Recovery Week is Here!

I've been a tad negligent in posting my runs. I see everyone else posting deep thought provoking comments on their blogs and think that I should be doing the same. Unfortunately I haven't been able to brainstorm any thing that might stimulate your brain cells since I've been busy with work. I've got a deadline of July 31, but the project has to be done by this Friday so it's been tough. However I did manage to get all my runs in this week, though it meant getting up really early and getting only 4 -5 hours of sleep a night.

Thursday: Did 10 miles in line with Pfitz. I had decided I was going to run this by heart rate and try to keep it under 160 which is the upper limit for my long run HR according to Pfitz. Here are the splits.

Lap	min/mile	Avg
1	9:02	148
2	8:42	154
3	8:38	157
4	8:11	159
5	8:13	160
6	8:26	161
7	8:21	160
8	8:26	160
9	8:30	159
10	8:34	159

Since the average seems to be close to 8:30 min/mile, I started thinking that I could maybe increase my long run pace which is now between 8:48 and 9:36 which Pfitz has me doing for a 3:30 marathon. This would mean that I might be able to have a more ambitious goal for Chicago.

Friday: Rest. These are supposed to be either rest OR cross-training days. To date, I haven't cross-trained at all. I think I should start doing some weights or something.

Saturday:Did 5 mile recovery run. Very slow pace. Probably slower than 10 min/miles. Went to try and buy some vanilla power gels for my long run on Sunday but they were out. I ended up buying some Vanilla bean Gu's.

Sunday: 17 miles scheduled. I decided to drive downtown and run by the lake today. It was really cool, yet sunny today.


As usual, I had some equipment problems. My HR monitor spiked about half way through the run. I really have to change the strap. Also I had some shoe problems today as well. About 2 and a half miles in, I noticed that my pace was dropping. Didn't know why but figured that it was just a temporary thing. I then sudenly felt something wacking my left shoe. I looked down to see my Polar foot pod measuring device flopping around. I stopped to investigate and noticed that my shoe lace broke! The foot pod kinda clamps into and pinches the laces. I guess, if it's done enough times, the laces begin to wear thin.

So I'm all the way downtown, have no way of getting a new (or even used) pair of shoelaces and I'm 2.5 miles into what is supposed to be a 17 mile run. What is a guy supposed to do? I wasn't going to quit the run and so I moved the pod to my right foot and using my knot tying skills that I learned as a boy scout, improvised a quick fix for the shoe lace. It don't look pretty but hey it got me through the run. I jogged about half a mile unmonitored just to make sure that everything was working and then proceeded with the rest of the run. This was the first time that I tried running with the pod on my right foot and unfortunately it had to be 15 miles. I don't think my right foot liked it, since I'm now the proud owner of a blue (and soon to be black) toenail on my right foot. Oh well. Marathoners badge of honour, I suppose.

Also it seems that my heart rate was a bit on the high side, higher than what my long pace HR should be. It could be the lack of sleep or it could be overtraining. I topped out at a little over 46 miles this week and my body might be rebelling a bit.

Also I didn't like the taste of vanilla bean gu's. They taste kinda plastic-ee. Maybe it's a bit of an acquired taste. Vanillla power gels taste like pudding. Hmmm. I do like to Gu package though. Much easier to get all the stuff out of the packet then a power gel packet. Anyone have any recommendations for good Gu flavours?

First recovery week is here! I'm looking forward to it! Hope everyone's training it going super!!