Week in review July 6-12: A LOT of running

That's a lot of running miles.

Another decent week in the bag. Of course I would have liked to swim and bike more, but my running game was on point this week. Small victories.

I got a bit of a slow start because I took one of the mutts to the vet on Monday to get a boo-boo looked at, but I was able to jump in to the rest of the week strong Tuesday morning.

Swim: Twice in the pool and once in the lake for about 8650 yards in about 3.5 hours. My pool swims were pretty slow, but my lake swim was my fastest time (but not shortest distance!) across and back, so I'll take it.

Bike: I missed my Monday evening recovery spin for the vet, but I managed twice on the trainer in the early mornings for an hour, and one blah road ride of 53.5 miles. In all it was about 5.5 hours in the saddle.

I just had a hard time getting going on my ride. I started the day with a nice breakfast and important errands. But I had taken my wheels off to get my bike to fit in the trunk, and it made all kinds of unholy noise once I put it back together. (Turns out my front wheel was a bit crooked.) The miles were ticking by SOOOOO SLOWLY. I seriously considered bailing more than once. I made a compromise with myself that instead of doing full laps of the park, I'd do a few shorter laps of the flatter and speedier part to bring up my mph average. Lame? Maybe, but it put me in a better headspace and I actually started to enjoy myself. I'd wanted to do 55, but when I got back to my car at 53.5 I figured it was close enough.

Run: Another rock star week! SIX, count 'em SIX, runs this week, for a whopping 46.25 miles in just less than 7.5 hours. Are you kidding me? And I'm actually feeling OK afterward. That worked out to two easy runs, a failed speed run that became another easy run, a medium distance run, a long run of 16.25 miles, and a 2-mile brick after my ride.

I think I pulled one 50-mile week last marathon training cycle, and that was later in the cycle, so I hope this is helping set me up for good things this season. As for the failed speed run, I'm not too worried. It was the first warm day after a stretch of a few cool ones, and my legs just didn't want to go. Eh. At least I got the miles in.

Other: Nothing. Again, I could have stretched or done this or that, but... I replaced that with activities like sleeping in and hanging out with my friends.

Total: 12 sessions in just more than 16 hours. Not my best week but pretty darn close. And I got to see this for what might have been the first time:

Triple digits!

This week is pretty much a repeat, although I'd like to do a slightly shorter ride followed by a longer brick, and a step back "long" run on Sunday. So the mileage should be about the same, just shuffled around a bit. I'm making it a goal to get going a bit earlier on the weekends. I don't need to be out of bed by 5 a.m., but not starting my bike rides 'til 3 p.m. isn't doing me any favors.

Less than 6 weeks 'til Michigan Titanium and less than 100 days 'til the Freep marathon. Eeeek!