Just another week...

Nothing special this week. Had my 25k race and took a couple of days off. I'm so torn between what plan I'm going to do for my marathon and BQ attempt. I have the Daniel's book, but he doesnt give much detail... he kinda guides u to make your own plan. I want to do Pfitz and that's the most popular plan out there... but the 15 mile mid week run is going to be tough. Higdon is another, but I dont know much about his success... I hear that it is a lot of speedwork. That is what I need, but I dont want to sacrifice endurance. So its really between Pfitz and Daniels. After I run the Grand Rapids Marathon and if I dont BQ there, I'll follow the Higdon plan until the California International Marathon. If I dont BQ there, then it wasnt meant for me to BQ at this time. I gotta drop 15 minutes off of my marathon time to do this. Sounds doable, but i'm doubting myself running that fast in such a short period of time.

My runs this week have been sluggish again. I think I'm in a running rut or something. My leisure marathon pace runs of 6.5 miles seem like they are tempo runs. I did a long run today... I intentionally started off really slow and planned on it staying that way. Started with 8:13 first mile, then uphill x 2 miles 8:31 and 8:35. Honestly wanted to finish with a 8:15-8:30 avg pace for 13 miles. I hit a downslope for the next 3-4 miles or so, and my pace went down to 7:39 but I wasn't pushing it. I ran with a little caution around mile 8, this is where this 4 foot dog always start to chase me for whatever reason. He was not out today. I swear, I keep forgetting to buy some mase for this rascal!! Dont know why his owners wont keep a leash on him. Mile 10 I hit at 1:20:30. I am going a little too fast!! This is a long run, not a race or tempo!! Started back on an incline for 2 miles, then it leveled out for the last mile. I dont know what happened... but I got a burst of energy and I was SOOOO focused on that last mile, I dropped a 7:45 and felt like I could run forever... didnt want to stop.

My marathon training will officially start at the beginning of next month. I'm doing a 18 week cycle. With this, I hope to get a 5k PR and a half marathon PR in the mix, and I run on...