weekly wrap up: 2/9/15 – 2/15/15

Monday - 8.3 recovery pace; 8:34 avg pace. Just the regular 4am run with the group.Tuesday - 10.11 easy w/ 4 mile gradual push to MP to finish; 7:13 avg pace. This was a very gentle increase in pace until I was at around 6:40 pace. Didn't feel like I was straining much at all.Wednesday - AM - 8.3 recovery pace; 8:27 avg pace. Once again the 4am group run. PM - 5.8 easy to moderate effort; 7:07 avg pace . These are the runs I really hate. This felt just like junk mileage as it sat right in the nowhere zone. Easy pace for me is around 7:25-7:35 (at least that's where my heart rate sits at pretty easy effort) and if I go by the Hansons Method then tempo runs should be at 6:45 pace so a run at 7:07 feels like it has no purpose. It's more effort than easy pace but less effort than marathon pace. It's like I'm pushing with no real goal. </rant>Thursday - AM - 8.32 easy with last 2 miles pushed to HMP; 6:56 avg pace. This was a wanna be workout, sit for 6 miles then kick the last two. I just felt like I should put in something more than what I've been doing. PM - 3.35 recovery miles; 9:52 avg pace. Easily my favorite run of the week. Light 5k jog with Rose then beer and food at Lengthwise. Woo!Friday - AM - 6.01 recovery pace; 9:14 avg pace. This was supposed to be the normal 4am run with the group of 8 miles but I started out pretty stiff. I figured after a mile that I would loosen up but my Achilles tendon felt really strained. About 2.5 miles in I got some sharp pains and had to stop. I thought if I walked a bit I could continue on but I took a few more steps and I knew I was done. I said goodbye to the group and hobbled my way back to my car. In retrospect, I think my body isn't quite ready for the volume I've been doing and on top of that, I've been wearing the Brooks Pure Flow shoes almost exclusively. This probably led to just general overuse. I cancelled the rest of the planned mileage for the day with the intent of keeping up my streak through the weekend.Saturday - 10.43 easy to moderate effort; 7:20 avg pace. Went out on my favorite 10 mile loop to test out the Achilles. It was going well until I sprinted past a car on Oak street and immediately felt the sharp pain again. The next few miles after that sucked but was manageable though I did notice that my foot strike and toe off was different after that. I wound up finishing at a pretty good clip but my left leg was very sore from the modified gait and I wound up limping quite a bit throughout the day.Sunday - Felt pretty OK today and likely would have been fine doing it but I decided that it's better to be safe then sorry and thus cancelled my long run for the day in favor of rest/recovery. It was a good decision. I've gone 14 days straight so far in February and though I would have liked to do 21 days, I'm still very pleased at the work I've done so far.Total - 60.57 miles. I was originally shooting for another 80 mile week before I started tapering down towards my upcoming 1/2 marathon. I think the pain from my Achilles on Friday was my body telling me that it's not quite ready to make 80 miles a week a regular thing. I'm sure I'll get there eventually, just gotta be patient. Now the focus is on slightly reduced mileage this week and more the following week so that I arrive at the start line healthy and ready to kick some ass. Gotta keep looking forward.