A great week of training. I hit 70 miles for the week, only the second time in my life that I have ever run 70 miles in a week and 70 miles in a week is my highest weekly total ever.

8/18 -7.1 Miles
8/19 - 8 Miles
8/20 - 13 Miles @ 7:17 Pace, Avg. Heart Rate of 166
8/21 - 8 Miles
8/22 - 5 Miles
8/23 - St. Peter Festival 10k, 3 Miles Warm Up/Cool Down, 9.2 Miles Total
8/24 - 20 Miles Total, First 16 Miles at 7:47 Pace, 155bpm, last 4 miles @ 6:56 pace, 172bpm, depletion run

70.31 Miles Total

My training is going well, I feel strong and have no injuries to speak of. I am getting concerned that I don’t have much speed and not sure how much speed I can gain before Denver Marathon. In September 2007, before the Denver Marathon, I had one 20 mile training run that I did at 6:56 pace and another epic run where I covered 20 miles at 6:44 pace. Then I had my 1:21:59 Quad Cities Half Marathon four weeks before Denver Marathon, which boosted my confidence.

On my 20 miler this morning, I was doing a depletion run for the last four miles, which should have been at marathon race pace. I pushed out 6:56 miles, thus nothing impressive. However, I was finishing my run at around 11:30am and it was rather hot at that time, so I am sure that did not help matters.

I’m training a lot harder than last year at this time, but like I said I have no speed to speak of post injury. On Labor Day, I’ll be doing the Park to Park 10 Miler, so that will give me a good idea of my fitness level. I also plan to scale back the mileage this week, to recover and taper a bit before this race.

I still have eight weeks until the Denver Marathon. I remember in college CC, being able to knock off 1-2 minutes on my 8k time from the start of the season to the end and that was in the course of 8 weeks, thus let’s hope that I can make similar gains this year.

A couple of new free entries to give away as well.