WEEKLY SUMMARY (July 22-28): 72 miles (90.5% at E, 5.5% at T, and 4% at 5k paces)

  Sunday:  9.3 miles at 7:58/mi. on a hilly course

  Monday: 9.3 miles at 7:59/mi. on a hilly course

  Tuesday: 3 miles easy, 5 x .6 miles at 6:00/mi. (.4 mile jog), 2 miles easy (10 miles total)

  Wednesday: 9.3 miles at 7:47/mi. on a hilly course

  Thursday: 10.8 miles at 7:59/mi. on a hilly course

  Friday: 9.3 miles at 7:49/mi. on a hilly course

  Saturday: 3.2 miles easy, 2x2 miles at 6:21/mi. (3 min. rest), 6.8 miles easy (14 miles total)

This week I had the virus that my son suffered from earlier, but I still managed to get in all the running I needed to do. We didn't end up going to that other island but remained in Lefkada all week before driving back to Athens on Friday. I must say that I'm glad to be finished running on those hills for the time being, but they did make my legs super strong in only two weeks. This week I settled on a 15k (when in Rome) or 9.3 mile course for my easy runs there and kept them quite easy due to virus-inspired low energy levels. On Thursday I took a different and slightly longer course just to get the miles to round out for the week. Tuesday's intervals were identical to last week's, but this time my slowness seemed due to low energy instead of tight muscles. By the end of the week my cold symptoms worsened but my energy was coming back, and I had no trouble with the tempo intervals on Saturday. It is much hotter in Athens than I expected - maybe hotter than DC with humidity only slightly lower. By contrast, it had become quite cool up on the mountain in Lefkada near the end of our stay there, and I was starting to worry about adapting to the heat back in DC. But it looks like I needn't wait until then to get reacclimated to heat. Next week I'll take a low-mileage recovery week but maintain intensity on my two quality days: one last 5k interval session, and more tempo intervals without the long easy run afterwards. We fly back to the US this coming Friday and move on Saturday. Once the dust settles from that, I'll begin the next phase on Daniels' schedule, which focusses on tempo workouts on both quality days of each week, some of which will become quite long. I'll also continue ascending toward 80 miles per week, since I've survived alright so far.

WEEKLY SUMMARY (July 15-21): 63 miles (95% at E/L, and 5% at 5k paces)

  Sunday: 9 miles at 7:46/mi. on a hilly course

  Monday: off

  Tuesday: 9 miles at 7:45/mi.

  Wednesday: 3E, 5 x .6 miles around 6:00/mi. (.4 miles jog), 2.2E (10.2 miles total)

  Thursday: 8.4 miles at 8:00/mi. on a hilly course

  Friday: 18 miles at 7:41/mi. on a hilly course

  Saturday: 8.4 miles at 8:05/mi. on a hilly course

Well, I didn't get over 70 miles this week, because the hills got to me. On Sunday I chose a route that started with a moderate-to-steep hill right from the beginning that is over a mile long. It was a rude way to start an easy run, but I felt recovered enough after halfway to resume a normal pace and then to coast a 6:35 final mile back down the same hill. Afterwards one of my lower calves started hurting progressively more throughout the day. That night around 2am my son woke up with a fever and my leg was throbbing, so running in the morning was off, and morning is really the only time I can run here. My leg recovered the next day (although my son is still a bit sick), and for my easy run on Tuesday I avoided hills as much as possible, even when it meant running back and forth on the same stretch of flat road. That enabled me to measure out a place for some nearly 5k-pace intervals on Wednesday. I found a relatively flat stretch of road about .6 miles long and 3 miles from where I'm staying. So that was my interval length on Wednesday. Once I stretched out to around 6:00 pace my legs and back felt tight, but I could hold the pace pretty well and recover quickly. Running faster was out of the question, though. I'm glad that Daniels has more 5k intervals on the schedule next week, since I need to do more of them to keep my legs from tightening up on these hills. On Thursday and Saturday I did my best impression of what a truly easy run might look like up here. I didn't avoid hills but ran very slowly up them and didn't let myself coast too quickly back down. By now I finally have the right form down for hill running: a straight back, looking up the hill, arms pumping, and legs pulled up high in front of me. That's the way to avoid lower back trouble, and it should help me run with better form on level surfaces too. By Saturday, a very easy day after a long run, I was surprised to find that I could run slowly up a very steep hill about half a mile long without breathing very hard. The big run of the week, and my only steady long run in Greece, was Friday's 18-miler. I chose a route whose toughest hills were near the beginning in miles 4-6, so I was tired early on and nearly spent by halfway. But I rallied after a gel and some flat and downhill running for a few miles. My pace at halfway was 7:53, which means that the second half averaged 7:29. The last 5 miles averaged 7:15, and for much of that time I was running in the 6:30's on the downhills and 6:40's on flats (my provisional marathon race pace is 6:45), but my climbing legs were shot so I was creeping slowly up hills. I'd say that effort was worth an average pace in the mid/high-7:20's on a flat DC course, but it's difficult to make such comparisons. Surely all this hill running has been good for strengthening my muscles, but I need to get back to flats soon to translate it to speed and endurance on the sort of course that I need to be training for (the MCM is almost totally flat). That'll have to wait another week, though. Next week we plan to visit a nearby island that I've never been to but that no doubt is equally hilly, and then we'll head back to Athens towards the end of the week. I'll shoot for 72 miles again, my original goal for this week, with an interval session and another one of those tempo interval sessions with an hour-long easy run tacked onto the end. 

