Last Cut-Back Week Until the Taper

And boy did I take advantage of it. Every week, I have added an extra day with an extra 5 or 6 miler to boost my mileage. But I purposefully did not do that on my cut-back weeks. So this week I only ran 5 days and logged 43 miles. The best part of it all was that ALL of my runs were outside! Yay - no treadmill!! What a nice change. This is the first week since my training started 11 weeks ago that I can say that.

M: rest

T: 6 easy (9:20)

W: 8 miles with 5 x 600 at 5K pace; 90 sec rest (2:35; 2:33; 2:30; 2:30; 2:33)

R: rest

F: 8.15 with 8 striders (8:48)

Sa: 7 with 5K (22:18) - Rank: o/a: 63/430; women: 16/238; a/g: 1/? (they didn't post this info in the results)

Su: 14 (9:02)

Total: 43.1

My race was really fun. It was the first race I have run in 4 months. My time wasn't stellar, but for a variety of reasons that doesn't bother me. First of all, a big chunk of the course was covered in snow and ice - including the only hills. Second, it was not chip timed and a very slow start. It took me some time to get going - at .3 miles, my pace was 8:00! Finally, I did not have the race mindset and just couldn't push myself as hard as I usually can. Another reason I am glad I did it! I also ran into some cool running buds, which is always very nice. The good news is I won my age group - haven't done that in a LONG TIME!!

Today my quads were a bit sore and I was FREEZING during my long run thanks to the wind. I came home and entered my garmin data into my runningahead.com log. Why is it that the pace is ALWAYS one second slower per mile on runningahead than it is on the garmin? It has the exact same numbers for distance and time. I just don't get it. Anyone have any ideas?

Enough of that. I need to hurry up as I am late for a party I am supposed to be at.....

I also need to get ready to hunker down because I have 5 high quality, high mileage weeks coming up.....

Ah - and last thought, despite the over 800 attorney layoff last week, including 8 cuts (including staff) from my firm, I still have a job. Thank goodness.