Weekly Total: 45 miles. This was a planned reduced mileage week to coincide with a fun/tough trail race in southern New Hampshire.
Saturday: 6 miles easy, including some loops around the high school track.
Sunday: 14 miles trail: the Pisgah Mountain 23K trail race. This is an awesome race that has serious cred in the regional trail running community, hence the uber competitive field of tough southern New Hampshire runners. I’ve been waiting to do it for awhile. Certainly, after my summer of sloth-like running, I was not in racing shape; I’m still in training mode, and viewed this as a good hard training run. It was humid and slightly drizzly. I started out slow — slower than I needed to go, it turned out, because I finished much faster than I started As usual, I passed people on the uphills, and got re-passed on the downhills. My goal was simply to finish, intact. And I did that in 2 hours and 45 minutes. Back of the pack! (though in my defense, the crowd at Pisgah was a pack of speedy wolves!)
The race was a good excuse for us to head to Brattleboro, VT to celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary. Little Boy, Mr. P and I spent Saturday night dining along the Connecticut River, then stayed at a hotel and to wake up for the leisurely 8:45am start time. After the race, we grabbed lunch and then took a nice 3-mile-ish hike in the hills that overlook Brattleboro. Well, two of us thought it was nice! Little Boy had fun at the top but loathed the steep grade on the ascent.
Overlooking Brattleboro, VT
The night before, enjoying dinner along the Connecticut River
Monday: 5 miles, leisurely!
Tuesday: Circuit training with jump-rope intervals; 25 minutes spinning.
Wednesday: 8 miles, some speed work on the track (half mile repeats, 7:30 pace).
Thursday: 7 miles, fast hills, roads.
Friday: 5 miles easy hilly road, to the gym, for intervals
