Half marathon training – Week 8 – Easy week

20/08	-	Rest Day
21/08	6.0 miles	Easy run: avg 10:08 min/mile
22/08	5.0 miles	Easy run: avg 10:15 min/mile
23/08	XT	45 min on the elliptical machine & light weights
24/08	-	Rest Day
25/08	6.0 miles	Easy run: avg 9:43 min/mile
26/08	3.1 miles	Recovery run: avg 10:23 min/mile
Total	20.1 miles	YTD: 731.5 miles

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!