Philadelphia Marathon Training - Week 5

Monday August 29
Run 4.0 mi
This was a nice easy recovery run to start off the week.

Tuesday August 30
Run 7.5 mi
Intervals - 400/800/1200/1200/800/400
This was my first workout with the Capital Area Runners.  I wasn't sure exactly what to expect since I hadn't been to the track since before the National Half, but I ended up having a pretty good workout.  It felt good to do some faster running and I was able to have a much more consistent workout than I was expecting.  I was a bit nervous I might hit a wall on the way back down, but it was fine.

Wednesday August 31
Run 4.32 mi (AM)
Swim 2600 yds (PM)
I started my day with an easy run commute.

I knew that would be taking Saturday as a complete rest day and had been planning on swimming on Thursday morning.  Then during the day on Wednesday I decided I'd prefer to sleep in the next morning so I went to the pool to swim that night.  It had been about 2.5 weeks since I'd been in the pool so it was not an easy workout.  However, I was glad that I got it done and didn't have to get up the next morning!

Thursday September 1
Rest

Friday September 2
Run 6.7 mi with 5k tempo
I was nervous heading into this workout.  I hadn't done a tempo run in a long time and I don't think I've ever done one on the track, so I didn't know how hard it would be mentally.  Fortunately, it ended up being not nearly as bad as I was expecting.  I was hoping to stay somewhere in the 8:00-9:00 range (sub-9 was the ultimate goal) and I was quite happy to finish in 26:05 (8:24/mi).
Saturday September 3
Rest
I volunteered at the Dominion Trail Mix, and unfortunately the race portion of the day (which I was helping with) was washed out by a large thunderstorm.

Sunday September 4
Run 16.0 mi
Since I was volunteering on Saturday morning, I moved my long run for the week to Sunday.  I knew that my new running buddy Thom only had 12 on his schedule, so I got there early to run my extra miles.  I had 16 on the schedule and was hoping to do 4 before the group started.  I only managed to have time to do 3, but fortunately Thom was willing to step up to 13.  It ended up being a good run, despite the high humidity.  We finished with a faster average pace than the week before and really pushed it the last mile.

Week 5 - 38.52 mi
This was my first week running with a group and I think it went really well.  I had two good workouts at the track and am enjoying the structure that adds to my week.  I'm going to stop tracking the miles planned vs. ran since my old schedule is out the window. I'm not going to try to hit mileage goals on the workout days, instead I'm just going to make sure I do the proper amount of warming up and cooling down to do well in the workout and recover properly.