All the more reason to do runs with Perry and Crystal (ideally near their house) so they can let you log your runs.  I find it amazing given how much you were in computers and gaming that you don't have internet at your house, but I think its a good change for you (in the sense that you are not staying up till 2 a.m. gaming).

I completed a great marathon long run today, 21 miles at 7:55 minute per mile pace.  Unfortunately the rest of the 5 person group finished at around a 7:47 pace so they gapped me by about two and  a half minutes over the last five miles.  Also unfortunately while this was a great marathon training workout I don't have any marathons to run.  On the other hand, this along with the 20 miler two weeks ago on my aborted marathon gives me two long runs that should help with the 24 hour run.  If I was truly training for the 24 hour run I would have run 30 miles today at like a 9:15 pace, but this workout should still be helpful.  I did it without gu's or gels too.  And while I felt pretty tired (I obviously would not have fell back from the group if I had been feeling strong), I did not feel truly exhausted like I did two weeks ago like when I dropped out of the marathon.  And just so there is no confusion about the 24 hour run I have no intention of actually going the entire 24 hours.  My goal is to run/walk (hopefully mostly run) my way to 50 miles (which should take 10 or 11 hours if things go reasonably well) then promptly quit.

That would be great, Joe.  We're also planning to have the Track Series on Tuesday nights again.  I don't know if those nights will be open for you in late June - early August. ??

Nice long run, Phil!

I should be able to attend and help out with the track series more this year. I expect to make most of them except for when I'm on vacation.

I've had two ailments lately. One is a case of runner's knee in my right leg. I avoided hills for a few days, did random exercises, massaged the area, and all sorts of other things to try and rehab it. It feels pretty good now. I find that I sit with my left foot resting on top of my right knee a lot when I'm in a chair, which I think is actually contributing to the problem. I'm regularly stopping that whenever I catch myself doing it now and this seems to be helping, too. I've also been taking my easy days seriously easy and only on workout days will I try to endure a little bit extra time on the knee. That's probably the most important thing, actually.

I've also had some kind of strep throat or sore throat/cough for the last several days. While this has been incredibly uncomfortable, it hasn't actually impacted my running seriously. It's one of those coughs we as runners know all too well where you actually feel good during your run getting the fresh air and being strong, but at the end of the run you might have a few coughing fits.

My training had been focused on doing one longer run on the weekend and one faster run during the week. This is basically Frank Shorter type training also what I did when I was preparing for the Wineglass Marathon. Unlike Mr. Shorter, my mileage wasn't all that high, but I was able to train both endurance and speed this way while still getting a lot of recovery to help ensure I'd hit my workouts. I think my achilles was still bothering me back then, so it let me do my workouts without stressing my leg. As my knee gets better I hope to see transition into a period where I can just run with more frequency and accumulate some volume. I'd like to mostly accumulate volume in April and then do more real workouts in May. That's almost never how it works, though. Typically I'm either running a little and hardly doing workouts or I'm running a lot and also doing workouts.

Not in town.   Sorry I am missing the run though.    I need another long run.

Phil, are you going to run long this weekend? This would be a good weekend for it, no?

I ran into that too, this morning--after Cherry Pit, I was looking around in the cafeteria for runners to go out for more, but a number of people said they are running Boston next week and did not want to run extra.

I suppose if you ran on a treadmill he'd record you as having moved 0 real miles.

Perry (or anyone), would you have any interest in trying to train like this with me in mid-July? I say mid-July because it's looking like I'll have just shy of two weeks of no commitments and the kids/girlfriend are out of town.

Geoffrey Mutai training week (so keep in mind the paces match his fitness):

Tuesday
A.M. 2 HR easy run (6:30-8 min./mile)
P.M. 1 HR. easy run (6:30-8 min./mile)

Wednesday
A.M. 50 min. run (8 min. miles)
P.M. Speed Workout
30 min. warm-up
12x1km intervals (4:50/mile pace) w 1 min. rec.

Thursday
A.M. 1Hr 50min. run (8min. miles)
P.M. 2 HR easy run (8min. miles)

Friday
A.M. 25 mile run (7:15 min. miles speeding up to 5:35 min. miles)

Saturday
A.M. 1Hr 50min. run (8min. miles)
P.M. 2 HR easy run (8min. miles)

Sunday
A.M. Speed Workout:
30 min. warm-up
20x2min. intervals @ 5 min. mile with 1 min. rec.
30 min. cooldown

Monday
Rest

A few years ago I considered Geoffrey Mutai to be hands-down the best marathoner on the planet. Wilson Kipsang has since bettered the world record, which was then bettered by Dennis Kimetto. What's noteworthy is that the three of them train together after having joined Mutai and training with him. They place a clear focus on fairly easy aerobic running; their paces are extremely slow, excepting the fact that they run at 8000 feet altitude over hilly terrain. They take their speed workouts seriously, but as you can tell the intervals are never shorter than 600m. In order for us to handle this schedule I know that I would at least have to spend the next couple of months simply preparing to handle it. This would include things like adding more doubles, extending the duration of my regular runs, and doing some speedwork so that when it came time for the workouts I was not doing them embarrassingly slow.

I want to point out that, based on the paces, the 25 mile run for us would not mean 25 miles. It would mean something that is just barely longer than our 2 hour runs, so probably less than 20 miles. If we did the entire week (excepting speedwork) around 8 minute miles that would put us at ~135 miles. We'd be slower than an 8 minute per mile average, I think, so a little less mileage. Mileage wouldn't be our focus at all, anyway. Time running would be our focus. It's not quite 17 total hours of running. It's admittedly fairly ludicrous in terms of its aerobic running time demand, buuuuuut that's sort of the point.

I recommend running a marathon a few weeks later or at least some kind of race longer than 10k.

MTA: And of course if we're not in amazing shape by mid-July we'd back off on the durations for the runs, but I'd still like to keep the frequency of runs the schedule suggests. Some people would argue to reduce the frequency or to marginally reduce both the duration and frequency together. I'm generally opposed to reducing frequency and would reduce duration first almost always. Most studies show that your body produces natural growth hormone when you exercise (unless overtraining) that make frequency more helpful to daily recovery and improvement than runs of greater duration with longer recovery times.