Week in Review

87 Miles
2 Doubles
20 Mile Long run in 7:09 pace
1 Workout Fail

Last week I ran about 88 miles.  This week I continued with roughly the same number.  It's funny because all I really did is take out 2 doubles from my week, and that's resulted in me feeling like I have so much more time on my hands.  I don't have to commit my entire evening to a run, or I have the option to sleep in if I feel like I need it!  This week, I focused on listening to my body and my interal sleep ticker.  If my alarm went off and I felt like I needed more sleep, then I turned the alarm off and went right back to sleep for another hour or so.  With the low ferritin level, I'm supposed to feel tired all of the time, and so might as well try to sleep as much as I can. 

Early in the week, I had a craptastic 10-mile-tempo-turned-into-5-mile tempo.  Initially, Mark had adjusted my paces to slow it down to account for the low iron, but that didn't even work.  I decided that I just need to focus on effort and not on time, and so at least going into next week I can do just that.  Leave the Garmin at home, and run based on time, without mile markers.  I threw out my second workout of the week (3x2 mile), opting instead to get in two runs and enjoy the beautiful fall weather at a slow jaunt. 

The positive note of this week was that my awesome long run streak continued as I ran 20+ miles with Laura, Megan, David, and Jason and felt amazing.  Running in the low 7's was a breeze and felt pretty great.  I've gotten in a decent number of 18+ mile long runs over the summer, and I think that will help me at Philly. 

In the act of full disclosure, I've got a pretty tight left hamstring and IT Band that I've also been dealing with.   I'm crossing my fingers that it holds up over the next couple of weeks as my iron returns back to normal levels and as I build up to longer tempos and steady state runs.  Because of this, I'll keep my mileage around 85-90, get in to see Greenapple as often as possible, and also perform my strength and stretch exercises.

Next week, I've got some 800m repeats, a 10 mile tempo, and a 18 mile long run with the last 3 miles at 6:00 pace.  I may drop one of those workouts and then try my first 10 mile tempo next week, but I haven't decided yet.