Training Summary: 7/7 - 7/13

Weekly Focus: Volume
Mon: AM – 5 miles; PM – 9.5 miles
Tue: AM – 5 miles; PM – 11.5 miles
Wed: AM – 5 miles; PM – 9.5 miles
Thu: AM – 5 miles; PM – 9.5 miles
Fri: AM – 5 miles; PM – 11 miles
Sat: 7.5 miles
Sun: 16.5 miles
Total: 100 miles

I remember during a long run sometime last year making the comment to Andrew that I would probably never run another 100 mile week. I stand corrected. Not only did I run one, but I actually feel like I handled it pretty well and plan on running many more in the coming months. What I won’t do is string together a bunch of them consecutively like I did in days past, but I’m hoping that one every third week or so will pay dividends. Time will tell, but so far so good.

There’s not a lot from this past week worth going into any detail over because all I did was run. There were no workouts, and unfortunately no drills, strides, strength training, etc. either. Having not done this sort of volume in years, I felt like hitting the mileage was challenging enough, especially in the heat and humidity, so I didn’t want to add anything else on top of it. That’s the one thing I don’t like about this training plan at the moment. I’m just not at a point where I can do anything other than run on the “up” weeks. However, this was pretty much my max in terms of mileage, so as I adjust to hitting this sort of volume regularly I’ll be able to add in other elements, which is exactly what I plan to do. I was actually going to run a light workout this past Friday, but I wound up with a good group to run with that evening and decided to just sit back and enjoy the company.

This coming week will be a moderate week for me. I’ll back the mileage down into the 80-85 range and add in a couple light workouts. The workouts probably won’t be anything spectacular since my goal at this point is simply to continue adjusting to the workload. This is a long term plan I’m putting together and I have no desire to rush anything. I’m committed to giving this a try through the fall then re-evaluating at that point. If I see good progress in my fitness, I’ll continue on. If not, then it will be back to the drawing board. I figure this sort of training is either going to make me faster or serve to deaden my legs and break me down, therefore having the opposite effect. In the end there’s only one way to find out, so let the experiment continue!