Prairie Path

What do you see on the Prairie Path during marathon training season? LOTS AND LOTS of runners. Our run club was out there with about 60 people. I figured we would do our run and see a handful of bikers and a couple of individual runners. As it turns out CARA (Chicago Area Runners Association) does their long run on Saturday's along the same path. It was pretty awesome to see so many people out training - everyone seems so pumped - and there is tons of support. As our groups passed one another you would hear things like - "you're doing great" -"keep up the good work" - "beautiful day out here" - and there was lots of high fiving people as you were running along who you've never even met. We'll see if everyone is as chipper when our mileage hits the high teens:)

We did 8 miles (our last single digit long run) and my pace group was right on target - we came in at exactly 10 minutes per mile. Running on the path was great because of the shade - and it's much more gentle on the knees and ankles than the pavement. This is where the remainder of the long runs will take place so I am pretty pleased with that. One thing I did find out today was that I need to add more weekly mileage. Our pace leader said we should be at about 25 miles per week - I'm at about 18:(

I am going to start adding one track work out per week to work on my speed. I found a group that meets every Thursday at a local high school - I am pretty excited about this. I hope it helps...if not it will at least add some variety and mileage to my log.

Week 2 - Complete!!! 14 weeks to go.