Coming into this week I’d done back-to-back 25 mile weeks and spent 8 hours cleaning the apartment on Sunday. I didn’t realize how much this had taken out of me. On Tuesday morning I felt like I was running through syrup. My legs just would not move as quickly as I wanted them too and by the time I made it home I was spent. I blame it on a combination of fatigue, an empty stomach and the humidity. I still managed, what is for me, a very respectable “easy run” pace but it was harder than it should have been. Wednesday I felt a bit better.

On Saturday I decided to run an experiment. I ran with my Garmin but I did not look at all during the run. I just went by feel and tried to run a comfortable pace. I thought it would be interesting to see what my body did naturally. I was shocked to see that I averaged 9:43 min/mile. My splits were also quite consistent which is nice. My Saturday runs are always a little easier than my week day run (same effort yields a faster pace) because I have time to eat and then digest for 2 hours before running. Nutrition helps.

I’ve had the CBC and NBC broadcasts of the Track and Field World Championships on the TV while I’ve been pottering around the apartment this weekend. I watched the men’s marathon yesterday and the men’s 100m final is going to be on later today. Because its taking place in Japan everything is tape delayed so I’ve banned myself from reading sports news online. This is getting me pumped for the Olympics next summer!

I have now reached the half way point in my training for the Royal Victoria half marathon. Only seven more weeks to go! I finally registered for the race this week. My transportation to and from Victoria is also now booked. I’ve been studying the course map and reading the webpage to collect all the data I can. The most important thing I’ve learned so far is that, as is typical of Canadian races, the course will be marked each kilometer and every 5 miles. Even though I’ll have my Garmin I’m thinking about converting to kilometer pacing for this race. A 1:59:55 half marathon is equivalent to a pace of 5:41 min/km.

In other news, I think it’s time to retire my second pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS 6s. I’ve had this pair since January but since I always have 2-3 pairs of shoes in rotation they’re only at 342.5 miles. In this case that’s 59:08.18 hours of running! I was hoping to get 350-400 miles on them but they seemed pretty flat on Saturday’s long run so it’s time for them to be demoted down a rank in my shoe hierarchy:

1. Shoes being broken/saved in for racing
2. Shoes being used for everyday training
3. There are two possible paths here:
   1. Shoes that stay in my locker at the gym for use in cross training
   2. Shoes to be used as street shoes
4. Shoes that live in Ottawa for use at the cottage or mowing the lawn

On Saturday I did my first double digit mile run since the marathon. I set out intending to do the 9 miles on my schedule but less than a mile into the run my Garmin ran out of battery power. I had recharged it on Wednesday in Victoria but I think it must have accidentally turned on in my luggage on the boat back to Seattle and drained the battery. I was planning to do a 4.5 mile out and back course but without the Garmin I didn’t know where the turn around would be so instead I decided to do my tried and true 10 mile course. I did the run by feel without any knowledge of my pace or specific timing for walk/water/gel breaks. I’m too type A to do this every week but it’s nice every once in a while.

When I did the Vancouver half marathon last year my longest training runs were two 10 milers in the two week preceding the race. For the Seattle half marathon I did an 11.5 miler two weeks before the race. I’ve now done a 10 miler a full 8 weeks before the race. I am very excited about this. Granted 1.5 of those 8 weeks will be mostly lost to a short trip to Europe I have planned with my mother. Still I feel pretty good about where my weekly and long run mileage is right now. I feel like I have a lot of room for improvement in the speed department, especially if I want to beat 1:59:56, but hopefully that will come with more time and training.

This weekly update is a little late because as you can see from above I’ve been out of town since Thursday. In fact I am currently in a cafe in Victoria so I’m just going to post the table and let it speak for itself. I will say one thing though, check out the progressively faster splits I pulled off during the four tempo miles last Wednesday!