With this past Sunday’s 11 mile long run, week 6 of my half marathon training is in the books. It was a pretty good week, and a really good long run. What made it such a good week? Cooler weather definitely contributed, and based on my runs so far this week—back in warmer weather—that’s about it. Here’s the run down from last week:

• Day 1
  • Full body strength training
  • My first ever full body massage—it was sometimes painful, but I felt pretty good afterward. Maybe that’s part of the reason week 6 was so good?
• Day 2
  • Scheduled: 4 miles easy @ 10:08/mile – this was a really nice run at a 9:44/mile pace with my average HR at 148 bpm.
• Day 3
  • Scheduled: 4 miles easy @ 10:08/mile – another easy run, this time at a 9:25/mile pace, with an average HR of 153 bpm.
• Day 4
  • Scheduled: 7 miles total; 1.5 warm up, 3 x 1 mile @ 8:06 w/.5 mile jogs; 1.5 mile cool down – while this run was challenging, it felt good. My mile repeats were in 8:04, 8:05, and 7:50, and my total time including warm up, recovery, and cool down was 1:06:40, for 7 miles (a 9:33/mile pace).
• Day 5
  • Scheduled: 4 miles easy @ 10:08/mile – like most of my recent Friday runs, this run wasn’t quite as easy feeling as the rest of the week. I ran it at a 9:46/mile pace, with an average HR of 160 bpm. I should've slowed it down, since I was needing to recover from the previous day’s intervals.
  • Full body strength training.
• Day 6
  • Rest!
• Day 7
  • Scheduled: 11 mile long run @ 10:08/mile – this was a really, really good long run. I finished in 1:50:09, for a 10:00/mile average pace, and an average HR of 159 bpm. I also practiced a fast finish, with a 9:13 final mile.

All in all, this was a very good week.