I had a week or so after the marathon of very little activity because my legs were pretty much shot. After the break I started back slowly and tested myself daily with 2 to 3 mile runs, just to make sure I hadn't done any permanent damage to my knee. This past week's mileage was upped to about 20, with a long run outside today of 7 miles. After the run I felt absolutely awesome. 58:50 for the 7-miler, and I was eating up the hills at a sub-9 pace. I started off slow and didn't kick it up for a while, because my pace felt strange. I felt like I was going too slow, but that's what screwed me in Hyannis so I laid back. If I had actually been able to tell what my pace was (i.e. if the stupid Garmin had found a satellite sooner) I would have been running at a much faster pace from the start. Oh well.
It was about 40 to 45 degrees out, with fairly mild wind. I wore a tech t-shirt with a tech longsleeve over it, my Nike running tights and smartwool socks with the Merrells. My feet felt awesome. Contemplated wearing gloves but didn't. They were fine. I also wore the Nathan belt. I am still trying to get it to where it feels just right. It has an elastic waistband that just has too much give to it. I had to take it off mid-run and tighten it more because the bottle was jumping around. I think I finally got it right.
Now that the mileage feels good, I'm going to start nailing my tempo and interval runs and do 4-milers in between them on the 'easy' days. My long run I'll go ahead and increase by a mile or 2 each week and then I'll be good to go for the Big Lake half-marathon in May. I'm looking at 4 to 5 more marathons this summer and then the 50 miler in September. I'm in the lottery for the New York marathon, so it would be cool if that pans out. I'm going to start doing more cross-training and strength training. May not have a tri this year, but that's ok. I'm taking this year to get really good at running and get my speed where I think it should be.
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