Shouts out to March. How'd your training go last week?

Mayo: Not a banner week. Weekend got away from itself, had a shortened long run.

• Tuesday: 4 miles (8:01 pace). Last week's light week turned out well, with my legs recovering daily well.
• Wednesday: 7 miles (8:59 pace).
• Thursday: 4 miles (8:15 pace). Evening run for the first time in a long while. Felt nice to get out at night.
• Sunday: 7 miles (8:14 pace). Went to a bachelor party Saturday night, managed to feel fairly strong and run 7.

kleph: another subpar week. 11 miles total. i was two steps into my track workout on monday and pulled my right quad something awful. significantly cut back the workload the rest of the week to give it a chance to recover. no other problems so i'll see about getting back in the 20 mile range this week.

• Monday: 1 mile, 9:18 pace. the warmup mile went fine. the workout itself... less so.
• Thursday: 4 miles, 9:30 pace. a very tentative recovery run that, thankfully, offered no big issues.
• Sunday: 6 miles, 8:27 pace. a reasonable six-mile effort to see how the leg was feeling with a closer-to-normal workout.

Hudson: Mama said there would be weeks when you travel, deal with pain, manage 17 miles (of running), capped by a very frustrating long-run. Heard it 100 times. Onto to the breakdown (and some explanations/excuses):

• Monday: Spent 35 minutes on the bike indoors while watching jet fuel burn (not a metaphor).
• Tuesday: Late-night tempo run, and by far the best run of the week: 4.85 miles total in 40 minutes, 15 mins warm-up (8:51 pace), 20-mins tempo (7:41 pace), five-min cool down.
• Wednesday: Swimming was on the schedule, but traveling to Tampa for a mini-vacation got in the way of that.
• Friday: Let the frustration begin! Five miles was on the calendar, but managed only about three of them -- a combination of the Tampa heat (the winter, no matter how mild, always makes me forget just how difficult it can be to run in 85-degree sun) and trip to Cigar City Brewing the previous day had me sluggish and unmotivated.
• Saturday: Another exercise in disappointment. I set out for 10-11 miles (and made sure to wake up early to beat the Florida heat), but it quickly became apparent that was not going to happen. Not sure if it was a lack proper stretching on Friday or what, but the first few miles of Saturday's run had me grimacing with nearly every step as my "shin-splints" were in rare form. I struggled through the first three miles or so before stopping and stretching out my hips to help loosen everything up, and it worked -- I was able to put in a decent four miles after that. But overall, slogged my way to just seven miles with a 10-min pace. I've been doing my best to remind myself that bad runs happen, and they're part of training, but frustrating runs are frustrating.
• Sunday: Tried to make-up for (punish myself after) Saturday's effort a bit with my frist brick since last summer: 60 minutes on the bike indoors followed by a quick 20-minute run (with a 7-minute transition worked in to gear up for the night's chill). Felt great, and got me excited for triathlon training.