Daily details:
Mo: 6
Tu: off
We: 14
Th: off (traveling to Greece)
Fr: 7 in Athens
Sa: 12.5
Su: 10.5 plus 6 strides
Week total: 50
Mo: 7
Tu: 5 mi. tempo @ 6:22/mi. (11 total) in Lefkada
We: 13.6 hard in the mountains of Lefkada
Th: 7 (am), 5.4 (pm)
Fr: 9
Sa: 20 hard in the mountains of Lefkada
Su: 7
Week total: 80
Mo: 12 in Athens
Tu: 7 plus 6 strides
We: 15 moderate-hard in the hills around Spetses
Th: 7
Fr: 20 moderate in the hills around Spetses
Sa: 7
Su: 12 in Athens
Week total: 80
I survived the Hellenic hills without reducing weekly mileage, not including the planned recovery week listed first here. Every time I come to Greece, which is almost every summer, I'm shocked again by how brutal the hills are - not in Athens, where I run on an almost totally flat coastal road, but basically everywhere else in Greece. In Lefkada, where I spent most of the second week, we stay up high in one of the mountain villages, and I run up and down hills from one village to another, stopping now and then to drink water from springs using my hands. Despite the hills, my average pace that week was again 7:48/mi., but on hard days I ran faster than I had been running in DC. On recovery days, however, I had to run way slower because there's no way to avoid the hills. In Spetses, I simply ran all the way around the island the morning after we arrived, which I'd never done before. There's just one road that circumnavigates the island, snaking through hills high above the water, down to rocky coves, and back up again over and over. So I started running in one direction on that road until I arrived back where I'd started after what turned out to be 15 miles or so. Then, two days later, I did it again but also doubled back to add 5 more miles. The hills there are almost as tough as in Lefkada. They're just as steep in places, but there are some longer stretches without brutal ascents or descents. The big difference is that there is no water anywhere except in the main town on Spetses, so I carried a half liter bottle of water in one hand as I ran. That caused me to run a bit slower, and because of our schedule I also took only one easy day between my two longer runs there. So I wasn't able to do the 20-miler there as hard as in Lefkada. But it was still a good, hilly long run. The one flat tempo run I've done so far was on the only significant flat stretch of road on the mountain in Lefkada the morning after we arrived there. It was again a bit slow, but I held on for 5 miles, which is longer than I had managed yet this summer. I'll do another tempo run tomorrow in Athens before returning to DC the next day. Mileage will be down a bit next week because of traveling, but not as much as in the week we traveled to Greece, and at the end of the week I'll do my first marathon pace run at the Leesburg 20k. My focus shifts now to getting faster while maintaining my base. The weather in DC seems to have been unusually pleasant while I was gone, unlike last year when I missed the worst of the worst summer on record. But it will still be a shock to come back to DC humidity. Fall weather is not far off!
Oh, and shoes. Before leaving for Greece, I splurged on a few pairs of new shoes in order to try some brands other than Brooks, which I've worn almost exclusively for years. One pair was of the Adidas Adios 2, which I decided to bring with me to Greece after a single trial run, along with a pair of my standard training shoes of late, the Brooks Pure Flow 2. The Adios are my new favorite shoe. For this whole trip I've mainly worn my Brooks on recovery runs. The Adios are fast shoes, great for tempo runs. But they also hold up very well on long runs. Best of all, they are super grippy and get fantastic traction on hills. I never realized how important that is, having run so much in slippery Brooks. I'll definitely use Adios for racing the half marathon and longer this Fall.
