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Week 34
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First off, nice post and welcome Alan Bennet; sounds like you have a wealth of experience to share. Another high-mileage guy (at our age, I consider anything 70 mpw and up to be high-mileage) to add to the mix. Good luck on your training towards the Flying Pig. My friends have told me that if you keep your head together and don't overwork that long uphill between miles 4 and 8, that you can run a very decent time.
Secondly, big props to Linda Somers Smith (age 50) for her 28th place finish and 2:37:36 time in the Olympic Marathon Trials yesterday. Shattering the US 50+ women's marathon record currently held by Joanie. On a somewhat related note, good luck to Imarunr and any others (including my local Bluegrass buddies) that are running in today's Houston Marathon (probably already in the starting area); looks like excellent conditions. I look forward to any race reports.
Finally, Bob Wildes, I wish that I had an answer for you. That is an issue I'm also wrestling with. I'm finding that stretching and foam rollers can only do so much....or perhaps I'm not aggressive enough. As you'll see in my weekly report below, tightness and stiffening up during runs is my current bane, and has been for awhile. There are several here that have been prodding me to go see an ART specialist, but I have stubbornly resisted....I'm sure the day will come, when I finally break down and ask for intervention.
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OK. On to posting the past week's work. It was the start of our spring semester, so I was absolutely swamped at work this week. I also had to take over one of my colleagues classes as they were still out of the country. Nevertheless, I still manage 41-42 miles on 7 days of running. My log book reads as such:
S: 5 moderate (6:50 pace)
M: 7.5 easy
T: 6 easy
W: 6.4 w/5k hard tempo in 18:48
R: 2.6 moderate (just snuck in a short run, weather was nasty)
F: 5 easy
S: 5 moderate (6:48 pace) + 4.1 easy
I've made a decision to keep my runs to under an hour, since I still seem to suffer hip issues (tightness above and behind the right socket) when I get over about 7 miles. I'm thinking that I might start doing more doubles, if I can find the time, as my two runs on Saturday felt pretty good. The 5k hard tempo on Wednesday was probably too hard, as I really felt I needed to stop and rest when I completed the hard portion. My back stiffened up quite a bit on the cooldown run afterwards. Roads got kind of slick by Friday and Saturday, which scuttled my plans to do some hill work.
If you haven't gotten your Running Times magazine yet, there are some really nice articles this month worth a look (OK, so nothing really new about that), especially for us oldsters; it also lists this year's masters honorees. Props to racerdb (and any others that I may not be aware of) on yet another honorable mention.
Hope you all are getting in some great training miles, and look forward to hearing what's happening in your neck of the woods.
Go Pack Go!