Training 6/6 - 6/12

As promised, it's another post! And, speaking of that post, I'm totally shocked and surprised at how many people read it or responded to it. More than that, the number of people that identified with my thoughts was pretty remarkable and humbling. My intent with the post was for my own cathartic review of the past few months, so it was comforting to know that I wasn't alone and gratifying to hopefully help others with their own running challenges. Yay Internet!

With that, my hope for these weekly recaps is for me to get a snapshot of my training. I also hope it will help me know, beyond the numbers, exactly where I am in my training. For example, if I write my weekly recap and note that I felt tired on all my runs, it will be a flag to rest a bit more the following week. That's my hope.

For those that do read these updates, I think it'll be interesting to find out that I really don't run all that much. From afar or through Facebook, it may appear that I'm crushing a ton of miles. Not true. In reality, my two biggest weeks in 2016, while training for an ultra, were only 40 miles. (More to come in my 2016-so-far recap.) There's something glamorous about running 100-mile weeks, but that's not for me. I'm just too fragile. Running a little is better (way, way better) than not running at all.

Onto the numbers:

6/6, Monday: Off. I pretty much always take Mondays off.
6/7, Tuesday: (Bradbury: 5.1, 54:42) Due to the need to be in Freeport for a meeting (was still late), I snuck in a run at The Brad with Half Bomb and Nate Dawg. Easy, conversational pace. Well, conversational enough for me to complain about the overuse/lack of care of the trails from a certain constituency. Felt good...and the run, too.
6/8, Wednesday: (Mt. Ararat: 4.2, 35:32) In the future, Wednesdays will be "Workout Wednesdays," but today was just some easy hills. Might have gone a little quicker than "necessary," but my legs are starting to come around.
6/9, Thursday: (Heath: 4.1, 36:00) First time running three consecutive days since Grayson Highlands, and my legs made certain I was aware of that fact..
6/10, Friday: Off. I pretty much always take Fridays off.
6/11, Saturday: (Fatherland: 4.6, 35:07) We traveled down to my parents' house midday, so I could attend a retirement party for my high school cross country and track coach. Scheduling was tricky, but I was able to get out for a leg-mover in the afternoon. Felt fresh, which was a good sign.
6/12, Sunday: (Willowdale: 11.9, 2:13:21) After the evening's festivities, which would only be considered festivities at my advanced age and were really only excessive eating and moderate drinking, we didn't get too early of a start. Emphasis on "we" in that last sentence, as D and I were able to get out together, thanks to my parents. (Although we did miss mini-golf.) And, despite the aforementioned festivities, I felt great. We headed to Willowdale State Forest to check out the "new" Stone Cat course. (Research, perhaps?) The running at Willowdale is pretty great and fairly easy: relatively flat and not too technical. But, trying to follow a specific route at Willowdale is nearly impossible: the trail system is a twisted spiderweb thrown into a blender. The time above does not include the 30 minutes of stops to look at the map and read the course directions. With each of those items, however, we were able to follow the course, which is smoother than I remember, but just as twisty. I had a blast out there and really enjoyed being able to spend some quiet time on the trails with my favorite adventure partner.

The ferns of Willowdale

TOTALS:
Miles: 30.1
Time: 4:54
Elevation: 1,509

All in all, a solid week. Nothing spectacular, but a good building block week. It was the third week in-a-row that I've increased my mileage, so next week will be a step-back week. And, yes, I increased to 30 miles and will be stepping back. Like I said, I don't actually run all that much. The primary focus of each week is to stay healthy, with a secondary goal of quality miles that best mimic my goal race, if there is one.