My biggest week....

Bake 3 hours @ 90 degrees and you have 1 tired zombie

 

I'm roughly halfway through my training plan for the Denver Marathon and this past week was one of my biggest weeks mileage wise ever.  I rolled over 25 miles with a 13 miler on Thursday, and I did not track the distance I ran on Saturday while chasing people up and down hills in Lakewood at Run For Your Lives.  I may have had a bigger week last year, but I certainly did not run 4 days during the week last year and volunteer for 3 hours of 90 degree heat-fueled zombie transformation.  If I did three days a week last year I was lucky.  So I wanted to look back at week one of my training and compare to this week to gauge the progress I have made.
Week 1:
Mon:  3 miles, easy pace
Tues:  3 miles, easy pace
Weds:  Strength/Core
Thurs:  3 miles, tempo pace
Fri:  Rest
Sat:  5 miles, long pace
Sun:  Cross training

11 miles total, with some biking, yoga, and weights/core exercises.  Now let's look at week 8:

Mon:  5K test run
Tues:  6 miles, race pace
Wed:  3 miles easy + Spartan Workout
Thurs:  13 miles, long pace

Fri:  Rest
Sat:  Run For Your Lives!
Sun:  Cross training
25 miles total (with probably 2 more miles of hill repeats on Saturday).

For the elites, and even the gazelles around Boulder, this is maybe not a lot of mileage, but for a mastodon like me, it's a lot.  And here's the great part - it felt great.  I have no more aches or pains than I had that first week.  In all honesty, I probably have fewer aches and pains than I had that first week.  I have only missed a couple of running workouts, which I think makes a huge difference.  I've not made every Wed/Sun workout, but I've done more of them than I did last year.  Halfway through training and I am feeling very positive about my progress.  It's fun to be in better shape now than I was 8 weeks ago.  It's fun to be 6 pounds lighter (24 pounds less stress on the knees with each step) and it's fun to know that the best is yet to come.