WEEKLY SUMMARY (July 8-14): 68 miles (92% at E, 4.5% at T, and 3.5% at 5k paces)

  Sunday: 3.5 E, 3 x 1 mile T (1 min. rest), 7.3 E (13.8 miles total)

  Monday: 8.2 miles at 7:39/mi.

  Tuesday: 8 miles at 7:48/mi. on a hilly course

  Wednesday: 3 E, 3 x .75 miles hard (.5 mile recovery jog), 2 E (8.3 miles total)

  Thursday: 9.4 miles at 7:33/mi. on a hilly course

  Friday: 9.3 miles at 7:38/mi.

  Saturday: 11 miles at 7:46/mi. on a hilly course

This week I was running in Athens and on two different Greek islands, yet I managed to hit my mileage goal for the week and to do both of the quality workouts on Daniels' schedule. I was in Athens on Sunday and Monday, on Spetses (a Cycladic island) Tuesday through Thursday, back in Athens on Friday, and then on Lefkada (an Ionian island) on Saturday. On Sunday my lower back was still killing me. I was having real difficulty even putting on my shoes. Daniels' schedule says to do 5 x 1 mile intervals at tempo pace and then to run easy for an hour. I figured I'd try four of the tempo intervals, but I had a muscle spasm in my back shortly after beginning the fourth one. So I walked for a bit and then was fine, though soaked, for the nearly hour-long easy run afterwards. Later that day I identified the cause of my back trouble: pushing a stroller while walking around. The stroller we brought is low and I have to bend over very slightly to push it. I never use it for very long at home, but we spend a lot of time walking around here using the stroller. Somehow that was enough to really mess up my back. So pushing the stroller became my wife's job starting on Sunday, and over the next few days my back gradually loosened up. Tuesday was my first run this trip in Greek hills. Most of Greece is mountainous, including the islands (which, of course, are mountains sticking out of the sea). The flat coastal road I run on in Athens is unusual even for Athens, most of which is very hilly. It was a shock trying to tackle the hills on Spetses that first day, since there are very few hills where I usually run in DC and nothing like the terrain in Greece. But that first run in the hills on Tuesday was made better by a local dog who tagged along with me the entire way. He was panting pretty hard by halfway, so I gave him some of my water. Then he almost got into a fight with a sheep dog whose territory we were passing through, but their standoff ended without incident. Greece has a lot of stray dogs everywhere, and I guess they run around all day long. But I was still surprised that this one could run eight hilly miles apparently with little difficulty. On Wednesday I found a mostly flat stretch along a harbor in Spetses for some 5k-pace intervals, but there were a lot of sharp turns and the surface of the road was very uneven. Plus I brought only one pair of running shoes to Greece, some moderate-weight trainers, and I had never tried running fast in them before. So I got really tired without actually running very fast: 4:33, 4:34.5, and 4:43.5 for three .75 mile intervals. Thursday's run, however, was glorious. I ran the same hilly course as two days earlier, except that I pushed up a long, steep hill that I had turned around before the previous time. For some reason I was much stronger on the uphills this time and was also able to glide faster on downhills. After that run my legs were jello, so I was happy to get to run on a flat course back in Athens on Friday morning. The rest of that day we spent driving to Western Greece, where my wife's parents have a house up in the hills on Lefkada. On Saturday I was stiff from driving the previous day and still tired from running on Spetses, so I maintained a slower pace on a circular route that passes through several villages on "the mountain," as people say here. There is simply no such thing as a true easy run up here in these hills, because there are hardly any flat stretches of road anywhere - unless I run about six miles down the mountain, by the shortest route, to the coast, after which I'd have to run back up again. So I just have to adjust to running hills all the time and go slowly when I'm tired. We'll be based here for a couple weeks, though at some point we may take another short trip somewhere nearby. Next week I'll try to get over 70 miles for the first time ever. Daniels' schedule has an 18 miler and some more 5k-pace intervals on tap. 

WEEKLY SUMMARY (JULY 1-7): 45 miles (100% at easy pace)

  Sunday: 6.5 miles at 7:59/mi.

  Monday: 8 miles at 7:38/mi.

  Tuesday: 7.5 miles at 7:47/mi.

  Wednesday: off

  Thursday: 8 miles at 7:34/mi.

  Friday: 9 miles at 7:35/mi.

  Saturday: 6 miles at 7:56/mi.

This was an overdue recovery week with low mileage and only easy running. During the first half of the week we were packing both for being away for a month and for moving when we get back, so I was happy keeping my runs slow and relatively short. We left in the late morning on Tuesday and arrived in Athens on Wednesday morning, not having slept at all. The rest of the week we were recovering from traveling, which left me with a surprisingly stiff back, and from the seven hour time change. Apparently there is a record heat wave in DC right now, which I'm glad to be missing. It's hot in Athens too but not as hot as DC right now, and the humidity in Greece is always much lower than in DC. I've been up and running here by 6am, so heat has not been a problem and the low humidity feels great. There is a very long, flat coastal road about a half mile from where we stay in Athens (in the apartment of my wife's parents) where I run. It's easy and familiar. Next week we'll travel around a bit, but probably only to places we've been to before (since this is our first time being here with a toddler). It should be possible for me to fit in Daniels' workouts and to get my mileage back up.