Catching Up

The Dances with Dirt race was a blast this past weekend. I ran 3 legs of 6, 4.5, and 4 miles each. The first and last legs were on good trail with lots and lots of hills. The middle had some nice trails for the first 3 miles and then river crossings and mud jumping the for the last 1.5 miles. The middle leg was definitely the most fun I've had running in a long time. I was literally covered from head to toe in mud when I finished. When else does a grown man get to cover himself in mud and run around a forest in broad daylight? For me, this is my only chance at it.

Surprisingly, I recovered pretty quickly from the race. I was able to do 7 slow miles on Sunday to finish out the week and while my quads and hamstrings were sore, it wasn't the deep soreness that you usually feel after a marathon. I was fairly confident that if I took it easy the next few days, things would be back to normal by Tuesday or Wednesday. Monday was another slow 7 miler followed by a Cubs game in the afternoon. Miracles of miracles, they actually routed the Cardinals in the game and retook first place in the weak central division. Unfortunately, that first place standing didn't last very long, but I digress.

Yesterday I was thinking I was going to do 17 miles, but I woke up in the morning still feeling a little sore and very tired, so I decided to postpone the 17 one more day. Since this will be one of the last 17 milers I do before the marathon, I really wanted to nail it, so I wanted to make sure I didn't have any excuses if I struggled on it. So instead I did a 9 miler in the morning at a comfortable 6:38 pace and another 7 miles in the afternoon.

That left me with the 17 miler this morning. I woke up this morning to unseasonably cool weather. I think it was in the 40's when I started running and probably warmed up to the mid 50's by the time I was done. This weather is crazy. Last week I was complaining about how humid it was, and now I'm running in long sleeves and gloves OK, maybe the long-sleeves was a bit of overkill, but hey, I was cold when I headed out the door. I was feeling pretty good for the first half of the run, and was somewhat surprised to see the overall pace at 6:43. To be honest I thought it would be faster than that. However, I comforted myself with the fact that I was feeling very comfortable and the second half of the run is done almost entirely on the lakefront path where it's easier to run fast than it is on the city streets.

Once I hit that lakefront path, I seemed to hit a second gear. The last half of the run had mile splits as follows: 6:04, 6:08, 6:03, 5:58, 5:57, 6:02, 5:58, 5:58. Surprisingly, I was feeling pretty comfortable the entire time too, although I really do think that 5:53's may be a bit ambitious for marathon pace. To be honest, I would be thrilled with anything under 6. To say that I ran a marathon at a sub 6 pace would be pretty awesome, and something that I never thought I'd be able to achieve as recently as 2 years ago. Oh man. Am I starting with the contingency goals already? I usually am able to hold off on that stuff until at least the taper.

Last week by the numbers:

Mon: Off
Tues: 7 Miles (failed tempo run)
WedAM: 8 Miles
WedPM: 7 Miles
ThursAM: 9 Miles w 4 @ 5:53
ThursPM: 7 Miles
Fri: 13 miles @ 6:48 pace
Sat: Dances With Dirt Race, 18 Miles total
Sun: 7 Miles

Total: 76 Miles in 8 runs