This week featured a nice barf session, some frostbite, my first group run and a distance PR.  Here’s how it played out:

Monday AM: 10 miles of T pace and I pace intervals with Richie

Tuesday AM: 6 miles treadmill with Richie + full body strength training

Tuesday PM: 4 miles Easy (8:39 pace)

Wednesday PM: 6 miles Easy (8:21 pace)

Friday AM: 9.5 miles Easy (8:30 pace)

Friday PM: 3.5 miles Easy (8:56 pace)

Saturday AM: 14.64 miles with group (9:02 pace)

Sunday AM: 8.36 miles Easy (9:10 pace)

Total: 62 miles (2 miles more than my previous weekly PR)

You’ve read about Monday’s puke session (and if you haven’t you really need to).  Wednesday, I went to the doctor for a physical.  I had him check out a number of things, including some little bumps I had on both feet.  I assumed they were warts and would have treated them with the standard salicylic acid band-aid things, but I figured I was going to the doctor anyway and may as well get a professional opinion.  It turns out they’re corns.  The doctor pulled out his can of liquid nitrogen and sprayed away, leaving me with frostbite on both feet.  I did 6 miles that evening and felt okay, but I was limping around Thursday morning so I took Thursday off.

Richie convinced me to get up at 3:45 am so we could drive up to Clearwater and meet a running group at 5:00.  We arrived just in time and the group set out almost as soon as we pulled into the City Hall lot.  The first round was about 6.5 miles as a warmup.  We arrived back at City Hall around 6:00 in time to meet some other people.  Then, we all set out for various distances.  Richie, his friend Brett and a woman from the group set out for 14 additional miles.  I stuck back with the rest of the group and ended up finding a nice young German woman named Layla who wanted to run 8 miles.  We ventured across a long bridge to the beach, then ran on Clearwater Beach for 2 miles before crossing another bridge to Sand Key.  We hit the bathroom/water fountain at a Marriot.  Layla and I bid farewell to a couple other runners who were heading for longer distances a turned back.

On the way back, we passed Richie, Brett and Beatrice.  They were still cruising along rather well.  The  final bridge at 13 miles was a tough climb, but we took it nice and easy and made it back to City Hall.  Layla looked at her watch.

“7 minutes faster than last week,” she remarked.  I wasn’t sure whether to say “I’m sorry” or “you’re welcome”, but she looked pretty happy with it, so I just said “Good job!”  We stretched and Layla left as a few more runners trickled in from various distances.  The City Hall fountain was looking mighty inviting, and when another runner jumped in, I followed suit.  It was nice and cold from an evening rainstorm - a perfect post run “ice bath”.

All in all, it was a great experience.  I got close to 15 miles, Richie got 20 miles and good practice for the hills of New York and a good time was had by all.  As an added note, Richie ran a local 5K the next morning and won in 16:27.  So, he’s in pretty good shape.