Heading North

Yesterday afternoon, Marshall and I headed to our beloved trail to finish off our last workout before Grandma's marathon this coming Saturday. We had a final speedy 2 mile tempo just to boost our confidence. It sure did - we are feeling strong and fit. Now *fingers crossed for good weather* we should be ready to roll come Saturday.

2 mi w/u
Goal - 2 miles as close to 11:00 minutes as possible
Actual - 2 miles @ sub 5:30 pace! Ya!
2 mi c/d

6 total



It's been a long, hard 10 weeks since Rock the Parkway. We've had 7 weeks of 70+ miles, several being over 80 and topping out with a 90 mile week. This is a personal high for me. Woo hoo! But I must admit it was VERY tiring, especially when you throw in a full time job. But, none the less, we were determined. We made it work. There were days where Marshall would drop me off at work, and I would run home (about 5 miles) for my second run.

We nailed just about every workout leading up to this marathon. The past two Saturdays we hit up the track and did Yasso 800's which were right on pace. We also did 20 x 400 (broken up into sets) which was no easy task. The best part was that we were able to keep recovery honest. It was super hot and humid, which we've been battling the past two weeks.

Our last long workout was about 3 weeks ago. We did a 10 mile tempo.

Goal - 4 mi marathon pace (MP)/1mi half marathon pace (HP)/4mi MP/1mi HP
Actual - above

Nailed it! Our MP was geared towards 5:58ish and HP was pushed down to sub 5:50. This run felt very controlled and it was surprisingly easy to click off each mile under 6:00. We only had one mile off pace and this was the turn around mile, so I wasn't too concerned. As soon as we got that one out of the way we settled right back in to a comfortable sub 6:00 pace again. This is good compared to last year. Last year I felt like I could run 6:05 all day, but ask me to go under 6:00 and it immediately felt hard. Hopefully this is a good sign :)

Penny is up to 10 miles this year. . . she still has quite a bit to go, but probably won't be running too many this summer. It's just too hot for her. She was hot and tired after her last run and it took a while for her to recover. She's quite the runner, but needs to learn some pacing ;)