Long Run Leap Frog

My training plan has been loosely following Jeff Galloway's plan for running your first marathon.  I like what he has to say about not overtraining, taking walk breaks, and generally making it as easy on yourself as possible.  Anything to make this easier!  lol   Anyway, at around mile 14 or 15 his training plan stops adding a mile a week to the long run and starts playing leap frog.  It goes something like: 14 miles this week, 7 miles next week, 16 miles the week following. 

Julie and I have discussed trying that, but I think we were both afraid of losing momentum or losing endurance or something.  Last week I had a good chance to talk to both of my running sisters in law about it, and they both encouraged me to try it.  I needed that little confirmation that it would be okay, so we decided to go for it. 

This being Thanksgiving week, schedules were a little crazy so it seemed like the perfect opportunity.  Last week's 14 mile burrito run is behind us, so today instead of 15 we ran 7.  Talk about a relief!  It was so nice to back off a little today and run a shorter distance.  (Since when did 7 miles become a shorter distance, by the way? Craziness.) We upped our intervals to 10/1 and had a good run.  Finished in a nice comfortable 79 minutes (fast people, please pretend I just said 49 minutes) and we're done. 

Next week we'll jump to 16.  Hopefully that will be a good, strong run and not a day of reckoning for running 7 this week.