Week 10; Eight weeks to raceday!

Supposed to be a 70 mile week this week, but with the snow it made it a little difficult to get the miles in.  So I didn't.  :P  I ran for about 12 hours, many of the miles through ankle deep snow, with a relatively high heart rate.  So I did the work.  Had I been on pavement it would've been... well, easier.  At a nine minute pace- my aerobic training pace- I would've run about 80 miles in that time.

And, for the most part, my average heart rate was higher than when I'm doing my aerobic pace, so I'm calling it good.

Okay, done rationalizing now.  It's funny how strong the desire is in me to give justification for not hitting my mileage goal.  Especially since this is the second week in a row I've missed it by about six miles.

So what have I learned: backloading my miles bites.  I ran ~35 miles between Monday and Friday.  Trying to get another 35 in on Saturday and Sunday was not a good plan.

Saucony Razors plus Microspikes is a heavy combination.  I'm torn between the strengthening of running with extra weight on my feet making me stronger, and the damage it might be doing to my turnover.  I've been working hard on my turnover, and don't really want to lose the ground I've gained.

I'm wondering if having the H1N1 vaccine Monday may have taken a bit out of me.  I felt a bit under the weather during the first part of this week, and canceled a run because of it.  Even if it was all psychosomatic.  Though there is an immune response with vaccines.  Eh, no big deal.  Like I said.  I got the miles in.  For the most part.

I listened to "Once a Runner" this week, and enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.  It sort of has inspired me think about going off the deep end, figuratively, when it comes to running.  Part of me really wonders what it would be like to regularly be doing 90-100 mile weeks.  But another part of me really thinks that the smart thing to do, after this race season is done, is to switch over to triathlon training.  Nothing makes me appreciate running more than doing other sports like swimming and biking, ya'know?  :)

Anyway, next week.  63 miles scheduled. 

Two threshold workouts- the first is a lot like ones I've done in the past- a couple of miles of warm up, two intervals for 10-12 minutes at my new and improved T pace (~7:20) with a couple of minutes rest.  Then 80 minutes at an easy pace, followed by 15-20 minutes at my T pace.  couple of miles cool down.  Approximately 17 miles, if I do my math right.  argh.

The second is new: two mile warm up, and eight intervals of 5-6 minutes at T pace with a 30 second rest.  Two miles of cool down.  Lot easier to write up, at least.  :)  Maybe 10 miles.  So 27 or so miles of threshold training, and maybe 36 miles of easy running.  We'll see how it goes...