High Mileage (for me)

I'm making a run at 80 miles this week. I've run doubles on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday (assuming I get in my second run tonight), and by the end of today I should be at 59 miles through five days. The plan is to go 15 on Friday and an easy six on Saturday. This will give me the 80 miles and hopefully have me rested enough to run an easy 20 on Sunday. I'm confident that I can get up to 80 miles; however, my legs are feeling the increased mileage. Feeling the mileage isn't really a bad thing. During my last marathon training cycle, it seemed like my legs were always tired, but I was able to get in the workouts. I imagine that's part of the improvement process.

Increasing my mileage has reminded me of two important things that I tend to forget: make the easy days truly easy and get enough sleep. On easy days I tend to not pay much attention to my pace. I figure my body knows it's an easy day, and it'll guide me to the right pace. I realize this isn't the smartest way to approach these workouts. I'm going to try to determine a pace before starting and see if I can stick with it (even on days when I leave the watch at home).

As far as the sleep goes, I have developed a bad habit. I stay up late on the weekend. On Monday I get up early for work. I'm tired by the end of the work day, so I fall asleep for a short nap. Then I'm not tired, so I stay up late, wake up early, and repeat the process the next day. I saw it coming and wasn't able to avoid it on Monday or Tuesday. On Wednesday, I all but avoided the nap (nodded off briefly while reading), but I still stayed up too late. Tonight is open house at my daughter's school, so I should be able to avoid putting myself in a position where sleep is even possible.