W/E July 15 - Settling...a bit

A bit better, but an unplanned trip down to Vancouver and semi-unplanned weekend at Whistler resulted in skipping out on the long run. Feeling pretty good overall though, had a good off-day run today feeling reasonably recovered and strong from the weekend. I'll likely push things up a bit this week and do my long run on Saturday so I can do my hill workout earlier next week and have a few days to recover for the race. Obviously, given the training i'm not expecting anything spectacular for the Kamloops Marathon but i'll be aiming for sub 2:30 as i'm pretty certain the course is fairly flat. It turns out i'll be doing a little talk at the expo as well just talking about my philosophy regarding running.
I attached a map of my "off-day run below. Although I only did it twice last week i've made it my regular easy/recovery run. But I guess the fact is its far from ideal as an recovery run due to the fact that its a 2300ft climb in 4.6miles or 45mins, then a ~32min descent. So, that means its above the aerobic effort level you would want for recovery during the ascent, and the descent makes for some damaging eccentric loading on the quads.  I've decided to do it anyway though because I feel I need more climbing strength in general and tough quads for the longer distance races i'll be doing in the fall. 7-8 Hills tomorrow and Saturday i'll be aiming for a 30-35mile long run. Looks like the weather is going to let up a bit and will only be a high of 26 then which should help a bit.

Mon - off
Tues - 9.2 mi Arrowstone
Wed - 5x Powerline Hill (91sec, 89, 94, 89, 86)
Thu - 9.2 mi Arrowstone
Fri - 7mi Seawall
Sat - 60 mins in Whis
Sun - off

From July 17, 2012

FYI,  on the left part of the photo is one of my band's reserves, bottom centre is Cache Creek, and one square from the bottom and three from the left is where my grandmother spent a large chunk of her childhood living with my great-great-grandparents.