So the first week of this training cycle was an interesting one, it started out good but went downhill since I was sick. Even the next few days might be a bit of struggle because I have to get the phlegm out of my lungs from the cold I had, but that will probably be the end of it (I hope).

Its supposed to be particularly cool tomorrow morning in the Lehigh Valley, which might not help my cold or cough. So cool in fact that they are calling for frost in some areas … that won’t discourage us though, we already struggled through one week of less-then-stellar training.

So my plan this week:

Monday – 6 mile recovery (~8:45/mile)
Tuesday – 8 miles
Wednesday – 8 miles
Thursday – 6 miles speed (~7:00/mile)
Friday – OFF
Saturday – 16 miles (~8:30/mile)
Sunday – 9 miles (~7:30/mile)
Total: 55 miles

I have to watch my mileage though since i’m on call starting Thursday morning (meaning that I can’t venture too far from my house in case I get called). The 16 miler will be interesting, but i’m thinking about a 4 mile loop, just doing it 4 times and making it a course no more than .5-.75 miles from the house. We’ve made it work before, so we can do it again I’m sure.

As far as weather is concerned, today is quite a change from what you would expect for May, I feel for the folks running in the Delaware marathon, which I almost ran myself or the folks in the Pocono Marathon who had to struggle through the cold temperatures and ‘lack of sun’ .. sometimes not having the sun is a good thing, but not when its this cool out. Good luck to everyone anyway, hope you had a great race!

I was writing yesterday about a woman I work with who is running her first marathon in October, I got an email from her when I offered support or motivation during the summer training that stated something along the lines that she’s not much of a summer runner… ugh, that could be scary. It sounded like she had no intention of really training until the end of the summer .. which is a mistake. Her longest distance is a half-marathon, which she struggled through from what she said. I feel for her if she makes that fatal mistake. I’ve run enough marathons and had ones where I was ready, and did good .. and ones where I wasn’t ready, and I suffered (with a few in between there). My best wishes do go out to her, but running a marathon is a very serious thing, it is an assault on the body and you do need to prepare … I hope she makes the right decision with it ..

So anyway, i’m down to just 17 weeks to go now … and a lot of work to do, but we’ll get there, one week at a time.