Marathon training, week 6

Training for Twin Cities Marathon, October 9:

Monday: Off.
Tuesday: Track day! Eight miles total. This was 3x1600, a workout I just did two weeks ago - and failed at miserably. However, this week went much, much better. The weather was a little less terrible, and I easily hit within my pace range, 6:16, 6:21, 6:21 (The first was a little too fast).
Wednesday: 6 easy on the dirt track.
Thursday: 10.5 with 8 tempo at 7:12. Splits 7:15, 7:08. 7:12, 7:11, 7:09, 7:16, 7:13, 7:10. It was a little rainy, a little cool, and this tempo felt good (finally). I cut the warm up short, and it showed with a slow first mile, but mid-80's weather was far better than the 90's I've been running in.
Friday: 10 easy. Pouring rain but oh so nice and cool! 79 at the start and 82 at the finish!
Saturday: 10 at 7:35 pace with 20x levee "hills". Again, lovely cool and rainy weather.
Sunday: 6.5 easy.

Total: 51 miles.

A cut-back week! This week was overall lower volume and difficulty compared to last week, and I felt good all week. I'm sure a big part of that was the change in temperature. We've had lots of rain this week, leaving areas of our state flooded disaster zones, but the bright side is a break in the heat.
I definitely had a better week this week than last. I'm starting to see a pattern: Every other week with Hanson's, you ramp up. The long run gets longer, the easy days or tempos might get longer, the track interval length extends. Those weeks are hard. But the weeks that follow seem easy in comparison. Or maybe I'm finally improving! Who knows.