81 mile week - 22.5 mile Saturday adventure.

Last run of the week was a crappy one, route-wise. The main group training for the Austin Marathon has started their taper and only had 14 on the agenda, so it was up to us to map out extra miles. I was pretty happy with the loop I came up with, and surprisingly 8 of us headed out for that. We ran pretty easy, someone said we averaged 8:06min/mile. Probably due to the first 2 miles being very slow. I kinda jumped upfront pretty quick making sure the over-testosteroned running friends I have, didn't have us going in the low 7's again. Mission accomplished.

We returned to the Rogue store with 10 minutes to spare before the main run began. We ran the Austin Half Marathon course. It's a pretty crappy course, as you first climb continuously for about 3.5 miles. You then get to run down two ghetto cross streets, and then, run back down south 1st for 3.5 miles. South First isn't a bad street as it's downhill, but the problem here, is that at 8am, the traffic is lively AND the sidewalk absolutely stinks, so you end up playing russian roulette on the road hopping on and off the side walk. Did I mention it was windy out?! Oh yeah, we got our fair share of wind running 1.5 miles down Lake Austin Blvd. At this point, Jo Dee, Dustin and I were together as everyone else apparently had breakfast appointments and had to get back to the store ASAP. I was determined to attack the Wicked WitchWind of the North. Dustin mentioned we ran low 7's on that stretch which i was pleased with. I was not going to let the wind slow me down, and instead ran hard straight into it.
We then hit the rolling hills of Enfield, and had a nice verbal encounter with a motorist that decided to come to a complete stand still to challenge us to a fight, maybe? I dunno what his problem was, we simply waved our hands to "slow down" after he appeared over a hill going about 60-65 miles an hours on Enfield (40mph speed limit). 3 of us, 1 of him... he drove off.
We then got to run on the fun sidewalks of Enfield East of Mopac! Yay! I love those crappy sidewalks too!
Finally, hit a nice and long hill up 12th street from the tavern, and on home down congress.

As far as how i felt, the first 2 hours were crappy, but yet again, once I reached the 2 hours mark, i felt fresh and was ready to go. This is becoming a trend I don't particularly like.

I end this week with 81 miles, which is right smack in the middle of the range i decided on last week. After taking today, Sunday as a rest day, i'll go for 90 this coming week. It'll be interesting to see how I get to 90 as we start our steady state runs this week, and those tend to really tire out the legs until we get a few under our belts.

Wow, re-reading this post, it sounds overly negative. I didn't intend to have it sound that bad!

On to 90 miles!

Happy running!