A SOLID WEEK OF SPEEDWORK

My training since late March. A couple "oops" weeks during marathon training and not quite the miles I wanted, but not bad.

The yo-yoing nature of my marathon training has continued. After struggling a bit and having some bad weeks, I'd venture to say this last week has been my best in terms of running this marathon cycle. Hopefully I'll be able to run the 16 miler strong tomorrow and coast into the marathon feeling a bit more prepared than I thought I would.

So after the pretty good twenty miler last weekend I did:

Monday: 6.5 miles at 8:39/mile. Faster than most group runs have been. Group runs in the 8s that I don't designate as "fast days" have become an endangered species, so it felt nice to just run a little quicker for the hell of it and still have it be an "easier" run for the week. 8:21 final mile.

Wednesday: Convinced a few people to run fast with me. Ended up running 6.8 miles at 7:50/mile. Felt like a nice quick run and the distance of almost seven miles was nice. Normally on these "tempo" runs I cut it short, but I did the entire length of the trail this day. Felt great afterwards. Legs responded very nicely.

Thursday: Did "street intervals" at home. 8 x 400s. Averaged 7:47/mile over 4.00 miles, including the rest periods. Went pretty well, especially considering the run the night before. Last couple intervals were slower because they happened to come up during some steep uphills. All told the slowest interval was done at 7:42/mile pace up the hill and most were in the 6s.

Resting today (Friday), and then the final double digit distance run of the marathon cycle tomorrow with PMC. The Portland Marathon is coming up really quick. It felt very good to get some positive speedwork in and have my legs feel pretty good the whole time.