Today I completed my biggest week of running yet - 46 miles. It is sad I'm almost embarrassed to say it is
only 46 miles, but before this training season, 38 miles was the most I'd ever run in a week...and that included a 31 mile race! Many "real" runners would consider 40-45 miles per week as base training, but oh well. I keep reminding myself I just need to be proud of it and not compare it to others...perhaps others like my friends Vegas and Jerry who ran EIGHTY MILES this weekend!!! They ran 55 miles on Saturday and 25 today. They are training for the Rocky Raccoon 100 mile race in February and successfully completed their hardest weekend of training. We took turns setting up aid stations for them on Saturday and threw them a little finish party Saturday afternoon.
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| Vegas and Jerry finishing 55 miles |
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| Finish line tailgate party |
My 20 mile run Saturday was really good. The weather was perfect. The girls I was running with started off pretty fast and I kept saying I was going to slow down because I didn't trust that I'd be able to continue that fast for 20 miles. We slowed down a bit after our 9:50 first mile, but not much. The route was an out and back - the first and last 5-6 miles were flat and the middle ones, not so much. They are along Lake Austin though, so very pretty, on the appropriately named Scenic Drive. The girls I ran with were running 18 so I did that with them and went back out for 2 more at the end. I could have gone to 10 and turned around then to get 20 that way, but it would have been stupid to give up my company and run solo for 11 miles vs. 2! Once we got out of the hills they started picking up the pace again and we had several miles under 10:00 pace again. I ended up at 10:13 overall pace for the 20 miles - definitely the fastest I've run 20+ miles before. My recent 17 and 18 mile runs with 10 at goal pace averaged out to ~9:55 min/mile overall pace, so those were faster, but they were supposed to be. The 20 this weekend was all "easy pace" - I'm interested to see how my 21-22 goes next weekend, again with 10 at goal pace.
I'm also interested to see how any of my runs go this week after running 20 yesterday and 10 today. My legs do not feel awful, but apparently my toes did not handle today's run very well. I had the beginnings of one blister after Saturday's run, but it was not awful. After the 10 today...wow. Both big toes exploded a la my 2004 marathon training. Of course, I have to post pictures - after all, it has been nearly a year since I've posted any pictures of
my beautiful toes. They are doing okay now though, with help from the awesome aloe-infused, fleece-lined socks Mrs. Clark gave me for Christmas.
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| Apparently Body Glide and toe socks were no match for 30 miles of running this weekend |
Tomorrow is an off day from running, then 5-6 more days of some big running and its TAPER TIME!
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