Slowly but surely

I am officially at the point where I just want my legs to quit being big wussies and just run at a good clip without complaint. It happens a few weeks after every marathon; the soreness from the race is long gone, leading my brain to believe that the speed that my legs had before the race should be back. Apparently marathons take something out of you, and I guess maybe 3 in 3 months culminating in a high effort BQ run takes even more out of you. The weather certainly isn't helping. It's not that I've had a lot of hot runs, only two in fact, but the humidity is killing me, propelling my heart rate through the roof on runs that my heart would usually barely notice. In any case, I guess bitching about it isn't going to help matters any (is it?...I could go on...).

So, here's how the week went:

Sunday - Rest

Monday - 6.4 miles recovery

Tuesday - 9 miles easy

Wednesday - Rest

Thursday - 10.2 miles easy. Awesome run...gave me hope that things will get back to normal eventually. It was actually supposed to be a 9 miler, but Google maps innaccuracy combined with me unknowingly running down a dead end road in the dark and having to double back, stretched it a little. But that was alright, because it felt good.

Friday - 6 miles recovery. Horrible run...one of the toughest I can remember for a while. Even at over 9:00 pace, my legs were just dead and did not want to move.

Saturday - 15 miles easy. Better than Friday, not as good as Thursday. Humidity was a factor and it wasn't as cool as I would like it to be (as in 45) when I get up at 5:00 on a Saturday to go running. It was in the mid 60s throughout the run, but the humidity was like a wet blanket and I was totally and utterly soaked with sweat when I got done. I lost 6 pounds of pure sweat in just over two hours of running. The fact that I ran down a couple of roads I've never run on before didn't help because those two roads turned out to be quite hilly. Oh well, now I know.

Total - 46.4 miles

So, another week of not much excitement. Maybe it's the lingering fatigue from Missoula or maybe the fact that I have a llllooonnnggg time before my next marathon, but there's just not much thrilling going on with my running right now. Honestly, the three most thrilling running events I have coming up really have nothing to do with me. First, my wife is running her 3rd half-marathon of the year (4th overall) this coming Sunday at the Leading Ladies Marathon in Spearfish. The next weekend is the Lean Horse Ultramarathon, which I won't be running but I will be manning the mile 10 and 90 (it's an out and back course) aid station. I'll be spending the weekend camping out in an RV, dishing out food and water to some runners and probably helping others mend torn up feet at some point. The third big running event coming up is the Olympic Marathon, which I guess is two events in itself (men's and women's). Here's hoping Deena Kastor and Ryan Hall (or any other Americans, but I'm guessing they are the likely candidates) bring home some hardware.