Week of April 2-8: 34 miles in 4 runs
  Monday: off
  Tuesday: off
  Wednesday: 8 miles on a treadmill at 7:30/mi.
  Thursday: 10 miles at 7:22/mi.
  Friday: 8 miles at 7:24
  Saturday: tempo intervals (see below)
  Sunday: off

Above is a good example of how not to spend the week recovering after a hard 10-mile race. I was pleased with my race for about a day and didn't mind taking the next day off after coughing much of Sunday night (mercifully, my last bad allergy night to date). By Tuesday, I was thinking more about how many people finished ahead of me (over 400!). But not running on Monday enabled me to sleep well that night, and sleeping felt so good that I didn't bother getting up Tuesday morning to run. So two days off let my muscles tighten up and the soreness settled in pretty deep. Nevertheless, when I did get back to running I refused to run easy when I needed to. This happens to me a lot: after a race, especially a race in which I run well, I try to run too fast on what are supposed to be easy runs for about a week afterwards, as if either I just can't let that fast feeling go, or I believe that I've stepped up to a new level and can suddenly recover sufficiently from "easy" runs that are run at a substantially faster pace than they were just a week earlier. I was sore on Wednesday, when I didn't run faster than a typical easy run for me, but it should have been an especially slow easy run given that it was my first run back after a hard race and then two days off. But both Thursday and Friday were clearly too fast, and the soreness in my legs was obvious. One mitigating factor was that I wore an allergy mask on both days, and on Saturday as well. It was unpleasant - something like what I imagine running at altitude to be like. I was always on the verge of not getting enough air, like you feel when swimming and you have to wait until that third or whatever stroke to take a breath. Plus, it was hot and sweaty under the mask, and of course everyone looked at me like I was crazy. It may seem that the mask is an additional reason to run more slowly. But in fact it was an obstacle that motivated me to run faster. It was uncomfortable, and running less slowly feels better, so I chose to do and focus on that. Anyway, when Saturday rolled around, I was so unrecovered from the race last weekend that my planned tempo run went predictably badly. I planned on running 3x2miles at 6:20 with 2 minutes rest. But I managed only 1x2miles and then 2x1 mile, with 2 minutes rest between intervals, at an average of 6:27, which was basically my pace in the race last weekend. My legs were very tight and sore, and I was gasping for air under my mask as families out for a stroll on Easter weekend wondered: what is the deal with that masked man? (I was running on a trail around a lake because the track I often use was closed). That finally made it clear to me that I had botched this whole week, so I took yet another day off on Sunday to recover. I'll try to keep things genuinely easy on my easy runs next week.