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Well it has been just over one month since my first marathon, and I am finally starting to feel in decent shape again. Long term there have not really been any serious injuries I have sustained from the marathon, except for this one, but that is a battle scar I can handle.

Just today I ran 10 miles, which while it is not all that much, is the most I have ran since my marathon on March 20th. Most importantly, I felt great and my legs felt strong. The average pace was slower than I would have liked (8:24min/mi) but I intentionally took it pretty easy and ended up progressively getting faster through most of the run as a "warmed up" I guess you could say.

That run today puts me at 39 miles on the week (5 days), which is again the most miles in a week since the marathon so I am confident I am on the right track. Next week will hopefully be close to 50 miles but I will take it by feel and back off if necessary. I am also thinking I will try for a hard tempo run on Tuesday, which would be the first run of that type since the marathon too. My goal in that workout being to asess my fitness for the upcoming Frederick Half-Marathon.

The RRCA 10 miler on February 27th (I think) would predict I can run 1:24-25 but I need to see if I still have that fitness or how far off that fitness I am now...

So looking forward I've got a few 5Ks coming up and the Frederick Half-Marathon but other than that I am beginning to look forward to my summer base training phase. If I decide to go with the Daniels' Running Formula schedule again I'll have to start the 18 week Marathon training on June 12th-ish. I think I am capable of 80 mile weeks at the highest part of the training phase so going in I should be around 60 miles per week which is something I think I am definitely capable of.

Quote of the day:

"If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon." - Emil Zatopek