Week of May 27 - June 2: 40 miles
  Sunday: 6.5 miles at 7:36/mi.
  Monday: 6.5 miles at 7:33/mi.
  Tuesday: off
  Wednesday: track workout (below)
  Thursday: 6.5 miles at 7:35/mi.
  Friday: off
  Saturday: AM: Komen fiasco. PM: 5 miles at 7:29/mi.

A very light week, especially considering that on Saturday (today) I ran 12 of the 40 miles I ran for the entire week; and then a disappointing conclusion to the week. The heat wave that started last weekend extended through Tuesday, so I waited until Wednesday to do a light track workout. I felt ok but too rested to be running fast. Again I did some 200's and 400's in the (this time low) 5:20's, and then one mile at tempo pace (6:15) with several easy miles. By the end of the week I was suspecting that I would not run well in the 5k race on Saturday, and sure enough even as I was warming up for the race my legs felt anything but fast. There's a certain numbness that my legs achieve when I run at least 50 miles a week and either every day or nearly so. When I run less, things ache more and running hard bothers me more. Before today, I had run less than 28 miles this week, and it wasn't just because of the heat wave. I went too far with my taper for this race, in part perhaps because I started thinking about marathon training and that inclined me to rest now before the hard stuff begins soon. In general, I've rarely tapered successfully. Often I feel over-rested for races, but I don't understand why that didn't happen at the Cherry Blossom 10-miler. 5k's in particular, because they require running so hard, don't go well for me when I taper much, if at all. I need to be used to hard training to race a 5k hard. What I don't know is how far into a training cycle I need to be in order to race a 5k best.

So I ran the first mile at Komen in 5:52 and the second in 5:59, which is well off my goal pace of 5:45 and even slower than the goal pace I had in mind for the 10k next weekend. I was running over 6 minute pace in the third mile when I realized that I, along with everyone around me (which included maybe the top 50 runners in front of and behind me, all but the top two of whom I could see), was off course. I had looked at the map online before the race, and it indicated that we were supposed to have turned several blocks back from where we then were on Constitution Avenue, one of the main boulevards in downtown DC. There were major storms last night, and routes sometimes change at the last minute in DC for other reasons, so I hoped that there had been a last minute course change. But soon we were all running in traffic, and people on the sidewalks started shouting that we (all of us!) were off course. This was not a mistake some runners made: the course was not properly marked, and literally everyone I could see was off course. There was no indication that we were supposed to turn off Constitution Avenue at any point, let alone the usual barricade forcing us to turn. When I realized that we were hopelessly off course, I stopped running and went home. My Garmin says that I had run 2.64 miles. People around me were angry. The top woman was ahead of me, but the second-place woman came running by after I stopped and was furious when I told her that we were off course. I wasn't too angry because I hadn't been running well anyway, and because I ran Komen last year (on a slightly different course) and knew that it was poorly organized. It's not really a race but a fundraiser. Some races manage to be both, but not this one. It's all about getting a lot of people to raise money and then to come out on the day of the event. Last year I ran well, felt like I broke through a psychological barrier by pushing hard through a rough patch, and placed in my age group. But I was given a mere banana after the race and sent my merry way. There were banquets scattered across the Mall for survivors and top fundraisers, and you could buy food; but I could find no awards ceremony or free food for mere runners. This annoyed me, especially given that Komen costs more than most 5k's. But I overlooked all this and signed up again because I had run well there last year and wanted to run a 5k on a fast course downtown. Well, it turns out they changed the course this year to include a big hill that wasn't included last year. And then they failed to mark the course properly, sending all of the faster runners off course into traffic. I won't run Komen again and will be leery in the future of races that put a lot of emphasis on fundraising.

Even if the race had been well organized, though, I still ran poorly. Can I pull things together for the 10k next weekend? I think my legs need some more miles in them, so I'm thinking of running around 50 mostly easy miles this coming week, with maybe a slower but longer (6 mile?) tempo run on Tuesday the only faster running for the week. Then I want to start scaling up the weekly mileage for the start of marathon training.

On my shake-out run this afternoon I tested out my new Newton Gravity trainers for the first time - my first pair of Newtons. I've always worn Brooks running shoes almost exclusively, and lately my favorite trainers have been their Pure Flow model. The Newtons have the same low heel-drop as the Pure Flow, but the distinctive feature of Newtons is the weird lugs across the sole at the ball of your foot. They're supposed to encourage proper form and to give you some spring as well, since they retract into the shoe as you land and redirect the force of your landing outwards as you push off again. The lugs will take some getting used to. After a few miles I didn't notice them as much, and the shoes felt not dissimilar to the Pure Flows. But my right achilles has been bothering me lately and aches now after my run in the Newtons. A lot of people get calf or achilles injuries trying to adjust too quickly to Newtons, so I need to be careful. One problem with Pure Flows is that they wear relatively quickly. My current pair has just over 300 miles on them and already is nearly worn out. That's earlier than most trainers, which should last 400-500 miles. Newtons supposedly last longer than average, and some people say way longer. But they also cost twice as much: $175! They have a 30-day return policy, so I'll need to decide in the next few weeks whether I think they're worth it.