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.