Two weeks ago was intense – 64 miles in seven days, a result of swapping my rest day between Sunday and Monday. I’m close to my highest weekly mileage ever, and still have a ways to go before the big day. Sunday capped it off with a 24 mile run (22 mile run + 2 mile walk) that took me one full loop around the East River: Brooklyn -> Queens -> Randall’s Island -> The Bronx -> Manhattan -> Brooklyn.
It was my first run of the year in true heat – 80+ degrees and sunny – and a good lesson in how much harder it will be to run 100 miles in July. It was also another great excuse to binge eat fast food. Yes, that is a reindeer blanket in the park, and yes I fell asleep on it for an hour after eating everything.
One of the weirdest things about runs of that distance is that your body deletes your recovery meals before you can even recognize you’ve eaten anything. In this case, I burned 3,000 calories and then filled most of that hole with Shake Shack:
By the time I got home it was like I hadn’t eaten anything at all.
One more thing from Sunday’s run: I ran past the Welling Court Mural Project in Astoria, a place I hadn’t been to in years. It was my first exposure to street art in New York and an amazing place to visit. Here’s a cool piece from Queen Andrea:
So what have I been doing since Sunday? Here’s a snapshot of my runs, including Monday’s much needed rest day:
I walked another 19 miles on top of that, in an effort to “spend time on my feet,” as all the ultra training guides recommend. I need to get used to beating up my legs as much as possible.
The runs from the week felt good, albeit slightly slower than previous weeks. The heat takes a good 15-30 seconds off my pace, although you can tell from my times that I tend to speed up as the week goes on and I shake off the cobwebs from the weekend’s long run. This morning’s 10 miles was a negative split effort that took me from 7:45 pace to 7:20 pace, which is exactly what I want to be doing on a medium distance run like that.
It’s supposed to rain all day Saturday and Sunday, so I swapped my rest day between today and tomorrow, and will plan to run something north of 26 miles on Sunday. At this point it’s about the time on my feet, not the time it takes to finish. So it will be a long, slow effort, particularly if it rains.
Enjoy the runs this weekend!