WEEKLY SUMMARY (August 12-18): 53.3 miles (89% at easy and 11% at tempo paces)
  Sunday: off
  Monday: 10.2 miles at 7:30/mi.
  Tuesday: 2E, 4x1T (1 min.) at 6:19/mi., 8E, 2x1T (1 min.) at 6:30/mi., 2E (18 miles total)
  Wednesday: 5 miles at 8:05/mi.
  Thursday: 10 miles at 7:40/mi.
  Friday: 10.1 miles at 7:37/mi.
  Saturday: off

This week was all about my first killer, long tempo workout on Tuesday and then recovering for my first marathon pace run on Sunday the 19th. I took Sunday the 12th off because I was planning on doing the big workout on Monday and had some minor calf pain. But my son had a bad night, so I postponed the workout a day and enjoyed Monday's great weather on a mid-day easy run. Tuesday morning brought weather that was nearly identical to when I did my workout in the park last week: storming as I drove to the park, and I ran immediately after the rain stopped when it was super humid. This time I survived the humidity, though. In fact, I almost got through Daniels' entire workout. The only modification I made was in the second tempo leg, which he scheduled as 15-20 minutes at the same tempo pace run earlier. By then I had already run 14 miles, including 4 solid mile repeats right at tempo pace, and I couldn't quite get down to 6:20 again, though I wasn't far off. I was pretty sure that I'd die before getting to 15 minutes, so I took a 1-minute break after one mile and was able to hold on for another mile, which put me a little short of 15 minutes total. It was perhaps the hardest workout I've ever done, and I was pleased with how it went, especially after cutting both of my key workouts short last week. It really wiped me out, though. The next day I had to take a walk break midway through my slow 5-miler. Doing the big workout on Tuesday meant that I had to cancel the second, shorter tempo run on Daniels's schedule this week in order to recover for the marathon-pace run on Sunday, which didn't bother me at all. Coincidentally, around then I was reading an article in Running Times about Renato Canova's training methods, which sometimes involve emphasizing big workouts that require the better part of a week to recover from. For me, Tuesday's workout was worth taking some extra time to recover, and I took another day off on Saturday because I didn't feel recovered enough yet to embark on an equally important marathon-pace run. In the future, I hope to keep my mileage higher while recovering from these big workouts, but I don't expect to take fewer easy days between them - just fewer days entirely off, if my body can handle it. The next big workout like this one isn't for a couple weeks, though. Next week is the marathon-pace run and then a shorter tempo workout, and the following week has a steady 20-miler (take two) and another shorter tempo workout. Next week is also my last before Fall classes start up again....