I made it through the halfway mark of my training plan.  This week was a step down week in terms of mileage and long run distance.  I did read a Runner’s World article about improving your marathon finish time.  One of the points was to not run all your long runs as an LSD (“Long Slow Distance”).  In the past, many of the training protocols I would peruse talked about doing all your long runs at a slow conversational pace.  I guess there has been some changes to this thought.  I decided to do my long run this week as more of a training run.  So for the 10 miles I broke it up into: first 3 miles easy, middle 4 miles at moderate pace and last 3 miles at slightly moderate to easy pace.  I definitely felt it more in my legs by doing this.  I am hoping this will help build up my endurance better.

Here’s a summary of last week’s running.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 3.25 (3)

Thursday – 3.1 (7) – treadmill, incline, intervals

Friday – 10 (10)

Saturday – 4.05 (4)

Sunday –  5.5 (5)

Weekly Total – 25.9 miles (29)

My Thursday run ended up being quite shorter than what is on my plan.  A lot of this is due to my work schedule.  After arriving home on Thursday from work, I helped to put dinner together and while it was cooking I hopped on the treadmill.  I still feel good about the workout because I did various intervals and different inclines to get some “hill” training.  Saturday’s run was truly a drag and I just wasn’t feeling it.  Grinded out the 4 but it was slow and tough.  The last run on Sunday was after working and I did a tempo run.  Maintained around a 10 min/mile pace.  Overall felt pretty good about it though my right knee was complaining some.  Overall I thought the week went well.

This week’s long run I took along the river trail but towards downtown Sac and got some cool pictures.  The trail runs under the Business 80 freeway and then under some train tracks.

The graffiti actually shows a fair amount of talent.  I can’t help but think these guys/gals could have a future in some sort of graphic design.

I also like that you can run on the lower part of the trail with the berm on the side.  It makes you feel like you’re in nature.

I eventually made my way over to Sutter’s Landing park and had a view of the somewhat sad-looking Sacramento skyline.

I do like the architecture in Midtown Sacramento.  There are lots of neat looking homes.  I didn’t snap too many but just have this one.

And then I passed through McKinley Park.  They are redoing the pond there and it is currently empty. They had to delay work on it due to the massive amounts of rain we had been getting.

And I’ll leave you with this lovely maintained yard (not mine).

-StewsCat