Peak miles

This week has been a great week of running. I missed my mileage goal of 90 miles but I had 75 miles that were all very high quality. This week kicked off 10 miler training and I had the chance to run every morning with the team for 6-7 miles. Almost every day I packed in a hot afternoon run ranging from 5 to 8 miles.

Tuesday I hit a hard up tempo run with 3 miles in 17:58 with the team. Last year I was not even close to this fitness level at this time in the season. I was closer to 18:20-18:25 obviously I'm really happy with the kind of shape I'm in. That workout came after hitting a 15 mile day with 8 miles in 61 minutes at 100 degrees on Monday.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were all easy miles. One of the girls on the team was turning 30 on Friday so I joined her for 12 miles of her 30 mile b-day run. The run was pretty fun, I really enjoy being apart of someone achieving their running goals. It just makes you feel so excited.

Of course to the main event. I race the diamond brigade 1/2 on Saturday morning. I was pretty excited about this race. The last half marathon I ran was the A2A half in March 2012. I knew a PR was long coming just didn't know how much. My goal/guess was 1:22. Charlie also ran the half being. Charlie and I took off with about 3 others at a 6:15 pace. Quickly the miles put everyone in their proper place and Charlie and I were soon alone on the backroads of Fort Sill. The first 4 miles happened as planned with 4 miles in 25 minutes. After 4 miles we started to climb a few hills. Charlie is a very skilled hill runner and he put about 30-60 seconds on me over the next 2.5 miles. At the turn Charlie had 60 seconds on me and I was behind my goal pace at 41:58. I took inventory and choose to keep pushing. The next 2.5 miles were mostly downhill and I knocked back a couple of 5:58 miles to real Charlie back in my mile 9.

I thought I had finally done it, I had finally beaten Charlie, all I had to do was push pass him and crush his soul! Charlie was very aware of what I was doing and picked the next uphill to lay the hammer down and properly crush my soul. We ran the last 3 miles in very hard running 6:08-6:12 pace to finish in 1st and 2nd Charlie in 1:22 and me in 1:22:30. Obviously Charlie took it easy and I ran 100% but considering I have no specific training for the race nor did I taper I'll take it.

I am feeling super fit and very excited about how I feel. I did not run today, I woke up feeling a little sore so I choose not to push my luck 6 weeks out from Badwater and took a day off. Next week I plan to hit 30 miles on Sunday after I drop Suki off at the airport then lay the hammer on the last 3 weeks of training to Badwater. I'm getting super excited!