Strong Finish to a Good Week

Light run this evening turned out to be great. I've always left the day after a long run for rest, but I felt pretty good today and wanted to see if an easy recovery run didn't help restore the legs better than no run at all. And voila! It really felt good.

I did two laps on the trail around Lusardi Creek: 2.5 miles counter-clockwise, and then 2.5 miles clockwise. I took it easy on the first lap, but picked up the tempo on the return lap. 5 miles total at a pace of just a tad over 8 minutes/mile. I was surprised how good my legs and ankles felt.

This is the last hard week with my last long run coming a week now. I plan on treating the 48 hours leading up to Sunday morning the same way as those before the marathon. I want to rehearse the sleep and eating patterns, and approach the 22+ mile training run Sunday morning just as I would the marathon itself. The only difference will be that I WILL work to preserve my energy and try hard to maintain a 9-minute mile pace throughout, or at least for the first 13-15 miles.

But that's all a week from today. Tomorrow: a no run day and I hope to get back into the pool and in the weight room. It's been awhile and I know I've lost some upper body strength over the last 3-4 weeks due to neglect.

I've got to do more flexibility work too after my workouts. I've gotten lax on that.

Looking forward to this week.