A dilemma

My workout plan calls for me to do three 70-mile weeks over the course of an 18-week schedule. That's my peak mileage on this plan, and it's fairly important for me to do high mileage this time around because I think logging the miles is the best way for me to avoid bonking in the late stages of a marathon.

Here's my dilemma: This week is one of those weeks, but my other running plans are intruding on my opportunity to put in the miles. On Saturday, I'm planning to drive up to the Blue Ridge so I can preview the route of the following week's Blue Ridge Relay. I'm our team captain and I've never done this race before. I don't want to get lost in the middle of the night, so knowing the course is important. I'll be spending the night in Asheville so my Sunday run will have to be there. On Monday I'm leading a preview of Davidson's Run For Green half-marathon. Mondays are normally rest days for me.

Without those interruptions, I'd be running 16.4 miles on Sunday, a fairly tough workout calling for 70 minutes worth of marathon-pace running and 10 minutes worth of tempo running. And don't forget I'm running 23 miles in a challenging relay less than a week later.

So if I were to stick perfectly to my running schedule this week, I'd follow a hard Sunday run with a half-marathon, albeit at a fairly relaxed pace. And I'd have to do my hard run in unfamiliar Asheville.

Alternately, I could just put in a few easy miles in Asheville and count Monday's run as part of my 70-mile week. I'd miss out on a hard workout but I'd still be putting the miles in. Then I could move up next week's hard workout (usually done on Thursdays) to Tuesday, so I'll still be fresh for Friday.

I think this second choice will be the plan. I'll miss one tough workout, but I think the challenging race next week will make up for that.

Details of today's workout are below.