Marathon Training – Week 7 – My own personal SAG wagon

19/03	-	Rest day
20/03	6.0 miles	Tempo run: 4 mi @ 8:47/8:42/8:42/8:17 min/mile
21/03	XT	60 min on the elliptical & light weights
22/03	7.0 miles	Easy run: avg 10:25 min/mile
23/03	-	Rest day
24/03	18.1 miles	Long run: avg 10:26 min/mile
25/03	3 miles	Recovery run: avg 10:40 min/mile
Total	34.1 miles	YTD: 252.1 miles

This past week was the third hard week in a row before next week’s step back week. Both Tuesday’s tempo run and Thursday’s easy run went quite well. On Tuesday I tried to concentrate on running the tempo miles “comfortably hard.” I didn’t check the pace on my Garmin until the end when I discovered that I’d outrun my target pace of 8:54 min/mile. I’m really not sure how I pulled out an 8:17 mile at the end but if felt great!

On my 18 mile Saturday long run I had my own personal SAG (Support and Gear) wagon: my Dad. He drove me to the start of my run at Golden Gardens, met me at miles 5.5 and 11.5 (for a water and gatorade refill) and then met me at the end of my run at Seward Park and drove me home. I also ran into him at mile 16.2 when he was walking the 2.4 mile Seward Park loop in the opposite direction than I was running it. Below you can see a satellite image of Seattle with my route on it. I’ve also mapped out the route here. I covered some serious distance!

Doing a point-to-point route was a nice change since my runs are usually loops or out-and-backs that begin and end at my apartment. Unlike last week my legs felt great from the start and I didn’t really start feeling them until somewhere between miles 12 and 14. That happened to be the same time when the weather changed from cloudy to light rain to showers and things just became a bit uncomfortable. I finished the run strongly though and I was quite pleased with my long run performance. I can feel my endurance building.

After the run Dad and I got take-out soup and bagels for lunch and spent the better part of the afternoon watching NCAA basketball. It’s March Madness and I can think of no better way to recover from a long run than lazing around watching college basketball. Good times.