Help! Pete Pfitzinger is Trying to Kill Me!!!

For those of you who don't know who Pete Pfitzinger is, he is the author of my training plan and the book, "Advanced Marathoning."  So, if I should perish in the next few weeks, please have someone issue a warrant for Mr. Pfitzinger.  I followed his plan loosely last training cycle, but really stuck with doing lots of long slow miles, even more than what he suggested, but cheated on the tempo work.  I was about 5 weeks into this cycle and felt like I was floundering a bit and needed a slight calibration.  Something to get me back in line and refocused.  I told myself that I would follow the training week to the letter this week; nothing like a little self-imposed discipline to get yourself back into the right frame of mind.  I realize that beyond some high mileage, the plan can have weeks with some fairly aggressive tempo runs, followed by medium-long runs, followed by more of the same.  The week I landed on wasn't necessarily a high-mileage week, but it was on the aggressive side.  Starts out easy enough with an easy double on Monday, then a 9 mile GA run on Tuesday.  Wednesday is a MLR (medium long run) into the double figures, Thursday a short tempo run, followed by a 12 miler on Friday.  I ran Saturday night, and my Sunday long-run was scheduled for the morning.  So, to make a long story short, I start my Sunday run on anything but fresh legs and that's the point.  I then ran 4 miles easy, 4 miles at slow GA pace and 4 more at a faster GA pace.  This is just the warm-up for the final 6 miles at 6:52 or marathon pace.  Legs were fried, but I wanted to nail this run and the final six-miles were 6:52 (YAY!!), 6:48 (WHOOPEE) 7:02 (BOO!!) I was running on snow-packed trails, 6:55 (better), 6:48 and finished with 6:51.  I really didn't think I had it in me, but am quite pleased with the result.  Now wait, thats not all.  Pfitzinger suggests a "recovery run" after a work out like this, so I just capped off my day with 4 miles easy with my lovely daughter.

I haven't commented on my musical selections for awhile and I know of at least one person who is interested.  Today's combo was Coldplay (new album with the weird name)  I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  It was some pleasant musical candy to ease into my run with.  Next was Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" which is always fun to run to.  Finished things up with Radiohead; couldn't decide on which album, so chose greatest hits.  It was a good day!

Happy Running!

Rick