Run down

The mileage, combined with the usual winter weather, work hours, etc lead to a couple of sick days and sleepless nights. Needless to say, I won't be breaking 50 miles this week. Still hope to get in 30 or so, even with 3 days off, but can't push the pace until I feel 100% again. This is one of the few times that I've broken the rule about whether an illness should stop your run. Normally, if the cold/congestion, etc is from the neck or higher, you run; chest colds, etc, you rest. This one kept me from sleeping so much that I just didn't have the energy to put in a run those days. On the plus side, my legs feel perfectly fine after my 7 miles this morning, so I should be back to normal mileage next week.

Turning 50

With two outdoor runs over the weekend, I cracked the 50 mile barrier this week. Just three weeks short of 10 years since my last time over 50 miles. Guess what, that 10 years makes a huge difference in the recovery process. I struggled with soreness and general fatigue for most of Monday. When pushing the mileage, we're more suseptible to colds, etc. Right now, I'm trying to get as much sleep as possible to fight off a sore throat and just plain recover enough to get in the next run. With the school vacation week and a light work week in early March, I hope to turn 50 once more.

Outdoors

Thanks to the warm predicted tempertures actually coming through and a cooperating schedule, I got to run outside for the first time this year. I tried to do my standard 10ish mile course, but many of the sections were still fairly iced over. The warm weather added a stream of water and puddles along many roads that actually made the available running area even smaller than it has been this winter. I skipped an extension section of my loop that isn't very wide in good conditions and would be downright dangerous. Call it 8.5 (gmap says 8.64) in 64:42.

With that 8.5, I finish the week at 48.5, my longest week this year. I think I'm ready to break the 50 mile barrier, without risking an injury. In college, my limit was 60 miles. If I did a week over 60, I needed to back down under the next week or I would invariably come down with some sort of overuse injury (IT band, hamstrings, etc).

Getting a lot of questions about "what are your training for". No, not doing Boston. Not really even sure what my next race will be. I can probably guess that it will be a relatively spur of the moment/weather dependent 5k/5M. This is simply a chance to really concentrate on base mileage. Typically, in your school days, this is done all summer to build for xc and then the track seasons. In the post-collegiate world, it's typically done as part of marathon training. Ideally, it should be done prior to starting the training, but there never seeems to be the time to do base miles and typical racing schedules. Plenty of time and races in the Spring, I'll worry about it then.