Recovery Week

WOW! Work has kicked in a vengeance. Many long hours by the pool. It's not exactly mind-melding stuff, but more that I worry about stuff going on that needs my attention.

I'm SO glad to have a recovery week. My first week of "quality" was tough. I kept my weekly mileage up at 10, and it generally consisted of lots of hills. I ran a reverse route up a LONG HILL of Franklin Street, and then I started a new route that takes me up the wicked Weaver Dairy Hill.

When it came time for the true quality aspect, the weekend long run, I was done from the get-go. I was in Wilmington, planning on about 15, faster than a normal long run. Of course, I don't use a GPS watch, or anything that gives me pace. So how much faster? Who knew. Many things were off. I'm pretty sure I was dehydrated (I drank about 20 oz more than normal, and I pissed a trinkle of dark brown after), the sun was up and blazing 70 degrees, and I was mainly on un-shaded pavement. Like I said, my legs were fatigued from the start, so even though it was hard, I felt slow. I made it about half way, and walked almost .4 miles. And the whole rest of the run, I don't think I ran more than a mile before needing to walk. It was pretty bad. I haven't felt that bad, or run that poorly since my first marathon back in 2009.

I feel a little better about it now, by the fact that I just started out way too fast. Turns out it was just over 16 miles, and at the halfway of about 8 miles, I had averaged 7:30-ish pace. Which is fast for a long run; I normally do that for my weekday runs. Sure it's not that fast for 8 miles, but given my environment and how far I had to go, it was tough.

This week is a true recovery week, with lower weekly mileage, and truly slow 2 hours on the weekend.

Otherwise I have my eye out for the weekend after the fourth of July, which is my birthday. Leigh Anne and I are planning to take a 3 day trip up to Asheville. We'll do some camping, and of course some trail running and hiking. I'm looking forward to getting up in the mountains, with some long, high, technical trails.

Soundtrack:
"The End is the Beginning is the End" - Smashing Pumpkins (they also produced "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning")
"You Know My Name" - Chris Cornell