13 down, five to go!

One week of beautiful weather leaves me not even a little tired of it.  Still, what sort of hardcore bragging rights have I if I'm constantly running in sunny skies and perfect temperatures?  Nothing, believe me. 

Anyway, this week went well- my last long week, and then I go to a 56 mile week upcoming, a few 49s and then my final week before the race.  So maybe something close to 220 for the month, if everything goes right.  Huh... and I've done almost a third of that this week.  How... disappointing.  :)

Next week will be tougher, though.  My first Q workout is one of the killer 19-20 mile interval runs with an 80 minute easy run thrown in the middle.  It should take me about 2.5-3 hours, if everything goes according to plan.  I'll probably do that Tuesday, if the weather cooperates.  Maybe even if it doesn't, now that I think about it.  Though maintaining threshold pace with an extra five pounds of water on your back isn't easy.  But, I think, it's good practice! 

Second Q workout is an hour at an easy pace, then 6x6 at LT with one minute rest.  Probably about 13 miles.  Only 23 miles left to distribute between the rest of the week- the other days are getting jealous!  One rest day leaves four; four into 24 means six.  Six little miles per day, which is hardly worth getting out of bed for.  Perhaps I'll do a 12 miler in there, and take another rest day, or something like that...

So, if everything goes to plan, it'd look a bit like this:
M- off
T- 20 Q1
W- 6
Th- 13 Q2
F- off
S- 13
Su- 6

Not bad, not bad.  I kind of like the shape of it.  Though I have to work on Saturday, it's not till noon, so I'll have time to run with the group if everything goes well, and they choose someplace close by.  I should start joining them on Birmingham runs- I'm missing too much by missing them.  Besides, I like Panera more than Starbucks for after run stuff, when all is said an done.

I think I lost some of my hard-won turn over due to the snow over the past few weeks.  At LT pace my cadence is still only about 90, when it used to be 93-95.  sometimes it was even up to 100.  The interval work was really good at getting my cadence really high, so perhaps that'll be something to work on later.

I had to work hard to keep my pace and heart rate from going to high during my easy runs in the beautiful weather- it's too easy to get carried away by how nice it was this week, I think.  It was tough to keep myself from doing so.

Gu is too think for winter in a gel flask.  Even the less viscus ones get think in the lower temps, make it all but impossible to take in.

I'm really looking forward to more spring weather.  And I'm really curious to see how the last five weeks of this training cycle will go...