Monday: 4 miles (9:12). Two straight days of only 4 miles. Legs should feel refreshed tomorrow.
Tuesday: 8 miles (9:32). Mid 80's temperatures! 25 second pickup on each mile. The heat made me slow down a bit.
Wednesday: 2.5 miles (9:04) - Warmup at Drakes Creek Park. 1/2 Mile (8:44) - Warmup at the HHS Track with strides. 7.5 miles (7:53) - 6 x (1 mile @ 7:15 + 400m Slow). I was pretty worried about this workout, considering my fastest mile for 2016 was 7:23 and it was 7 weeks ago. So this was a great confidence builder to be able to hit the goal on every mile. The 6 mile splits were 7:10, 7:02, 7:00, 7:06, 7:12, 7:14. The 7:07-7:08 average beat my time on the same workout from April 2014 (7:12 average) when I was coming off PR's and was doing a lot more speed work. 1 Mile (11:02). I had a delay to get to the cooldown at the Hendersonville Library, which made me start to stiffen up. So it was a very slow cooldown.
Thursday: 10 miles (9:42). Keeping it slow and easy until Saturday's long run.
Friday: 6 miles (9:29).
Saturday: 20 miles (8:32). Last big long run before the Paris Marathon. The plan was for a 4 mile warmup plus 3 x (4 miles @ 8:00ish + 1/2 mile Slow), 3 Mile Cooldown. I got off to a pretty fast warmup (8:55, 8:47, 8:41, 8:39) before taking a gel and getting ready for the first fast interval. When I started the first fast interval on Shelby Bottoms Greenway I found myself running side by side with another runner. It was kind of odd, because we were side by side and neither one of us was falling back. I said a few words about a half mile in and then we began conversing, he was training for Country Music Marathon where he ran 3:26 last year and I was in my final big run for Paris. The first mile clicked at 8:02 and we were still side by side. It was making me run a bit faster but he kept right with me. But after mile 2 clicked off at 7:52, he said he was dropping back for some slower miles, so I pressed on to complete the first 4 mile interval with miles 3 and 4 both at 7:59. I lost a little momentum after he dropped back. I did run into him at the turnaround and introduced myself. He introduced himself as Gilbert and I was able to find his time from last years Country Music Marathon. He is one year older than me and the solid 3:26 was a big BQ for him. The second 4 mile interval now had the wind at my back and I ran it faster at 7:57, 7:53, 7:52, 7:51. After another 1/2 mile slow run and stopping for water, gel, and bathroom break, when I started the 3rd interval my right hip/hip flexor were feeling pretty sore and I had to fight harder just to run between 8:00 and 8:10. The final interval came in at 8:00, 8:00, 8:10, 8:08 and then I was pretty slow and sore on the 3 mile cool down. I had an 8:16 pace through 17 miles, which is really good for me. The 20 mile overall pace of 8:32 was my 3rd best 20 mile pace, so that is a good sign 15 days before the Paris Marathon.
Sunday: 3 miles (10:32). I felt cold, slow, and sore out there. Right hip flexor still bothering me today so kept it real easy. I may run another few miles later today, will see how I feel. 3 miles (9:41). End up running again just before sunet.
Total Miles: 65.5 miles. The original plan was for closer to 70 miles this week, but I skipped the first run on Monday as I felt I needed more rest. But this was a good solid week with a great set of intervals at the track on Wednesday followed by one of my best long runs on Saturday.
Friday I leave for Paris and will arrive 8 days before the Paris Marathon.
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