Great Week of Training

This week has certainly been my most productive training week of the summer so far. On Thursday I completed my first two-a-day of the summer. I plan for two to three of these a week as August hits. Thursday I ran an easy 4 miles in the morning with my WMHS runners and then headed out to River Falls to do some mile repeats with two college teammates in the evening. Kyle ran 8 miles and Justin and I did 5 miles each. We averaged around 2:30-2:45 recovery time in between each one. The wind on the track was unusually light which was great for running well on the track. I ran 5:51, 5:50, 5:48, 5:48, and 5:43 for my 5 miles. I ran the first 4, took the 5th mile off and ran the 6th one. After that I ran alternating laps to pace Kyle through his final 2 mile repeats. I ran the 400s in 79, 81 and 77 seconds respectively. Kyle ran his 7th and 8th miles in 5:24 each, giving Kyle a very good indication that he is running very strong right now.

All 3 of us that did the workout are preparing for the Twin Cities Marathon in the fall. Twin Cities will be Kyle's first career marathon, it will be my 8th marathon and 4th Twin Cities, and it will be Justin's 5th career marathon and 4th Twin Cities as well. Justin is also an ultramarathoner and will be running a 12 hour run in Milwaukee during Labor Day weekend.

This workout gave me a good indication of my fitness at this point in my training. I am already feeling good about it, especially with this workout being my first faster workout since my last marathon two months ago. I have run 56 miles so far this week with an 11-12 mile run planned for tomorrow. I ran 15 miles bright and early this morning along Summit Avenue in St. Paul. I pushed the pace in the middle 5 miles of the run from approximately the 21 mile mark to the finish line of the Twin Cities Marathon course. The long run felt great and the weather was phenomenal.