Wrapping up an A+ week

I feel great about how this week worked out. The week started slow with a couple of 11 and 12 miles days that were a little slow but felt good. I was being pretty cautious about hitting any kind of speed this week since sometimes you need a little more recovery after a hard 50k effort. It's the time of year when you see people bounce from race to race because they are so plentiful in April and May but you see a lot of DNF's as well cause they aren't allowing their body to recover. I'm happy I haven't had to learn this lesson this season.

On Wednesday this week I headed out with Charlie a Army 10 miler teammate. It was a great run just missed the rest of the team. We plugged out 9 miles at a 7:20 min/mile pace which felt good.

Thursday I had to run a 1 mile test for a friends health and physical education class. He had me run 1 mile as hard as I could (really hard on Cameron's 11 lap indoor track) and do 1 rep max on leg press, leg extension, leg curl, lat pull down, and bench press. I maxed out every event except the bench press and lat pull down. I still managed to max at 210lbs which isn't bad considering the last time I benched I was in Iraq. After that I headed out for some speed work at Lake Elmer Thomas Park. I ran a 1 miles warm up 2x2 miles with 1 mile easy in between. I ran the first in 12:02 and the second in 12:38. I wasn't happy with the positive split but I did get hit with a decent 20-25mph wind. Ran a 4 mile cool down for a total on the day of 12 miles.

I took Friday off entirely just trying to be smarter about this recovery thingy.

Saturday I headed out to the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge for a 20 miler. The concept of this workout was to run a 9 mile warm up then progress from 8:50 to 7:00 min/mile. I ran down Burma road trail but was greeted by 2 different rattlesnakes moving off the trail in search of cooler rocks in the 90 degree heat. While I did listen to Liza Howard's talk of URP about what to do if you see a rattlesnake I did not feel like spending the next 2 hours freaking out so I hit the roads of the refuge. I ran to Meers and back. The faster paces were easy until 16 miles when I ran out of water. I had to stop by the visitors center to refil. I nice lady was kind enough to refil my bottle since I couldn't go in without a shirt. I finished up in 2:46. I also ran this run in my new pair of Skora's which I am about 60 miles into and quite impressed with!

Sunday was just supposed to be getting out and hitting 20 miles. I ran 15 miles with Charlie and we managed to knock out the miles at a quick 7:40-7:55 pace. We passed the miles talking about this years 10 miler team. It was a fun run Charlie used to be a cross country coach which is one of my top when I retire from the Army jobs so it was nice to pick his brain. I dropped Charlie off at 15 miles and headed back out after a water stop to finish up the 20. I finished in just under 2:36 for a quick 20 miler.

Weekly total came in at 86 miles.

My body feel great just gotta recover with a good cup a bourbon. I'll take tomorrow easy or off and look to some speed come Tuesday. I think a Mount Scott CR attempt is in my cards this week.