Rungry!!; Week 7

I'm so hungry I could eat twigs

Sunday:  9.5 miles @ 9:50 pace; I had a fun run with two great ladies.  Audrey came up to SF to run so I stuck with her the first 2.5 miles as a nice warm-up.  I then got passed over to Alyssa who was out doing a mellow recovery run (the only way I keep up with this lady is if she is on a recovery run).  We did one Strawberry Hill ascent together then I knocked out two more by myself (9:34 pace PR on the second ascent).  After that we finished off the run with some flat miles around Stow Lake.  I clocked sub-9:00 minute miles the last 2.7 miles and am happy to report they felt like a comfortable working pace.

Tuesday:  9 miles including 7 miles @ 8:22 pace; Knocked another tempo run out of the park.  I looked back to my Texas training cycle runs and this same run in that cycle I ran the tempo portion at a 9:04 pace!  That is quite an improvement (later tempo runs in the Texas cycle were done in the upper 8:30's, but I am still very impressed). And if you want to see how far I've come in 2 years, here is the same week of training for SFM back in 2009.  Wow.  Also fun to note how this week of the training plan is where I realize the mileage ramps up.  The 2009 SFM training cycle is the first time I used this training plan and I've stuck with it ever since.  I've been getting faster and am generally less injured on this plan.  It works for me. I've been tweaking the paces and adding more speed work in, but the mileage base of the plan has remained the same.

Wednesday:  9 mile @ 9:38 pace; Ah, the longer, early morning pre-work runs.  Always a favorite around here *eye rolls*.  I've found with these day-after speed work runs, it takes about 4 miles to get into a groove, but once I hit it, the legs come back to life a little.

Friday:  16 miles @ 9:18 pace;  Did the following plan:  1 mile easy, 2 miles MP, 2 miles easy, 2 miles MP, 2 miles easy, 2 miles MP, 2 miles easy, 2 miles MP, 1 mile easy.  I'm considering MP to be 9:00 pace give or take 10 seconds.  I nailed the MP pick-ups at:  9:01, 9:01, 9:03, 9:00!  9:00 pace is working for me, but it feels comfortably sustainable.  I have over three months to get in shape to hold it for 26.2 and I'm starting to think it is realistically doable.  My PR marathon pace is currently 9:12...  Did pretty close to that over the 16 miles and it felt pretty easy.


Garfield Garmin is still being a major pain in the arse.  He consistently measures the first half a mile long which means my pace is all wonky AND I've had to add on extra distance at the ends of runs to make up for it.  On Friday's run, he was wonky the first half a mile as usual, but then my lap pace was jumping all over the place in later miles.  Since I was running off of pace it was throwing me off.  I had to stop and reset it.  I'm still experimenting with what makes it work and what doesn't.  I have one more trick up my sleeve before I give up totally.

The mileage kicks up a bit from here on out -- and this week my hunger finally showed up.  I've been rungry all week!  I've had so much pasta this week (I literally eat pasta at least once a day every day of the week).  I feel as if my hunger stabilizes out as the training continues but I guess this was the week my body decided change was in the air.

Most importantly, thank you, for all of your comments regarding Mario.  I will have an update on Monday.