The 15th Floor Overlooking Fenway

There will be no running tomorrow because >100 miles this month is enough.

Monthly wrap up:

2009 total miles: 597.60
2009 average miles per day: 2.47

hmmm.....do I blog to say that for a number of reason I took a week off from running, and skipped all the mid-week runs this week.

I did Saturday's shorter run:

(can't explain if multiple lines show up on the graph)

Then today was supposed to be a 10K time trial (hence it was on Sunday instead of Saturday) with a 2 mile warm up and then cool-down.....didn't go so well and my legs crapped out after mile 7.5:

The previous weeks had been going pretty well including last week's 11 mile long run. We'll hope this week is back on speed.

I certainly feel like I'm full gear into training which usually means I've run days I otherwise wouldn't have made the time if I wasn't training.

Here's week #2:

The goals were 5, 2.5, 6, and 9 miles on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday respectively.

Today's long run was around the Charles River (click on map for interactive map):

On October 11 I will be running the Boston Half Marathon along with 5000 other people. This is a serious half marathon, and the course is only open for 2.5 hours. I hope not to be the last person to finish, but know there won't be many people behind me. My goal is 2:15 which is 10 minutes shorter than the Boston Run to Remember.

I'm following the Nike + Intermediate 1 training plan which looks like this:

As opposed to the beginning training plan than I followed last time, this adds the short run on Wednesday and gets to 14 miles on week 10 (of 12).

Sadly, it appears that I have no partner to run with. I do know a number of people who will be running the race, but none of whom run at my pace, with me. We shall see if I can keep myself running without someone at my side.

To realize how very crazy I am, not only am I running alone, I will very likely get on a plane later that day destined for a conference in Chicago.....

Here's the race course:

It's another great course that I know well. Even better, the start/finish line is less than 1/2 mile from my apartment!

Eeek, no entry since the June wrap-up?

Monthly wrap up:

2009 total miles: 493.76
2009 average miles per day: 2.33

From the even prettier new Nike+:

Monthly wrap up:

2009 total miles: 419.54
2009 average miles per day: 2.32

Ugh. June started out slowly because of needing to recover from the race. My pace had just seemed to get back to normal when the end of the academic year got very busy AND I got sick which resulted in a two week break from running. Nine months ago I would have been pleased with a 55-mile month, but after a 90-mile month I certainly felt like I wasn't running at all.

July should be better. Plus, a new race for which to train -- announcement this week when I officially register.

This run isn't so much blog-worthy except to say that it was the best run I've had since the half-marathon.

I ran without feeling like I was working my ass off. It was the first 5 miles under an hour since the race (my pre-race pace). I can't say I thought it would take 2.5 weeks to "recover" from the race given how much training I had done for it, and maybe bad runs recently are completely unrelated.

(Nike+ is being funny again; I have no idea why there are two lines in the widget.)

Running has been hit or miss since the race.

Yesterday's run felt better. A bit more consistent, though I had to work at it.

The run was most certainly like this:

The first mile hates seeing you with running. It would rather you would just go back to the couch. But both you and running know there are other things to look forward to, like the second mile. Of course I've never owned anything New Balance, but this commercial certainly captures the way I feel on most runs.

Monthly wrap up:

2009 total miles: 364.99
2009 average miles per day: 2.42

The final month of half-marathon training meant some great mileage, and the speediest month, too. I suspect a significant drop for June, but maybe just back down to 70 miles/month.

I didn't intend to take the week off from running; it just happened.

I did try to run on Wednesday, three days after the race; it didn't go very well. However, it could have been (1) the hour - 8 pm, (2) the 2 pieces of pizza and 4 cinna-sticks still rumbling around my belly, or (3) the fact that I was tired and contemplating go to bed early instead. My goal was 3 mi, but I could only run about half. I had physically felt okay until I tried to run. My calves didn't agree. And running slower was just annoying.

Today, however, I decided a 7-day break was long enough, and I needed to run.

I didn't really have a plan. I decided 6 miles sounded like a nice run. It was warm and partly sunny. It felt great to be out. I felt good, but still not quite at my peak. I realized, however, that I was running 6 miles without giving it much thought.

Above all, it was nice to be running just to run. I'm looking forward to more running just to run. No training for a while.