March 13 to March 19 Training

Monday: 5 miles (9:13), 3 miles (9:15).  First run on the treadmill, then went to Brixx for the second run.
Tuesday: 7 miles (9:22).  Opted for another treadmill run rather than go fight the mid 30's temperatures with 15 MPH winds.
Wednesday: 2 miles (9:22), 8.52 miles (8:28), 1 mile (9:31).  Wimped out with the cold weather and ran my workout on the treadmill.  2 mile warmup, 12 x (4:00 @ 7.8 mph + 2:00 @ 5.7 mph).  The 7.8 mph was a pace of 7:41, while the recover was at a pace of 10:31.  Tough workout.
Thursday: 6 miles (9:22).  I was pretty sore in the quads from yesterday's intervals.   So took it real easy.  Wanted to watch my team, so ran the treadmill watching NCAA.  I hate losing in the first round!
Friday: 6 miles (9:23).  Finally back outside after 3 days on the treadmill.
Saturday: 3 miles (9:55), 13.17 miles (9:06).  3 mile warmup followed by the Music City Half Marathon where I finished in 1:59:34.  I had to run pretty fast the last 3/4 mile to get under 2:00, which was good enough for 1st Place Age Group.  I could tell by the high heart rate on the warmup that it was going to be a struggle today.  Yesterday my first mile at 9:28 had an average heart rate of 128.  Today's first mile at 9:53, 25 seconds slower, had an average heart rate of 135.  But mentally, I kind of checked out by miles 3-4 and became satisfied to just shoot for a 2:00 half marathon when I should be pushing to run faster.
Sunday: 6.1 miles (8:53).  Today, I tried the run walk.  I thought a 4:00 marathon pace would be good for an easy run and calculated that 5:00 at 8:25 pace with a 1:00 walk at a 15:00 pace would translate to just over a 9 minute pace.  I ended up running the 5:00's at around 8:20, but the walk was faster than anticipated at around 13:20-13:30.  Net result, was 8:53 pace, which is a 3:52 marathon pace.  But the amazing thing is when I got home, I felt very fresh.  Usually I'm a bit achy getting out of the car, but felt fresh as could be.   Could have gone on another run.

Total Miles: 60.7 miles.  If you read my Sunday's run, I think you will see some more of this run/walk. It is seriously time to try this in a marathon.  I've had the idea to do it before, but now I feel is the right time.  I haven't really had a good marathon in a long time, so why not try something different?  I'm looking to run the Andrew Jackson Marathon on April 1st and a long training run, and this would be the perfect time to try it.  If it is successful, maybe I'll try something at London.