Marathon Training Week 2

I'll keep this short, since I detailed most of my week in my last post.

Monday = nothing
Tuesday = nothing
Wednesday = amazing 5.01 miles (neg. split / 10:34 pace)
Thursday = Sucktacular 4.14 miles (neg. split / 10:57 pace)
Friday = Better 4.04 miles (neg. split / 10:44 pace)

That leaves us where we left off - Saturday. No running, but much craziness. I had to finish cleaning my house for the craziness of the day, so I was up at the crack of dawn. With the help of my amazing hubs, I got everything accomplished with a few minutes to spare. My good friend came over with her 3 kids for lunch. We hadn't connected in almost a year, despite much effort, so it was great to catch up with her. They left just after 1pm, then we split up. I got James (who's still sick) down for a nap, I took Jack to his last (WAHOO!!) basketball game, John took Julia and our neighbor's daughter to a birthday party. Jenna and Brian stayed home to man the fort with James. He took a great nap, and we all reconvened at home minus Jack who went to the basketball pizza party (which I learned about THAT AFTERNOON. Grr...). Jack showed up later with our friends, and we had a great loud crazy but small birthday party for James. I was nervous, since I was still unsure if he was healthy enough to enjoy it, but he had a fabulous time - I actually got several "He looks so HAPPY!" comments form my friends and family. Evidence?

So obviously no running on Saturday, which was good since I wanted to rest my sore shin anyhow. Lacking? Yeah crosstraining again. Gah.

Sunday I woke with high hopes of running a local 5k with the running club as part of my long run. Sunday JAMES woke up evil as hell. He was one hot mess, and just like that, the 5k was out. Really, though, that was exactly why I hadn't committed to it, so it was no big deal. I headed out after getting evil-boy down for his nap for my long run. I had 6 miles on my schedule, but I was being flexible depending on how I felt and how my shin felt.

In short, I felt AMAZING. Effortless. Strong. So strong, I went for 7, to round out my week to a nice 20 miles. Throughout the run I kept flashing back to my first 7 mile run of my last training cycle. It was in June last year, and it was grueling. The last 2 or 3 miles were SO SO hard for me. I ran it with an average pace of 11:47 but that wasn't really true, since I used to stop my nike+ when I walked. But not this time....my first walk break happened after mile 3. I planned on holding a steady 11 minute pace, but kept looking down and seeing 9:xxs and having to rein it in. It just felt easy, like I could have run another 3 miles.

Sunday = 7 miles (splits: 11:08, 10:59, 10:38, 10:28, 10:31, 10:53, 10:14 / 10:41 average pace)

Total = 20.23 miles for week 2.