Nineteen Miles this Week

Thursday, May 3, 2012:

Last night we had rain again, so today we ran on the paved trails in the park. I ran exactly the same route as two days ago, but finished more than three minutes faster. That’s good, and it’s fast enough now. 6.5 miles in 1:22:09, pace 12:38. This pace would finish a marathon in about 5:31, which is plenty fast, giving a little cushion in a 6-hour marathon. Now I need to go longer at that speed. I ran 10 to 20 seconds of each minute (20 uphill, 10 or less down), otherwise walking at my best long-distance pace.

Nineteen miles this week. That’s good - I’m thinking that I should probably keep mileage down to 24 miles in any Sat-to-Fri week, at least until after the Anchorage marathon, and no more than 30 miles in any contiguous seven days. The sports hernia appeared when I violated that 30-mile rule last summer, and I don’t need any more injuries.

Whining: I did feel a slight ache in the region of the hernia surgery, never a sharp pain. I think it was less than I felt two days ago, and sometimes it wasn’t there at all. In any case it was not enough to make me want to slow down, and it didn’t feel like I might re-injure anything.


Tuesday, May 1:

We ran on the paved trails in the park today, because the grass trails were soggy from rain. I’m trying to do six-mile runs this week, starting with the one in New Jersey last Sunday, and I actually ran 6.5 miles, in 1:25:33, for a pace of 13:10. As always I did a walk / run, running 10 to 15 seconds of every minute, running more on uphill stretches, but not over 15 seconds, and less or none on the downhills. This pace is easily fast enough for a 6:00 hour marathon, if it could be sustained for 26 miles.

Whining: There was a slight ache in the area of the hernia surgery, as usual, but never anything like a sharp pain.

Weight: 160.3 this morning, more than two pounds lost. However, we were traveling over the weekend and yesterday, mostly eating on the fly, and I don’t trust a weight until we’ve been home for a couple of days and everything has settled out.


Post-run breakfast. Salmon omelet with organic eggs, canned wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon, and a little cheese, organic mango salsa, frozen organic strawberries, and frozen organic blueberries: