Damn Hot

Marathon training in the summer in Chicago is fantastic. I guess it could be worse. I could be in Las Vegas or Phoenix. I only had a six-miler on tap today. Goal pace was again 8:25/mi and I came in at an 8:08. It felt pretty good despite the wicked heat and humidity at 5:00 P.M. Sometimes the first run after a very long run (18-20 miles) can be a little rough, but it really wasn't bad. If it was 10-15 degrees cooler, it probably would have been really good.

So the rest of the week looks like this:
Wednesday: 7 miles, including 3 1600 meter runs @ 6:38 with 800 meter jogs in between them.
Friday: 9 miles @ 8:25
Sunday: The first 20 miler of the training season. Goal pace of 8:25/mile.

Total for the week: 42 Miles

In the past, I have done anywhere from one to three 2o mile runs in training for one marathon. I have four penciled in this time. I may change that to three depending on a few things like black toenails or general fatigue in the middle two quarters of training.

I may try to get up very early and run on Wednesday to beat the heat. Or I may decide the extra hour and fifteen minutes of sleep is more valuable. We'll see.
***
I also upped the goal to 30K tonight. I received a very generous off-line donation from one of my long-time best buds yesterday. Here's a special thank you to the Johnson family. They won't get to see their name on the site, but that's okay. That pushed us over $26,000 tonight. You can see the running total of off-line donations at the bottom of the Firstgiving site. There have now been 5 checks that have either been sent to me or directly to FSMA. The total of the checks are combined as one total number. Thanks again to every single one of you who has contributed.