Last Long Skate Before Marathons

Hayward is next Saturday and St. Paul is the following Sunday.

Ah...if only I skated one of the marathons this morning. I had a nice, long, slow skate. Close to perfect!

I couldn't help myself and skated 17 miles. I thought I'd have to skip training for the first time in 16 weeks because of rain. The roads were wet when I started but the sprinkles tapered off to nothing by the time I went my first mile. From there on out I just enjoyed the ride. I actually tried something new this morning, I went the other way on my training route.

Here's a few statistics I've been logging these past 16 weeks:

• Total Training Miles Logged - 402
• Body Weight Lost - 24 lbs
• Average Pace over long skates - 15 mph
• Best Mile Trial - 3:23 minutes
• Longest Sprint at (roughly) 80% effort - 5 minutes
  
• Top speed (on roughly a 20% decline) - 34 mph

I will skate two more times this week just to stay loose. I will do whatever I have to feel like I did this morning. Three key focus areas this week: 1) Sleep, 2) Carbs 3) Stretching.