Week Nine - Philadelphia Marathon Training

Monday - Rest day - 1 mile run

Tuesday - 45 minute easy run

Wednesday - Intervals (warmup 10 min, run 8 min, recover 2 min X4)

Thursday - 40 min recovery run

Friday - 40 min easy run

Saturday - 90 minute long run (60 min easy, 30 min half marathon pace)

Sunday -Rest day - 1 mile run

This was a bit of a down week and it was a welcome reprieve. The easy runs and recovery runs are nice because there's no thinking involved. My Garmin watch does the work for me on the intervals but there's still thinking involved to pace yourself and anticipate the number of intervals. I got in some extra evening walks and a just for fun spin class.

My legs felt extra fresh for Saturday's long run. It was the first Saturday that weren't up and out of the house by 6am so I took advantage of the opportunity to have a leisurely morning while I waited for the rain to taper off and I appeased my cat who wanted to be held all morning. I got out around 11:30 which is possible since the summer humidity has broken. I felt nearly unstoppable in the first 60 minutes and pretty good in the final 30 minutes as well. I stacked three 30 minute Peloton run classes. I ignore the pace and incline cues and do my run as planned but I like the benefit of the good music and the motivating instructor in my ear. One of the classes was a new series that Peloton is doing with Ashton Kutcher ahead of the New York City Marathon. In this class, it was all Kenny Chesney music and Kenny and Ashton talking about their lives and what keeps them going. It was really enjoyable and made the miles and minutes fly by. It was a great pick me up and confidence boost to have such a good long run, even if just 90 minutes.

Now it's back to some more intense training!