Another Week, Another Hundred Miles

The title of my blog sums up the activities of this past week. Most of my runs were entirely uneventful and completed in the rain and the dark. I begin with a quick overview of the week and then elaborate on some highlights. On Monday, I ran 100 minutes after school. I followed that up with a 30 minute run on Tuesday morning and a 120 minute run Tuesday night. Wednesday, I ran 30 minutes in the morning again and 100 minutes after school. I felt really good an hour into the run and decided to do some work at tempo pace. I put in 25 minutes of tempo running before easing off the pace for the last 15 minutes. We had the annual Epiphany Gala on Thursday and all I got in was a 30 minute run in the morning. Friday, I came back with a 150 minute long run. On Saturday I only ran 30 minutes, partly out of laziness and partly from genuinely feeling tired. Today, I ran 30 minutes in the morning. This afternoon, I raced the Groton 10k and finished in 32:57. Between the warm up, race, and cool down, I was at 100 minutes for the afternoon. Now for the highlights.
Highlight #1: Wednesday Tempo Run
It was great picking up the pace from the normal 6:40 to 7:20 miles and I felt smooth doing it. I figure I was clipping off around 5:40 miles and got into a great rhythm. Racing and competing are great, but runs like this where I just get to enjoy running fast are some of my favorites.
Highlight #2: Monday Science Class
We are learning about Newton's Laws of Motion in science and I was introducing the Second Law of Motion. I told the kids that F=ma and asked them if they knew what any of the variables stood for. One kid said mass so I said "Great, so "m" is for mass, but we still have f and a." The way it came out, the end of the sentence sounded just like "effin' a" and I couldn't stop laughing. Only one kid picked up on it at first but, pretty quickly, the rest of the class caught on too.
Highlight #3: Today's Race
I was hoping to be able to run my goal marathon pace for the race today (about 5:30 miles) but I was very uncertain about my current fitness. The first mile was mostly downhill and was the fastest of the race. After that, I settled in and started to pick people off. I finished in 32:57 (5:18 pace) and was very pleased with the race. I am not sure when I will race again, but this effort increased my confidence in my high mileage/lower intensity marathon build up.
I totalled 700 minutes for the week on 9 runs and am hoping to be above 800 minutes this coming week.