Hurry up and run slowly

I am now about 7 weeks out from Boston. Which means I'm in the nitty gritty depths of marathon training, along with 25,000 of my fellow Boston runners. A large part of me wants to be able to bust out 13 milers any day and barely sweat. Another part of me wants a dark room and a pillow for 2 days of sleeping. I love it, I hate it, no I LOVE this part of training!

Seriously, ode to my fitness. To our fitness! This was not built overnight. We've all worked countless months, years to get our bodies in shape. Now I sit here with 2 thoughts:

1. Body, please don't break, fracture or tear. Please!
2. Sitting in this chair sucks. I hate sitting. It hurts my butt.

Moving on...So I have to give a huge shout out to.... ME! Why? Because for countless years you guys have been telling me to slow down my daily running and shift focus to killing speed workouts. I had convinced myself that it wouldn't make a difference. But now that I run a shit load of miles per week I figured I'd try the slower daily runs at everybody's urging.

I would call the last 2 weeks a success. I know I could go "slower" but this is huge. Previously, I ran most runs sub 7:15 pace, everyday.  Tempo was 6:30ish and stressful. Now, check this out:

Mon: 9 @ 7:40
Tues: 2/12 12 miles @ 7:32 pace
Wed 12 miles with 2x20 mins @ 6:15 pace, 10 mins easy inbtw
Thursday: 12 @ 7:45 pace
Friday: 11 @ 7:38 pace
Sat: 13 @ 7:50
Sun: 20 @ 7:45

Mon: 8 @7:34
Tuesday: 11 @ 7:29
Wednesday: 8x5 mins tempo with 30 second recovery. 13 total. The 40 mins of fast
                    was at about 6:15 pace. Some faster around 6:10. Others killed by ice @ 6:23.
Thursday: 12 @7:39

Most days followed by an hour of core and stretching at the gym.

So you can SEE I have changed it up. My fast stuff is faster and easier. Moreover, it's fun. I know I can do it and there isn't that dread of *can* I do it.  I'm trying to keep the slow closer to 7:45-7:50. Sometimes the 7:30's happen but it's an improvement!

I'm hoping to get the faster tempo's to lower 6's. I'm really working on relaxing at that speed. About 5 years ago my mile pr was 6 flat. Now I'm so close to that but more than just one mile. Needless to say I'm so excited to see progress!

So, thanks again for your comments. I listen. It just sometimes takes a while to sink in.

I'm going to do another post on FOOD. I don't pay attention to calories but I looked at last week's calories on my garmin connect data: 8,100 in running. Not to mention the gym! I eat like a mo-fo'er glutinous pig with a fresh trough all day 'er day. But in the organic, healthy protein obsessed sense. More on that later.

Happy Running friends!
Laura