July 28 - Aug 2 - ATL and GVL - p

The traveling whirlwind continues...

ATLANTA

July 28th - Saturday: Went to ATL to visit my sister, who had just moved into a new apartment.  Double excitement: Olympics had started the previous night with the opening ceremonies.  We stopped by Sam's on the way there to pick up a flat sreen so that we'd have something to watch it on.

 (Pooky bear is pooped out from watching so much Olympics)

Dragged myself out to the apartment's super sweet fitness center for a workout.  Felt a bit lethargic.  5.0 in 38:20, 7:40 ave.  Workout: 1/2 mi warmup @ 7mph, 6 x [800 on (3:33 or 8.5mph), 400 off (2:07 or 7mph)].  Watched lots of Olympics.  Ate lots of produce today.  I had had about 2 weeks with little produce, so I craved it.  Feels good to eat clean.

July 29 - Sunday: Spin session - 40 minutes.  Legs had felt a bit banged up from yesterday, but I still wanted cardio.

GREENVILLE

Back home for a week.  Marathon training begins!!! 

July 30th - Monday: 6.5 in 54:08, 8:20 ave.  Not too hard - could've gone longer.

In the past 2 marathon cycles, I did my own pace distributions for the workouts and only followed the Runner's World Smart Coach as far as mileage/workout went. I did my own kind of speed sessions and just did whatever pace I felt comfortable with. This time, to try something new to see if it will help, I'll follow the workouts and prescribed paces as much as I can.

Aug 1 - Wednesday: 4.6 in 35:47, 7:47 ave.  1 mi warmup in 8:26, 3 x 7:30 tempo run, 0.6 mi cooldown in 4:51.  Expected it to be an easy workout, but holding 7:30 was surprisingly hard.  Dunno why.  I guess I'm used to progression runs that build to 8mph in the last bit, and I do 0.75mi reps @ 9mph for speedwork, but doing 8mph continuously for 3 mi, real tempo work, is something I pretty much never do.

Aug 2 - Thursday: 65 min strength session.  It had been 2 weeks since the last one, but everything besides the 2:15 plank was at its normal levels. 

Since the last couple of days in Argentina, my nose had been runny, but now, 1.5 weeks better, it's finally getting better.  Maybe restocking on produce helped.  Vitamins are key.