And A Child Shall Lead You...

I must admit, on Friday morning I was really feeling the hard effort from Thursday morning. The legs were sore, particularly in the quad area. I took the morning run pretty slow clocking the 9 miles at a 6:55 pace. The afternoon run of 7 miles was somewhat rushed and while I didn't have a watch on to time it, it felt quicker than the morning run. We got out of work at 2PM in preparation for the Labor Day weekend, which turned out to be a good thing, since by the time I got home I was absolutely wiped out. I'm not sure why fatigue decided to overtake me today, but it did. I spent the rest of the day trying to be productive, but in reality I spent the better part of the afternoon curled up on the couch.

Saturday morning I was supposed to meet my friend Dave out at the lake front for 20 miles with 15 of them at his planned race pace of 6:07. Unfortunately, I found out early Saturday morning that he was coming down with the flu so the tandem run was canceled. I found this out at about 6:15AM and the smart thing to do would have been to head out right then to knock out the 20 miler, but I'm not a smart man. Instead, I headed right back upstairs to try and catch a few more minutes of sleep until Ryan woke up. Once the kids were up, I went with Chloe to her first soccer practice (she was by the far the most talented 4 year old on the field - and yes I'm VERY biased) and finally got back home with Ryan around 11AM. Kelly was going to be gone with the other two kids for at least another hour, so I decided I would head out for at least the first couple of miles with Ryan in the jogging stroller and then drop him off at the house when I knew Kelly would be home.

So I did my normal 7 mile loop, but then when I was just completing the loop, I looked in the stroller and Ryan was sleeping. OK, I'll do another loop. So I did. The another. And another. Next thing I knew, I was coming up on 13 miles and Ryan was dozing in and out, but enjoying himself the whole time. At that point, I decided to just finish the thing out and did one more loop which brought me back to my house at 18 miles. I'll admit, I was wiped out. I've never gone more than 10 miles with the jogging stroller, and it was definitely working the quads more a regular long run would. Plus, since I was planning on being back at the house after the initial 7 miles, I didn't have any water with me so I was a pretty dehydrated.

I did a quick drop of the babe and finished up with a quick 2 miles to bring the total for the day to 20 miles. I averaged a 7:02 pace for the exercise, but it was a well-earned 7:02. Most of the run was done on single track trail and manuevering that jogging stroller was not easy for a lot of it. In looking at my splits when I finished up, the more technical trail parts were done in the mid 7's while the straight miles were done closer to the mid 6's. While I probably would have been better served to do the planned 20 miles with 15 at 6:07 pace, I'm not unhappy with how things turned out. If nothing else, I think I got a little stronger with this run.

When I headed out on Sunday for a planned 10 miler, I noticed right from the beginning that the legs just weren't there. I quickly realized that I did absolutely nothing to restore the undoubtedly depleted glycogen stores after yesterday's long run. I had a salad and a hamburger for dinner, and very little on Sunday morning prior to the run. I made the decision to cut the run short at 7 miles and did wind up averaging 6:38. All in all, it was a pretty good week:

Monday: 11 Miles with 8 @ 5:53 pace
Tues: 15 Miles @ 6:39 pace
WedAM: 9 Miles 7:09 Pace
WedPM: 7 Miles
ThursAM: 9 Miles w 5 X 1mile (5:18, 5:15, 5:17, 5:17, 5:18)
ThursPM: 7 Miles
FriAM: 9 Miles @ 6:55 Pace
FriPM: 7 Miles
Sat: 20 Miles @ 7:03 Pace (18 with Jogging Stroller in tow)
Sun: 7 Miles @ 6:38 Pace
Total: 101 Miles in 10 runs