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Week 160
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A hearty hello to my 50+ compatriots. We've been in a broken record of heat and humidity for the past several weeks. So the running choices are 97% humidity & 72 degrees in the morning, or 55% humidity & 90 degrees in the evening. I've been running mostly in the evening, except Saturday morning with the group. My week was about like last week. 25+ miles on four runs, as such:
Sun: 5, easy
Mon: off
Tue: 5.1 easy-ish
Wed: 5.7 w/3x(3 laps@~8k pace, 30 sec rest, 1 lap@~2k pace, 2 lap jog recovery)
Thu & Fri: off (did get a decent walk in Friday)
Sat: 10 very easy
I'm finding this is a pattern that I'm comfortable with right now, except I'd like to throw in another run Thursday...things have just gotten in the way, however, with a full teaching load this summer, and they threw in some extra work helping with a couple of grad students filming lecture demonstration---it's all eating away at my summer hours. At any rate, I'm just running maintenance at this point: getting a little speed in, getting a little longer run in. Will I race Friday in the Bluegrass 10000? Still not sure. It can't be a *real* race, however, as I'm still way under-trained, but it's always a good time and good to see people. Just finding it hard to be motivated to enter the race when I'm feeling so far from fit. And in regards to Wednesday's workout, I'm calling 8k pace ~6:30/mile & 2k pace ~5:30/mile (a little optimistic, I'd say.)
One of my running buddies (David Nichols-M53) was selected by lottery to run the Western States 100 that started yesterday. At last check he was @mile-80 with only about 10-minutes to spare under the 30-hour cut-off pace; looks like he'll make it to the end, but I sure hope he gets the official finisher designation! Props to ya, Dave!
That's about all I've got this week. Good on y'all for getting out there and racing on the oval: KP, 1500master, Spikez, MikeF, AK-56; great work, all! And nice 5k, 50x! Seems you're getting very summer fit! Good to see everyone hard at it; fingers crossed I'll be out there racing again soon, too. Hope the rest of you are feeling optimistic; be it training, racing, or rehabbing, keep the faith! We're in it for the long haul.
Best Wishes!