Week in Review: 27 March - 2 April

This will be (for once) a relatively short update, as this was sort of a "down" week, in the sense that I didn't run a major race that I could subsequently carry on about for thousands of words. Instead, the (relatively) terse summary of my training:

27 March: 11 miles (77 minutes); the traditional post-race recovery run around Canton/Fells/Inner Harbor.

28 March: 13 miles (91 minutes); attempted to catch the end of the Fed Hill run, but nobody was running back my way, so I detoured uphill through Mt. Vernon and back down dark scary Monument Street.

29 March: 6 miles (42 minutes) as a TNT "warmup" at APG. Another 9 miles (65 minutes) at TNT, including a set of 3x(4x(400 m fast, 200 m jog rest), 400 m jog rest), with 400s in 82, 83, 83, 84, 84, 84, 84, 84, 84, 82, 81, 76 (oops). Based on the last one, maybe should have been running the whole workout less conservatively.

30 March: 10 miles (72 minutes) at APG, including some stupid-silly off-trail steep-grade-in-the-woods running in honor of the upcoming Barkley Marathons, followed up by another 8 miles (58 minutes) with the Wednesday night Canton run crew.

31 March: 8 miles (55 minutes) on a run around Harford Community College that started like garbage but ended up fast.

1 April: More garbage? Split run, 7 miles (50 minutes) in the rainy, ambivalent morning gray in Fells, then 10 more miles (70 minutes) on a similar route in the evening, when it was slightly warmer and brighter. A few intermittent fast sections in there.

2 April: Long(ish) 120 minutes (conservatively, 16 miles) at Loch Raven, on trails. This was uncharacteristically beautiful and fun, in spite of the gray, spitting rain.

Total time: 700 minutes (exactly)
Total distance: 98 (inexactly)

I was not keeping very close track of my mileage during the week, but I felt like I was running a lot of miles. And now that I've actually bothered to add it up, apparently I was, coming very close to that magical 100-mile week mark.

So maybe some meditations on the 100-mile week are in order. On the one hand, when I stop to think about it (which I try not to do), it seems like an awful lot of running. On the other hand, when it comes time to actually do my run, once I get over the fear that this might be the run where I crash, it feels entirely natural to be in motion for an hour, or an hour and a half, or however long my run is supposed to be. And especially since this past Wednesday, running has felt very, very pleasant, normal, and even a little euphoric towards the end of each session. Maybe that's the magic of the 100-mile week - it's the threshold at which one more mile becomes more pleasure than pain. Or maybe it's just me.

Another thing about a 100-mile week is that it gives you a lot of time by yourself, with your thoughts (so hopefully they're not stupid and boring). I could also use this space to carry on about the thoughts I've had while running this past week, but it's getting late, and there's more running that needs to happen tomorrow, so, for now, I'll keep them to myself. But if one of them keeps on catching my fancy, I may just drop some science on that in a day or two. Until then, I'll keep on riding this wave and continue to hope that it never crashes.