Week -15 is in the books. Another week of teaching, another week of good achievement.

Notable runs:

LT run on Wednesday (4 miles) with splits 7:16, 7:18, 7:14, 7:16. I had to stop at the crosswalk in my last mile, so that would have been a few seconds faster. This points to a solid 46 VDOT.

14-mile run on Friday. 8:21 average pace, which sounds way too fast for 46 VDOT. Yet, it felt easy until about the last three miles, but even those were fine, and my last mile was in 7:32. This points to more like 48-ish VDOT, even considering that I'm stronger at long distance.

I think all this just shows that my endurance is better than my stamina, which is probably better than fitness. Not all that surprising. The marathon paced run last week was hard for some reason, so I'll stay careful, and keep my M pace just under 8 min/mile. It doesn't have any training effect beyond easy runs anyway. And the brutal terrain makes it a challenge to run an 8 min pace for my marathon anyway. All for future success.

But as for LT and VO2max, I think I'll train at 46 VDOT. Not that it matters for this week though.

Week -14:

M: 8 GA w/ 8 strides

T: 5 R

W: 10 GA

T: 4 R

F: 15 MLR

Total: 42 miles. Paces, mostly by feel.

This week doesn't feel like it should be challenging. It's the same as last, except an extra mile on a recovery run, and an extra mile on the long run, but no LT effort. The weather may be a tad cooler. Teaching again in the weekend.