What a week, I worked and I ran, and I had Monday off for USA's Labor Day. I don't feel like talking ambiguously about work like usual, so I won't. I go, they pay me, it works well for both of us.
Monday since I had the day off, I raced the local Dubuque Benefit Classic and lost for the first time in four years. I wasn't expecting to lose, because I had not know a guy named Justin would be there. Pretty funny, he complimented me in the Telegraph Herald, despite the fact he really didn't need to, he had the race won from a quarter mile in. However, I have a feeling him and I could get into a compliment battle paying our respects to each other. He was really cool, a local guy home from living in China for the time being.
It was nice to get another hard effort under me. I still don't consider myself in good shape, and of five races this summer I have only won one, and came in second the other four times. So it was nice to go out there and get in a few miles faster than I have all summer. I'm pretty sure I haven't run a single sub 5:40 mile outside of that race since February.
Monday afternoon I went out and worked at the winery. It's really fun, a nice group of people, the customers are almost always in a good mood, the wine is good, and it's a change from what I normally do staring at a lightbulb (also known as a computer screen). After I was done standing on my feet for five hours (after running the half marathon) I ran another 12 miles that afternoon, brining my total leagues run Monday to just over 10. That's a big day.
That's about all I did for the next four days, go to work and run. People seem to think sometimes I have this interesting life, but after working, running and eating I went to bed at 8:15 PM Thursday so that I could get nine hours of sleep before waking up to run another seven miles in the morning. I'm serious, my life is boring.
Saturday was another fun day, I slept 11 hours, woke up and went for a 20 mile run at 6:46 pace, which was somewhat slower than the 6:30 pace I had hoped for, but it is important not to force my training but to let it come at the effort that feels appropriate. In other words, you rarely need to kill yourself in training, and often it will just set you back. In the afternoon I went rock climbing with a couple friends at Pictured Rocks State Park 45 minutes south of Dubuque, I even led a pitch of traditional lead climbing (placing my own gear in the rock). Most of the time I cancel on my rock climbing friends because I am tired or running or working at the winery, so it nice on those rare occasions I can get out and use some different muscles. Finally, after returning I went for another nine mile run. That made it a little over 29 for the day.
In total that comes to the second highest mileage week I have ever run 43.8 leagues, and since I'm pretty happy to run that much I'll even save you the effort of converting that, 131.4 miles. Of course, this is the second highest I have ever run in one week, there is a reason I'm excited about it. This is not normal mileage for me. This also makes August only the 12th time in my 13 years of recording mileage to be over 400 miles for the month. That's probably a better measure of consistency than any weekly mileage.
That was my week, basically all running with some work and some wine.
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