Time to knuckle down

There are a little less than 6 weeks before I run the Cowtown Marathon in Fort Worth. I have slowly, but surely, ramped up my weekly mileage to the low 40s and have had long runs of at least two hours each of the last three Saturdays (14.5 miles on the 3rd; 16 miles on the 10 and 17th).

Now, its time to dig in for the next four weeks before the marathon taper. I was running about 50 miles a week in the weeks before my White Rock Marathon taper, so I know I can safely get to Fiddy miles a week for the each of the next three weeks without getting injured. I'm going to concentrate more on distance instead of speed, making sure that each of my midweek runs last at least an hour. In fact, last week, I went 9 on Tuesday, 7 on Wednesday, and 9 on Thursday before going 16 on Saturday.

I try to keep things nice and easy, but from time to time, my legs want some faster action. And a run that I was going to try to keep at 7:45 m/miles ends up at 7:15, or 7:00. So, I just let my legs do what they want to do and hopefully, they'll treat me nicely during the marathon.

My schedule this week..

Sunday - 8 mile recovery run (9 min/mile pace)
Monday (today) - off
Tuesday - 9 or 10 (depending on how early I can get up. Pace: 7:30 to 7:45)
Wednesday - 6 miles with four at tempo pace (6:30 to 6:45 m/m)
Thursday - 9 or 10
Friday - off
Saturday - 20 (doing the second half of the Cowtown route for the first 13, then adding 7 more)