2 Weeks Since Boston - 2 Weeks Until Cleveland

Running two marathons thirty days apart is not ideal, but it is not all that unusual, especially among SERC runners.  Since Boston, I've been trying to balance my training between allowing myself to recover, and running enough so that I don't loose my fitness for the Cleveland marathon. I was fortunate to have come out of Boston without any significant injuries, just the usual post marathon tightness. I reread Pfitzinger, talked with fellow runners, and checked some of the on-line resources. None of these sources agree, but I decided to go with the recommendations from a couple of very accomplished runners in our club, Mark G. and Kam L.
Mark and Kam gave me very similar advice. Keep my miles up, but not fully to my pre-Boston peak, do speed-work but reduce the interval distance, start to taper for Cleveland about 10 days before the race. I have been following this as well as possible. (BTW, in my race report last week, I neglected to include a photo of the stylish Boston Marathon 2009 official runners shirt, so here it is.)

The day after Boston, Jeff Z., Steve Hawthorne , and I ran a moderately paced 6 miles along the banks of the Charles, and I added another mile around the back bay. Contrary to expectations, I did not feel too bad, but toward the end of the run, my quads wanted to take a break. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I kept the runs in the 6 mile range, keeping a recovery pace. Saturday, I joined the group at Lock 29 for a sloppy 11 miles on the trails.  About half-way through, the mud sucked one of the shoes off my foot.  I was able to find, pull it out of the muck, and put it back on.  Squishy.  

On Sunday, I ran the 12 mile route with the SERC group, keeping the pace slightly under 8:00/min.  The next day, I ran two 6-mile recovery runs, one at lunch and one in the evening. Tuesday, I went to the high school for speed work, but there was a lacrosse game, so we were not allowed to use the track. Mark G. and I decided to run around Solon, so we did eight miles together. I added another 2 miles for an even 10. On Wednesday, I did 2 warm-up miles, followed by 6 miles at marathon pace...well...almost...for an average pace of 7:14. Thursday should have been a recovery pace day, but I felt good enough to do five of the miles around 7:00/min pace. Saturday was a good morning with the Lock 29 group. The trails were muddy, and we did 13.77 miles, but we kept a slow pace. Sunday, Steve Hawthorne and I ran an early, easy five miles at 8:00/min pace before joining the group . We did the first mile with the group at 7:57, but after that, we picked it up and ran the rest of the miles as follow: 7:27 7:12 6:55 6:52 7:52 7:10 7:13 7:12 7:52 6:56 6:03. Total for the week: 74 miles. My log for the last two weeks is below.