This week has some training challenges.  I'm not able to set my runs for my moderate, easy, hard schedule that i've been working off of because we are leaving mid week to go to Fiji and the travel aspect is going to be challenging.  My plan is to run moderate 10 miles on Monday, 9 miles Tuesday, 15 mile long run Wed, 6 miles Thursday during a layover in LA,  5 miles Saturday and 5 miles Sunday.  Total mileage 50, up from 46 last week.  We fly Thursday morning from NYC but don't arrive in FiJi until late Friday.  It's going to be about 18 hours of travel, so will have to see how my body feels when I get there, plus my priority on ths trip is to scubadive as much as possible, do some open water swimming and relax.  So i'm not going to stress over the running. Monday- My morning run will be a moderate distance but easy run to prospect park with a goal pace of 9:20 or a little faster.  Did an easy 1 mile warm up then climed the 1 mile hill to the park easy and picked up the pace for the 2nd mile to get my average pace to 9:20.  Everything feels good.  Settled into a 9:20 pace going counter clockwise and turned around at the 5 mile mark.  Have a gel with me but not going to use it.  I have want more energy in my water pack.  Legs started to feel a bit heavy just before the 8 mile mark, an indicator to take a gel, but passed on it.  Rest of the run  is pretty much down hill and want my body to use some carb reserves as i ate too many carbs yesterday.  Jogged easy for the last mile and stretched.  Will do a weights a little later this afternoon.  Average pace for the 8mile work set was 9:11 and HR av was 155bpm.  All good.  Need to make sure I keep these 3 relatively hard (due to distance) runs really easy to reduce the stress on my body.

Tuesday- Ran from John street across Chambers for a change of scenery.  My Garmin was not picking up a sattelite in the beginning, so my planned 9 mile run was actually 10 miles.  A nice flat course after the 1 mile warm up but there was a strong headwind.  Was surprised at how low my heart rate was and although my goal was 9:20 pace I felt as long as my HR stayed below 155 I would continue at a pace that felt good.  I drank pure water and no gels.  For the main set of 8 miles my HR average was 153 and pace 9:09.

Wednesday- This run was by far the most difficult of all my runs during the first 6 weeks of base training.  Today my mileage for the week totals 35 miles over a 48 hour (3 day) period.  I've been feeling really good about my pace and heart rate and knew my body was ready for the challenge this week of putting my hard training in early so I can relax during travel and enjoy my vacation. Headed out to prospect pack and warmed up easy for the first mile.  In the park I ran counter clockwise until my garmin indicated I had run 7.5 miles.  My HR was easy at 155bpm or lower, some hills my HR went up, but was OK with my pace throughout.  Was hoping I would get more energy by mile 5 which is usually where i feel warmed up but the whole run was difficult.  Maybe mentally I didn't want to be there, was thinking about packing and vacation.  Found it difficult to stay slow at my 9:36 pace goal, legs were even more sluggish when I slowed to that pace.  I turned around at 7.5 miles and had a gel.  Continued on the run feeling like i was plodding along, kind of like with a hard brick workout.  Cooled down the last mile and walked a bit before heading in to stretch for a good 10 minutes.  Pace goal was 9:36 and actually ran 9:19 with an averaage HR of 155 which is a good HR target for a long run.  This run really felt more like an 18 miler.  Joints felt fine, but muscles were sore during the entire run and energy overall was low.

Thursday- No more blogs for awhile.  I'm heading to Fiji today for a dive vacation but have a 7 hour layover in LA.  Thinking going for a short run to stretch out and use my body a bit will be a good plan but will see how I feel when I get there.  Feel really good this morning so time will tell.