Snow!

Snow again...about 3 inches on the ground. No worries, it should be melted by Saturday. This picture is taken in the same location as the one in the last post, just four days ago. This week Scout and I rested on Sunday after our long run on Saturday. I got a massage on Saturday afternoon, then rest on Sunday. I really feel that the massages have saved me this training cycle. Being able to break down that lactic acid build-up and get it out of my muscles has allowed me to recover more quickly. We ran a short recovery run on Monday, and yesterday I went to the gym for my half-mile repeats. This week I did 7x800 at 3:30 (7:00/mile pace) with approximately 3 min recovery between the repeats. I wore my heart rate monitor, so I allowed my heart rate to return to 70-75% max before starting again. If I jogged slowly between repeats, it would take about 3 min to return to 75%. If I stopped or walked, it would take about 30 seconds. I wanted more rest than 30 seconds, so I jogged slowly (11:00 pace). The rest of this week will be one more tempo run - 6 miles at 8:00 pace with 1 mile warm-up and 1 mile cool-down. I'll only do 12 on Saturday and save the 22 mile run for the following weekend. Only 4 weeks to race day. Yikes!