Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Back to the grind

The week after a marathon, according to most guides, is no time to leap right back into training; it's unlikely to do you any good and there's a good chance of doing actual harm. So last week, the only runs I did were slow recovery runs.

After a week of recovery runs, I finally did a hard-ish run on Sunday -- 8.6 miles at an 8:42 pace. Even that is an easy pace for me, but at least it felt like running rather than jogging.

After a rest day yesterday, today I was scheduled for yet another recovery run, a 6-miler. But today is also the day the DART group meets for one of its regular runs. I told myself I'd join the DARTers, but take it relatively easy. Chad, Jeremy, and Mark were there, all runners who can leave me in the dust on any given day. My best bet was to run with Mark, who's still recovering from a couple nagging injuries. After an 8:11 first mile, we let Chad and Jeremy take off while we tried to slow it down a bit. We didn't slow down much though -- Mile 2 and 3 were 8:19 and 8:13. We did slow it up on the uphill Miles 4 and 5: 8:26 and 8:29. We finished in 8:11 for an average 8:17 pace. That's not exactly a "recovery" run, except that I can honestly say I felt refreshed rather than tired at the end -- probably because this run came after a rest day.

The plan is still for this to be a relatively easy week, running a total of just 37 miles. Tomorrow will probably be the toughest day, a 9-miler including running the 6.3 mile DART loop at a brisk pace, if not a full-out tempo pace. But I get a rest day on Thursday, so I'm not concerned about burning myself out.

Details of today's workout are below:


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