Hand me down my walkin' cane

I got around to piling up miles during the week.  Actually, they are starting to come normally.  During the beginning of the work week I primarily run.  As I tire mid-week I begin to work the run 4 minutes and walk 2.5 minutes for some of the miles.  One can easily average 13 minutes a mile with this, in the dark, with some questionable running surfaces, and while under load.  It does help with recovery.  I covered 86 miles over the 5 days before Saturday.  Saturday is a freezing rain day and I wanted to get 20 in with about half of it running only and the other half with the run/walk effort.  I managed to accomplish this in my own particular way.

Here are a few things I am beginning to find out.  You can cover many miles in a week when trying to stay slow.  You also become slow.  I'm at the point where there is no more time to train in a day.  Part of the idea was to get tired enough so you could replicate what it would be like to do 4.167 miles in an hour when dead dog tired.  For me, at least so far this isn't happening.  Even today in crappy conditions I'm doing these in 53-54 minutes.  Which is where i want to be anyway, but I really can't add more miles during the week.  I suppose this should be a good thing.  Part of the goal is to get to the point where loops don't feel difficult day after day.  Well they don't.  You can't replicate what is going to happen in a last man standing event in day to day running.  Not even close, so I guess there will be 1-2 trials necessary.  I am thinking at least one at 40-50 miles, but we shall see.

My energy levels feel decent.  I should target a recovery week, but I'm somewhat determined to aim at getting in 500 miles this month.  This is as close as I'll ever get.  Certainly it means squat, but that's how some brains work.  I'll admit my achilles in both feet are starting to wonder if we are ever getting off the island, but I keep reminding them that Gilligan says we are close.  With travel coming up it is going to be extremely difficult to find the time to accomplish this.  Outside of this venue and a few close friends, I don't tell anyone how much time I spend out there.  It is certainly not healthy.  Now that winter is here you can be sure the blue skies and tuna fish sandwiches for everyone attitude is under attack.  Let's see how this plays out.