Part time blogger...

Since I haven't posted anything for the past 19 days, it's catching up time. My mileage has been pretty steady, and I finished off May w/ 235 miles on 28 runs. June has started off well with 41 miles in 5 runs so far. The only negative is that I strained something in my upper back/right neck the past sunday that's just really painful. Running doesn't really make it any worse, but I'm not enjoying it or running with reckless abandon. I ran very easy on Sunday and Tuesday, and this morning let loose so to speak w/ a hard effort of 5.8 miles @ marathon pace (6:32). Ok, maybe that's fast for MP, but it's too slow for LT or tempo pace, so I'm sticking to it.

Weather has been really weird, with lots of rain, but generally cooler weather but high humidity. Tomorrow we're supposed to get hurricane force winds (70-90 mph) w/ a storm that will change temps from 90 to 60 after it comes through in the afternoon. This is Wisconsin where I'm living, right? Sounds like a good day to run in the morning, I believe.

The neck strain comes at a poor time, as this week is the 1st week of my 18 week training plan for the Twin Cities Marathon. The good news is that for the past seven weeks I've averaged 52 mpw, so if I drop back a bit until this thing subsides, I'll be just fine. I've tweaked my plan a bit, owing to the fact that for 8 weeks I'm leading the afternoon/evening session of the community running club. So for those 8 weeks, my schedule will look something like this (2 week grouping)

S - 10 am
M- 5-6 am, 5-6 pm
T- 8-10 (speed workout)
W- 6 pm
R- 6 am, 6 pm
F- 7-8 am
S- 12-15 am............65-70 for the week
S- 7-8 am
M- 6 pm
T- 10-11 am (strength)
W- 6 pm
R- 7 am, 6 pm
F- 8 am
S- 10-12 am...........60-65 for the week

I need to figure out how to work my normally scheduled Thursday marathon pace runs in. I think I'll most likely forego them in favor of the higher mileage I'll get from the doubles, and run a significant portion of my Saturday or Sunday runs @ MP. Quality is not something that I'm too worried about. Plus, I'll have 6 weeks after running club has finished to work in the MP runs. Time to start making hay...