61 miles last week

I had a great week of training and some really good runs this past week. I ran 7 days in a row and got above 60 miles since sometime back in April and I felt pretty good.

Monday morning I made it out for the Kenyan Way workout and ran 4 miles of hills and had a really good workout with Claudio. We start out at a medium-hard effort to start with and were really pushing it hard the last lap. It was a good workout and I got 8.5 miles in for the day.

Tuesday was a recovery day at lunch in the blistering heat at lunch. I ran ~8.25 miles in 62 minutes and it was hot.

Wednesday I made it out to the Wednesday morning Kenyan Way workout and after about a 1.5 mile warmup did 6 x 2:00 hard with 2:00 recovery jog between each one. I ran with Claudio again and we had a good workout. During the last 2:00 I timed one of our 1/4's and we were doing 5:20 pace. I don't think we were running quite that fast the whole workout, but we had a strong finish. I ran a 3.5 mile cooldown for a total of about 8.25 miles.

Thursday - 5 miles recovery

Friday - 8 miles at the park. The weather was really nice with lower humidity and I headed out the door a little after 9:00 and ran 8 miles in about 58 minutes. I was down around 7:00 pace at the end of the run and averaged about 7:15 pace. The humidity was only about 50% which was a very welcome change.

Saturday - 15.25 miles with Kenyan Way. I almost made it all the way to the start before the group took off and if I were 20 seconds earlier I would have been there for the start. I had a really good run Saturday and averaged about 7:15 pace for the 15+ miles. I wasn't sure how tired I'd be, but the slightly cooler weather and low humidity really made a difference. The last couple of 15+ mile runs I'd done, I had really hit the wall and struggled the last couple of miles, but I felt really good today. Andrew and Jena and another guy picked up the pace and took off midway through the run and I contemplated going with them but just decided to take it easy. With my mileage increase this week, I didn't want to push it too hard so I kept the pace relatively easy and comfortable and enjoyed the run. When we got back to base I ran a couple laps on the cloverleaf with Jace and Nicki to finish the run.

Sunday - 8 miles at park. Sunday evening I headed out to the park for an 8 mile run. It was warm, but I didn't start until about 6:30 so I had a little cloud cover and the sun was starting to set. I didn't wear a watch for the run, but I think I probably was in the 7:20 - 7:30 pace range for most of the run. I was kind of tired and would have been happy to cut the run short but I wanted to make sure I ht 60 miles for the week so I made it through the entire run.

Training for the Badwater Ultramarathon

Ok, I'm not really training for it, but that's what most of my runs feel like these past couple of weeks. I've done about 7 or 8 runs in the last couple of weeks either at lunchtime or in the evening when the heat index has been in the upper 90's or low 100's and it has been hot out. I haven't worn my watch on a number of the recovery days because it is so hot and I don't really want to push myself too hard in the heat. I did wear it on Friday morning when I got out at about 9:00 am and did 7 miles at about a 7:00 avg. I did 14.5 miles last weekend with the Kenyan Way and ran about 15.5 miles this weekend. Yesterday the heat index was 86 at 5:30 in the morning before we even got started so I knew it was going to be a pretty miserable day. I felt good through about 9 miles, but between miles 9 and 10 I could tell that I was getting pretty hot and I couldn't hang with Andrew the last few miles of the run. He was cruising and I dropped back to 7:20 - 7:30 pace the last few miles to finish. It's hard to stay hydrated enough on these runs and I felt like I was like a water faucet running when I finished and it took me most of the day to really get rehydrated. I'll be very happy when it cools off. Tomorrow the Kenyan Way fall speed workouts start so I'll be getting up early to run hills in the morning.