:30 miles. I started thinking 8:15s were possible since we pretty much ran 8:30s for our fartlek. I didn't have a watch (forgot it) but that goal wasn't too far off as I ran a PR (by 3 minutes) of 25:24. My last 5K, and previous PR was last October. Evidently marathon training improves your 5K too!
Today I ran 10 miles at anticipated marathon pace. It seemed easy. I ran from my house to the finish of the Colorado Marathon and watched the 3:45 - 4:10 finishers. Most looked pretty strong. I'm taking the image of them finishing strong and aiming for that in 4 weeks at Steamboat. It was fun watching marathon finishers. I've watched them while training for a half, but never really truly appreciated the feat then.
On Thursday I was talking to my running buddy after our Fartlek workout and told him how great I was running. His reply was that he hoped I wasn't peaking too early! Great, something to worry about when everything is going well. Actually I'm not worried, one more hard week and I'm into the taper. It feels awesome to be running this strong, and injury free.
Week 5: 23.4 miles, long run of 10.1 miles.
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DJ Slush Pup's Best of 2019
2 years ago
I'm envious of your progress. Way to go!
ReplyDeleteSounds like things are clicking for you -- and I am sure you are going to rock that marathon in a few weeks.
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