Week 7

Running these last few weeks has more or less been a constant battle. I took two breaks about 4 days long to heal my leg pain. So far it has worked. My last 3 runs have been completly pain free even at the begining of my runs, which is a cause for celebration. Im not sure what was wrong with me or if it will come back but it is completly holding me back from doing any type of speed work. I feel like if i speed up the least little bit i wont be able to run the next day and It will induce my shin pain. A few weeks ago, I felt that a 4 hr marathon was not going to be possible unless this month had turned around for the better and was pain free. Well, that didnt happen, it got worse and I had to take extended breaks between runs, and when I did run it was super slow, like 11 to 11:30 paces. What all this lead to was a very slow torturous 7 mile run this morning where I had to take about 5 walk breaks and a huge blow to my 4 hour marathon asperations. Since this last month has not gone the way I had hoped I am probably going to throw a goal time out the window and just hope and pray I can stay pain free. As long as I can do this with out hurting myself I will enjoy the hell out of this marathon.

Baton Rouge does not seem like it took to big of a hit so Im sure it will still be a go ahead on December 6th. I missed one of my runs this week which was my mid week medium run of 4 miles (Im in my cutback week). This next week I have 26 miles planned if I get them all in. That is the hardest part about all of this is sticking to a strict schedule and being so damn busy. Pretty much what I have been doing is to have a plan for the week and just hope I have the time to get them in. Now I am starting to run longer on wednesday for my medium long runs (8-10) miles, so Im going to have to get creative. Any ideas?

Here is this weeks runs:

• Mon~3 miles
• Sat~3.4 Miles (Marine Corps 5k, Ran with 1200 marines.)
• Sun~6.9 Miles (1:19 min, felt dehydrated and took some walking breaks)

Total : 13.3 for the week (it was a cutback week)

Eric