41 mile week

I’ve officially completed my first 40+ mile week of marathon training! Last training schedule I had one 40 mile week as my peak week of training. This training schedule has 4 weeks between 41 and 44 miles. That alone marks progress from the last round of training.

I finished up the week with a 17 mile run. In a desire to avoid being soaking wet running for several hours, we moved the run from Saturday morning to Sunday morning. We also switched from C&O to W&OD to avoid puddle jumping the whole run.

I was a little nervous about this run because of our failed attempt at a 15 mile run in Florida. Additionally, my leg was really tight during my 14 mile run before that. I wasn’t sure how my right leg would hold up and how hard the 3 mile jump would feel.

Well it felt great!

First off, it was great to run with Megan again. Our run became catch up and chat time, which always makes a run more enjoyable. I felt good pretty much the whole time. At around the turn around point, there’s a decently long hill. Last time I encountered the hill was on my 18 mile run training for MCM. This time, the hill was noticeably easier for me to handle. So, although I’m not where I’d like to be with my hill running, it was nice to notice that improvement.

Also in typical me style, I sped up on the second half of the run. Megan slowed us down a few times, but I think I kept speeding back up. Neither of us are the best at pacing, and it definitely felt like a comfortable pace the whole time. We finished much faster than I thought we would though, 2:46 and some seconds when I expected something more like 2:55-2:59. I felt pretty awesome at the end of the run, and today my legs are a bit tired and soar but not too bad. The only downside to shifting our run to Sunday is that I lose my rest day. This is going to be another high mileage week so I’ll keep my runs easy until my legs feel like they’ve rested enough.