Hot runner summer

After running 55 miles for two weeks in a row, my highest volume for some time, I started the first of these two weeks with a longer fartlek than I've been doing lately. It felt hard, and of course it's hot and humid now. So I decided the next day to take a down week by moving my long run to Monday of the following week and taking Friday off. I then ended up taking off the following Friday as well because my hamstring was a bit tight (possibly from some supplementary exercises I did on Wednesday afternoon). So both of these weeks ended up smaller than the previous two. But the quality was good, especially given the challenging weather conditions. The long run on July 18 went particularly well considering that the TDP (temperature + dew point) was over 150, and I managed to do both a workout and the College Park Parkrun 5k each week as well. I'm evidently pretty locked in to 19:3x for a threshold effort 5k in summery weather right now, which is also pretty much where I was in 2019 (my last good running year). I was hoping to put in a harder effort and try to sneak under 19 minutes before heading to Greece, but frankly I'm just trying to survive the summer weather at this point. So I'll defer that hope until September and continue also to wonder whether I can get under 18:30 when the weather begins to improve in the Fall (if that sort of effort is even compatible with the longer distance training I'll be focusing on then). That would be my fastest 5k in nearly a decade. After PRing in both the half marathon and 10 mile in 2019, I set out in the Spring of 2020 to see how close my old body could get to my 5k and 10k PRs, both of which date back to 2013, before the pandemic shut everything down. That's still in the back of my mind, but right now I need to shift toward strength work in advance of the Annapolis 10 miler on August 28 and the DC Half on September 18. I'd love to do the Army 10 miler as well but neglected to register before it filled up. Maybe I'll somehow manage to get a bib, but actually I'd be better positioned to take some swings at the 5k then if I don't. We'll see.

July 11 - 17:
Mo: off
Tu: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 minutes with half recoveries
We: 8.3 miles
Th: 8.5 miles
Fr: off
Sa: College Park Parkrun 5k in 19:31
Su: 8.4 miles
Week total: 45 miles

July 18 - 24:
Mo: 16 miles @ 7:48/mi.
Tu: off
We: 3 x (3, 2, 1 min.) with half recoveries
Th: 8.5 miles
Fr: off
Sa: College Park Parkrun 5k in 19:34
Su: 8.5 miles
Week total: 50 miles