Longest Run

Saturday morning here. Michelle and the kiddos have been out of town since Thursday visiting my sister and niece in Bemidji. She tells me I need to be finished with my run by 1:00 PM as they will likely be back by then. Today's run will equal my longest ever. If memory serves, I ran 22 in Central Park the summer before my senior year at Mac. I was visiting my brother in New York City at the time and rain, cold, and a failure to communicate conspired to stretch my run from 18 or so to 22 when Per wasn't where he said he would be at the end of my run. Brutal.

Anyway, it's been a while since I posted an update here. As Tim pointed out earlier, I got sick after we left Ashland on Easter Sunday. Truthfully, I knew it was all over for me when I couldn't stop shivering after our Sunday morning run even though I was practically sitting atop the fireplace. Bad news. I missed 5 days of running and two days of work after that.

Coming back, I was resolved to take it slow, but didn't want to sacrifice my mileage entirely. The end result was a 60 mile week (ideally it would have been 75) with 3 runs early in the week where I averaged over 8:00 minutes per mile. Again, brutal. The good news is that my weekly mileage is now back up where it needs to be (the last two weeks were 68 and 53 respectively) and now I'm just waiting on the pacing to restore itself. Talking with Tim yesterday, it sounds like I'm not alone in feeling disillusioned about my last 2 workouts. On the positive side, I had splits ranging from 5:59 - 6:14 per mile in the 8x1 Mile workout with 30 second rests 10 days ago. On a less positive note, I only managed 10 miles at a 6:40 pace for my last marathon pace workout and stopped halfway through last Wednesday's workout because I feared spontaneous combustion. Both runs were completely demoralizing at the time. Luckily, the disappointment hasn't lingered and I mostly feel hopeful again. In my experience, "down weeks" (especially workouts in the middle of "down weeks") are often the hardest and these last two workouts did nothing to dissuade me of this notion. Mostly, I'm looking forward to the taper and feeling fresh again. 75 miles this week and it's all downhill from here.