CIM week -2

43.9 miles for the week.  The highest mileage week of the year, and very unlikely I'll beat it given where I'm headed. Mostly great, with a few over-training hiccups.  All-in-all, I'm ready for my taper and the race.  Also, it's time to start the weather dances (C.I.M. -- Cool. No. Wind. No. Rain...!).

Monday: 6 easy @ 10:02 avg. but with the last mile at 9:01 + 0.16 walking c/d.  Not bad.

Tuesday: Treadmill interval attempt.  3X 0.5 @ 8:00/mile @ 0.5% incline with 0.25 walking recovery @ 15:00/mile and it just felt wrong, tight, overloaded, and likely to hurt myself.  I stopped the 4th interval at 0.25 and walked the last 0.75 @ 2.0%.  When I got home, I realized this was my 8th day of running in a row without a break, the most mileage I'd done in 7 consecutive days in over a year, and I had 2 more days of running on track before I had a rest day.  Yup, I felt good about my decision.

Wednesday:  2.75 w/E @ 9:46 + 0.48 walking c/d in the AM.  Bikram, full series, all poses in the PM.  This day showed me that I was in *much* better shape than I'd been in for quite some time.  It also felt like a reward for my discretion on Tuesday.

Thursday:  Easy run with my old running buddy who's finally returning to the game.  It was so great to catch up with her and enjoy the easy (cold!) AM miles.  0.17 walk; 3.52 @ 10:43; 0.13 walk c/d.

Friday:  Rest.  30 minutes PM Yoga with E.  First day off running in 10 days.  Longest streak in a year. (I'm not really a running streaker, can you tell?)

Saturday:  4 @ 9:26 while listening to my audiobook.  Heavenly.  Easy breath and effort.  For the first time, I started to trust that maybe, just maybe, my goal of 9:30 average mile pace for the marathon wasn't in crazy town.  0.12 walk c/d.

Sunday:  Jen and I did 22.6 total including the walking cool down.  We'd planned for 20, but there were some bathroom and water fountain detours that extended the route.  This is the big issue with a point-to-point.  Once you are committed to the starting point and the end point, you are committed, and even if you detour off the most direct route, you still have to get to the finishing point.  This is very different from an out and back or a loop where you can modify, which is good to remember.  The actual so-called *run* portion for me was 20.81 @ 11:08 with all the walking breaks.  When I drop the walking breaks, I get to 20.08 @ 3:34:08 or 10:40/mile.  Medium effort.  Not bad at all.  I'm feeling tentatively confident for CIM, which is a *huge* improvement over just a short while ago.

2 weeks to go, wish me luck!