WEEKLY SUMMARY (JUNE 24-30): 65 miles (90% at E/L, 5% at T, and 5% at 5k paces)
  Sunday: 3E, 2T at 6:20/mi. (2 min. rest), 1.25T, 2E = 8.25 miles total
  Monday: 9 miles at 7:37/mi., plus 4 hill sprints
  Tuesday: 9 miles at 7:30/mi.
  Wednesday: 16 miles at 7:34/mi.
  Thursday: 7.3 miles at 7:59/mi.
  Friday: 7.7 miles at 7:48/mi.
  Saturday: 2.7E, 5k race in 18:26, 2E

This was a more interesting running week than the previous one. I reached 65 miles, which was my volume target before taking a recovery week next week; and I got in each of the main types of run I need to be doing right now. For my tempo run on Sunday I intended to do 2 x 2 miles at 6:20/mi. with 2 minutes rest in between. But I got up late and started the tempo intervals around 11am when it was 85 degrees and humid with no wind. I felt strong at that pace on the first one, but the sun got to me after the first mile on the second one. So instead of pushing it out and wearing myself down when increasing volume is already wearing me down enough, I stopped after 5 laps on that second interval. Tuesday was suddenly cool and dry, but the heat and humidity started coming back already on Wednesday. My long run that day was fine, which surprised me since I was feeling worn down beforehand. I ran a negative split but less of one than last time (7:37 pace for the first half and 7:31 for the second), and I didn't push things in the final miles. That night my left quad ached enough to wake me up a few times, and it bothered me the next day as well. I had tweaked it on the downhills of last weekend's four mile race but thought it had recovered, but apparently my long run this week (which should have been a recovery week) was enough to re-aggravate it. So I ran very easy on Thursday and iced it a few times. I planned to run pretty easy again on Friday but ended up having no choice, since it was 96 degrees when I finished running at 10:15am and it reached 104 later that day. Apparently that was the hottest June day on record in DC. Similar conditions were forecasted for Saturday, but a freak storm blew through around 11pm on Friday night, knocking out power to more than a million people (not us, though) and cooling things down about 10 degrees more than expected in the morning. So it was (only!) perhaps 80 degrees at 8:15am when the Semper Fi 5k started. That's hot with humidity and bright sun, but I was expecting outright dangerous conditions that didn't materialize. Still, I was just looking to get a good workout in without running all out, and somehow that resulted in my running one second slower than my current 5k PR. I've now run 18:25, 18:26, and 18:27, which is similar to the cluster of races I ran just under 19 minutes last Fall before suddenly busting out a 30-second PR in January. If I can run 18:26 in this weather at the end of a 65 mile week (my heaviest week in 9 months) on significantly less than a 100% effort, then clearly another 30-second or so PR is on the horizon, though I don't expect to run another 5k race for months. Next week I head to Greece for a month, and anyway it's marathon training time now. I'll take a day or two off next week while traveling and probably end up with around 45-50 mostly easy miles, hopefully with a tempo run in there somewhere. After next week, I'll try to run three weeks in the 70's (or maybe one in the high 60's and then two in the 70's), with Daniels's tempo and 5k intervals each week, before taking another recovery week when we return to the US on August 3.