I can’t believe it’s week 8 already! Got housing nailed down for the night before in Cumberland, now the last big piece of the puzzle is the vans. I know I’ll get one, just have to figure out who will get the other one down there. This week also put me over 900 miles for the year! I never thought I’d get anywhere near 1,000 miles, but marathon training in the winter/spring put that within reach, and I’d like to see if I can possibly stretch it out to 1,200 for the year.
- Monday – Cross training – Did a lot of walking, mostly due to having to keep running all over the enormous store At Home, but I found some great additions for the chandeliers I’m building for the Burn!
- Tuesday – 6 miles – Stupid hot week, so back to the gym. Literally nothing changed from the previous week, sigh.
- Wednesday – 8 x 400. Met friends at a local high school track to once again do speedwork during their football practice. The heat and humidity made it tough, but it felt great to be out there doing this.
- Thursday – 6 miles.
- Friday – 21 night miles. Once again the team met up for some night running! Had an absolute blast doing some even more scenic running including a trip down the Hazelwood Greenway which was just single track through the woods (with some amazing views) and a group of people just off the trail at a campfire ring.
The numbers fluctuated a bit, and it ended up being the same three of us that went the longest last time doing it again (from our ultra team). Throughout the night, we found a monument to the Pittsburgh Marathon and Great Race, as a group got catcalled by a 15 year old, got encouragement from some drunken Frat Bros on a balcony, saw some epicly drunk student stumble around Schenley and generally just had a blast.
Sadly, as we were wrapping up and packing up to go after our third loop, one of our cars got egged. It cleaned up, and they missed hitting any of us, but was still disappointing. Driving home that night at 3 a.m. I did see another runner out there on the streets, so that was cool to know there are other people just as crazy as us!
- Saturday – Rest day
- Sunday – Rest day
- Cross training – I did the r/bodyweightfitness Recommended Routine on Monday and Wednesday. I was sore after the long night run, so Saturday I just did the planking section of the workout,
I was stuck in my mind something heavy at the beginning of the week, but my mood significantly improved after the crazy miles Friday night. Something about doing something pretty destructive to myself either distracts me or just helps me work things out (or most likely, a combination of both), The long run, combined with me just not getting enough sleep anyway, made me pretty useless on Saturday, and that’s what happened last time too. I’d like to continue doing these long loops once a month or so, I’ll just need to work on that a bit. Plus, it’s great ultra training, so wins all around!
