The Week of May 12-18, 2008

Synopsis of Week’s Training: This week’s running did not turn out exactly as planned, but the deviations were probably for […]

By on May 18, 2008 | Comments

Synopsis of Week’s Training:
This week’s running did not turn out exactly as planned, but the deviations were probably for the better and it was a great week nonetheless. Read on for a summary of my training this week.

Monday I broke a cardinal rule the cardinal rule – Never miss a run, because you were blogging. That said, after three and a half weeks (38 days) without a day off, this wasn’t a bad thing. Had I actually wanted to run, I was home early enough that I still could have squeezed it in. One nice thing about the day off is that I could take a good reseting heart rate that night. The pleasant verdict was 42-43 beats per minute, which was lower than expected.

Tuesday, I ran to WUS and then did a moderate 8 with Keith. He showed he was ready for MMT. Met what seemed like half the MMT field for pizza and beer afterwards. Wednesday was another solid morning run with Wardian with second five miles spot on 7 minute pace. Hit the track for a couple miles of fun on Thursday night – ran 3.25 at 6:15 pace and then brought it down for the final three laps.

Friday was a wash with a morning run skipped to rest up for pacing duties and travel out to the Massanuttens in the afternoon. Sadly, my Saturday run was nixed when good friend Mike dropped from MMT. I could have paced another, but thought that my training would benefit from an off day and a full night of sleep than a slow 30 miler and a sleepless weekend. I got that full night’s sleep (almost 11 hours!!!) and went out for my favorite lop in all of Virginia’s mountains – the Jeremy’s Run Loop. Great loop with almost 5,000′ of climb (that’s a GPS running watch figure – I think it’s a bit less) over the course of 17 miles. I took out Mike Mason’s nephew for his first mountain run and longest run ever. He had a blast, spotted a bear and a great horned owl, and saw tons of wildflowers. I took a fun header, too!

While I ended up taking three days off this week, I still ended up with four quality workouts and 47 miles. Plus with the rest days I’m counting this as an unscheduled down week. I continue to feel stronger and feel fresh. Time to rip it up in training for a another three or four weeks!

By The Numbers:
Monday – 0. Doh!
Tuesday – 11.5. Moderate night trail run.
Wednesday – 10.5. Moderate run.
Thursday – 8. 4 miles of tempo.
Friday – 0. Travel.
Saturday – 0. No pacing.
Sunday – 17. Mountain run.

Weekly Mileage: 47
Year-to-Date Mileage: 896
Three Week Moving Average: 60.0
Year-to-Date Weekly Average: 45.4

Upcoming Training Goals:
Run 6 or more days this week with at least 1 hard run and one moderate run. Make this weekend a triple solid run weekend, but remember you haven’t done many long runs and are not in peak shape. Temper the enthusiasm and run smart.

Bryon Powell

Bryon Powell is the Founding Editor of iRunFar. He’s been writing about trail running, ultrarunning, and running gear for more than 15 years. Aside from iRunFar, he’s authored the books Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultramarathons and Where the Road Ends: A Guide to Trail Running, been a contributing editor at Trail Runner magazine, written for publications including Outside, Sierra, and Running Times, and coached ultrarunners of all abilities. Based in Silverton, Colorado, Bryon is an avid trail runner and ultrarunner who competes in events from the Hardrock 100 Mile just out his front door to races long and short around the world, that is, when he’s not fly fishing or tending to his garden.