Week 8

 Last week went ok.  I had a nice beach day in Maine on Monday.  super relaxing.  And the mid-week runs of the Higdon plan are pretty easy.  I did 4 in a row - since i had to truncate last week a bit: 3, 4, 7.5 and 3.  The 7.5 was fun - ran up to Arlington from Watertown - a nice cool morning after weeks of humid heat.  

Sunday I again headed to Watertown and did my 6.8 mile - 5 mile at 'race pace'.  This felt hard but doable.  It does make the long runs feel really hard though.  Yesterday I did the 17 miler - and the suffering really does start early - soon after the 1/2-way turnaround.  In particular - my upper back/should-blade had a stabbing pain probably from mile 10 in.  Really hard to run through it.  Pace has slowed on every long run:  9:20, 9:20 and 9:27 for my last 3.  Lots of walking.  I may try and swap the 'tempos' on Sunday with the equidistant runs on Thursday - just to see if that makes the long runs any more bearable.  I don't think i can stick with this plan otherwise.