Training is on Track!

When I did the 4.4 mile run at the end of the Waseca Triathlon on July 27, it was my longest run in months. Two weeks after that, I started ramping up my mileage for the "TC Looney Challenge" - a 10K and 5K 90 minutes apart on Oct 4, and then the TC 10 Mile on Oct 5. I posted a few weeks ago just after I ran a 6.2 mile run that I wanted to build a mile/week for 3 more weeks. Well, that's gone good so far - I just ran 9.2 miles yesterday.

So this next week will be a bit of an easier week (sticking to my plan from a few weeks ago). Ideally, I'd do more biking and swimming, but I don't know if that will happen. I think I'll run less, but make sure to focus on a solid week of my PT leg/butt exercises. Then I have 3 more weeks to build (with long runs of 10+, 11+, and 12+ miles) before an easy week leading up to race weekend on Oct 4 and 5.

What I'm coming to terms with is that this will be 3 slower races for me. FIRST of all, they're all back-to-back-to-back, so I'll be tired. SECOND of all, I'm still working back from a year of injuries. I've been looking at some of my workouts from Coach Jen 4 years ago leading up to the TC 10 Mile. Here are a few that I did with times from THIS YEAR vs times from FOUR YEARS AGO with Jen:

• 4 mile descending tempo:
25:04 last week
23:55 in 2010

• 1-mile repeats:
3x1 mile in 5:48, 5:48, and 5:48 on Tues (posted about it here) - track times would be more like 5:45s
4x1 mile in 5:40, 5:34, 5:25, and 5:18 in 2010

• 8 x (3 mins HARD, 3 mins EASY):
Covered 7.10 miles last night
Covered 7.23 miles in 2010

Bottom line: It looks like I'll be injury free and I'll have put in the distance to cover the weekend of racing in 5 weeks. But the speed won't be there.

In other news, Henry and I went to the Minnesota State Fair on Wednesday, and we dove into some deep fried chocolate chip cookie dough:

CLICK HERE for more photos of Henry and I at the fair on my Root Beer Blog.