Week 8 -- toughest week thus far

i did 33 miles this week, including a 13-mile long run yesterday. tuesday's run was by far the most painful; thursday's: the most difficult to finish--a mile in and i wanted to just stop. my long run went ok, though i didn't have my normal bounce and finished with little in reserve. today's run went ok. my legs feel really, really strong. thankfully, week 9 is a recovery week, including a long run of only 10 or 11 miles. i'll do 15 or 16 the following week. looking back at my week 8 long run of 2007, of which i did about 13 miles, as well, my pace was about 10 seconds slower, but i noted that i felt extremely strong finishing. i think i might have pushed too hard the past two weeks, but i'm glad i caught it when i did. i'm going to go completely on feel this week and recover the right way. cheers. //ryan

people's state forest -- barkhamsted, ct

I did my long run here on Saturday and woke up on Sunday with a tick in my upper back. My mother irresponsibly went to town on it and pulled it off in several pieces. We're pretty sure that she got it all. My doctor called in a prescription for two doses of an antibiotic. There's a Summary of Tick Testing Results for 2008 on the CT Dept. of Agriculture's website. In Barkamsted, one of four ticks tested positive for Lyme Disease.

Marathon Training -- Week 6

I had a breakthrough in fitness this week. It seems like once you break 20 miles per week for a few weeks, the gains are huge. I did a 5 plus mile training run tonight at 8:45 pace. I haven't been able to run this pace at that distance as comfortably as I did tonight since the latter weeks of my first marathon buildup. Going into this buildup, I must have been fitter than I was going into my first buildup. I bet the shoes--Nike Lunar Trainer+--have something to do with it, too. I have much stronger feet. My turnover is solid. Everything feels even, comfortable, and I'm up on my toes and flying the whole time. I'm going for eleven miles this weekend. I've made a vow not to race during this buildup. I think that it really threw off my first marathon buildup. I did three races and it only further injured my foot. I know that my foot is healed now, but I don't want to jeopardize this solid buildup thus far.