movin on up

Here at Dog Pound Farms™, we're slowly building our miles up. Look I'm speaking in plural! Ok, I'm talking about me and Bea. Loren took her for her first run since she got sick. She did an easy 3 at 10 minute pace yesterday. It wore her out. I thought you'd all like to know how Bea's doing. She's back to herself which is great news. I missed running with her and hope to start again this week.
As far as my running goes, I just finished my first 20 miles week since early Oct. I've been slowly taking baby steps to get back into marathon training shape. This week also brought me back into the world of running with other people (people who aren't Bea or Loren). I really enjoy running alone and am lucky enough to be able to run alone and push myself, and get myself out the door and do what I'm suppose to do and all that. That's not to say I dont mind company from time to time. It can make those long runs, those really cold runs, those really long cold runs, much more tolerable. Wed, I did an 8 miler, my longest run in months. I went out in the evening with a bunch of the ladies and it was lovely. It make the time fly and it actually felt easy. Totally honest: I was a bit sore the next day. Nothing major but a sign I still have some work to do to get back into shape, but I'm on the right road.
This week I also got some new shoes. I had been running in Asics 2140s for training and raced my last marathon and longer races in DS trainers which I really like. I just wanted to get something less anchor like than the 2140s and a bit more substantial than the trainers for now. So, like many of my running ladies, got Mizuno Inspires. 2 runs so far and I really like them.
I have been giving a lot of thought to my racing year. I dont think Im going to race as much this year. I also thinking I'm gong to skip a fall marathon and focus on the half. I want to give my body a break from the high miles and I also want to try and go sub 1:37 in the half. The magic qualify for NYC time! Unlike qualifying for Boston, you have to run it when you're that age. So even though I'll be 40 next year, to qualify now, I still have to run a sub 1:37. Make sense? Once I'm 40, I need a 1:44 which I know I can do.
So new fall goal. I'm looking forward to that, I love the half. I think I'll go back to the Philly Distance run for that.

all that summer we enjoyed it, wind and rain and shine

I blame my mother for me knowing all the lyrics to this song. And pretty much anything else predating 1970.

I've had a good running week so I'm gaining more confidence in my upcoming marathon. I had the nonswim triathlon on Sun. Tues I did speed with the team. We did the upper loop of CP 4 times at half marathon pace. This loop goes: false flat, downhill, uphill, downhill so there's a little bit of everything. It's 1.4 miles. I averaged 7:32 pace for that. I wish that was my half marathon pace. Maybe. I felt really good during this workout. 

Wed I ran 4 easy miles with Bea. I love running with Bea. I'm glad the weather's cooling off so I can run more with her and get her milage up. Plus, I ran consecutive days, something else I'm trying to get back to.

This morning, I did my long run with Rayk and Ishii joined us for some of the faster miles. The plan was 18 miles: 2 easy 14 at MP +10-20 secs 2 easy. Based on Brooklyn half time (even though that was some months ago) I picked 8:21 as my MP (ha, we'll see) so that's what I used for this run. The pace for 14 miles was to be 8:31-8:41. We ran it all in CP. I averaged 8:40 for the 14 miles and 9:01 for the whole run. Pretty good on tired legs!

So right now I've run 30 miles for the week. Loren and I and Bea are heading to CT for the long weekend so I think I'll do no running tomorrow and somewhere between 6-10 on Sunday. My heel is hurting less and less so while I'm not thrilled about cutting my milage, it seems to be helping that and I'm still able to run well.