Marathon training: week five

I think this was a purposeful down week from our coach -  which was kind of bad timing for me, since I took a down week last week! But it seemed like we had some more flexible mileage options that allowed us to run shorter distances, and some easier workouts.

The way our coach writes our workouts is really just for the whole group - it's not individualized. We're lumped into "marathon" and "non-marathon" right now, and our coach writes a track workout for Tuesdays, a tempo for Friday, and a Sunday long run. At this time, he's also writing some guidance for the rest of the week, and that's where I noticed this week had some easier options. Where last week he prescribed "75 minutes conversational pace", this week we had "60 - 75 minutes", etc. Our workouts were about a mile shorter apiece, too. I hope he continued to build in some cut-back weeks to keep us fresh and healthy.

Monday: 6.5 easy, plus a very fun karate class at night in which we got to do partner sparring! I got to whack my husband in the face and it was totally ok!
Tuesday: Track combo: one mile warm up, 3 miles aerobic, then 3x1 mile at tempo pace with 1 minute standing rest. One mile cool down. Myself and another girl in the group, Daniella, are the slowest, and we're running our marathon workouts together (for now. She'll probably get a lot faster and leave me in the dust). Since she lives kind of far away, I rarely have a workout partner, so that's been nice. My tempo miles were 6:32, 6:30, and 6:34, and I felt pretty good considering how hot and humid it was.
Wednesday: 5.5 easy
Thursday: 75 minute medium-long run. I love this run that's been popping up on our schedule. I think 75 minutes is the perfect amount of time to run, and lately I've been taking this run to one of my favorite routes: out and back on the levee. It can be tricky running on the levee in the summer, because there's no shade and no water. But if it's early in the morning, and I just accept that I'm going to be thirsty, it's doable (or I could bring water, but since I only get 9.5ish miles in, it seems unnecessary to carry water). The levee runs along River Road, and I love the peacefulness of the wide Mississippi to one side and the bustle of morning commutes far below me on River Road on the other side.
Friday: Another easier workout: one mile warm-up, three miles aerobic, 5x30 seconds on/30 seconds off, two miles aerobic, one mile cool down. A group of us meet in Audubon park for these Friday workouts, and for some reason we were feeling less than peppy as a whole, so this workout was on the slow side. Or, our slower pace could be due to an earlier start: we met at 5:30 instead of the 5:45-that-turns-to-6 that we usually do, and it was dark. I'm just not a strong and confident runner in the dark, especially on the imperfect surface up on the Fly (the part of the park that extends up along the levee).
Saturday: I slept in, then ran 6.4 easy at 10 am - which was hot, but no big deal, until I came home to no water at all. Apparently the sewage and water board forgot to notify our block that we would have no water from 9 am to 5 pm! They posted notices on another block, just not ours. Nice. We ended up driving all the way downtown to the gym to shower.
Sunday: 18 mile long run. It was "only" 80F for most of the run, but humidity was in the 90's, so it still felt hot (especially once the sun came out). We aren't doing specific workouts yet, but I've been doing a sort-of progression or fast finish for most runs, including this one, and I finished with 7:36 average pace. I can pull these off only because my easy days have been QUITE easy!

65 miles this week.