In the midst of the 55 mile week

Did 6 miles at recovery pace on Tuesday with 6 strides. Strides felt surprisingly smooth. They've felt very unnatural these past few weeks and with last week being a recovery week and just having done a relatively slow 30k, i was surprised how well they went.

I'm in the midst of the peak week for the 55 miles/18 week training plan for Pfitz. Yesterday was the training run that scares off most people from Pfitz' training plans. The dreaded 12 miles with 7@LT pace. I woke up in the morning but it was raining outside and having spent most of the 30k race on Sunday running in the rain, I was not in the mood to repeat it, so i waited until after work. Problem was that after work, the wind was blowing around like crazy and I wasn't in the mood to run laps around a track with the wind, so i decided to head to the gym. I think this has been the latest in the winter training season that I've been to the gym. I still have to cancel my membership at some point cause I know i won't go back there until next winter.

So the run went better than I thought it would. I warmed up with 3 miles @9:40 pace and then started in at 7:13 pace which is what I've been able to handle in the buildup over the past few months and is consistent with my MP run two weeks ago. HR was barely squeaking over 160 for the these first three miles so I started to ramp up the speed with each subsequent mile to 7:08, 7:03, 6:58 and finally 6:53. Even at the end of it, my HR maxed out at 174 when it normally would be closer to 180. Then finished off with two miles or so at 8:00 min/mile and the HR was below 160. I know the treadmill can sometimes make you think you are faster than you actually are, but this was encouraging and I'd like at some point to see if I can maintain this pace outside.

BTW, my Boston marathon mail kit showed up a few days ago. Only 17 days to go!!