Week -8 went reasonably well, though it wasn't as good as the ones before. I probably hadn't realized just how hard it was. The rest day on Monday was not nearly enough to recover from the Sunday marathon paced run, and I followed that up with 13 miles on Tuesday, and 15 miles of Wednesday. Both days I started at 6pm, which meant that I finished well after dark. It was also pretty cold every day. Then one recovery day, and then the threshold run on Friday.

It was supposed to be a continuous 5-mile run, but my schedule and my stomach was messed up, and I had to stop for a bathroom break after the second fast mile. It was cold, windy, I was tired, bad stomach, bad traffic, and too much work the during the day - I was predisposed to run poorly.

So it was 6:47, 6:30, break, 6:30, 6:35, 6:29. The first mile doesn't look right: I'm pretty sure I was just as fast as in the others (and the partial mile splits looked right), so it must have been due to the traffic that held me up in an intersection. So I guess it's OK. Not terrific, because it was broken up, and that first mile is suspect, but not terrible either.

Then another recovery day, and my first 18-miler on Sunday. The difficulty of which is the tired legs from all week. 66 miles. Some records: largest volume, longest tempo, longest run in about a year (Boston training).

Next week is recovery, but not easy.

Week -7:

M: Rest
T: 8 GA w/ 10 x 100 ST
W: 15 MLR
T: 5 R
F: 10 w/ 4 @ LT (6:30)
S: 7 GA
S: 17 L

Total: 59 miles. (Edit: in fact it is 62. The book has an error.) Seems doable; there is nothing here I haven't done recently. Also, hopefully, the weather is getting better.

Then week -6 and -5 are two brutal 70 mile weeks, the two hardest weeks of the whole cycle.