Training, Week of 6/26

Week 6.  Continued the streak to 42 days and there's no end in sight!  I passed my previous streak record of 38 days, though I averaged nearly 10 miles a day when I did that.  This time around, I'm averaging about 6 a day though that number is steadily rising as my mileage does.  This week I covered 60.5 miles in 7:07:20 (7:04/mile average pace).  This week was a good one in terms of a couple training metrics:

• I ran over 60 miles this week.  I feel like this is a threshold where I start to really get some serious benefits from my running.  I don't know where I am in terms of my fitness and ability to run a good time at a particular distance but I feel like by the time July 20th (and my first corporate race) rolls around I'll be in good position to run well.
• I averaged over an hour of running per day.  This is a good milestone regardless of pace or distance covered.
• I had two great workouts: the first was an 8.5 mile steady run at 6:05/mile pace.  It's on a new, hilly route that I created with ~40 turns through nearby neighborhoods.  I really enjoyed it.  I also had a pretty good long run (16.5 miles).  What made this one particularly good is that after 45 minutes, I did four 5-minute pick-ups with 3-minute recoveries in between.  Not only did this help break up the monotony of the long run, but I think this kind of effort will pay dividends later.
• I also bought new shoes using the gift certificate from the 8 Furlongs Road Race.  I was limited to only Nike products and before I got to the store, I was thinking about some a pair of Zoom-XC flats.  They didn't have any, so I ended up with Lunarglide 2's.  I have run in them a couple times and they're all right but I think they'll probably be my shoe for easy runs and I'll stick with my Brooks flats for most runs.

On a note related to the shoe buying process:  I highly recommend the Fleet Feet in Hartford, CT.  I had a really good experience there.  The guy who helped me pick out my shoes was very knowledgeable and even recommended a place to run in the area.  He was also a legitimate competitor and from our conversation it was clear that he had done some serious training.  I will definitely be returning to buy shoes from them in the future.

I'm looking to run about 60 miles again this coming week, so we'll see how that goes!  I feel pretty good about my training right now.

-Lane