10 Miles - A vote for Intervals

Good-day, Gentle reader!

Dad had his 6 month followup at Duke this past week, and things continue to go as well as we could possibly expect. The tumor continues to shrink. Function is returning as Dad works on PT and home tasks. He's now on the right ritalin / zoloft combo to have him alert and not overly napish. We're now trying a longer, slower taper to get him off the steriods. That's the next big challenge.

Bad news for the week: my Uncle David (by marriage on my Mom's side, so no genetic double-jeopardy) was finally diagnosed positive for lymphoma this week. He's been healthy as a horse his entire life, but has been confusingly sick the past month or two. Early diagnostics were unsure, but this has come in as a pretty confident diagnosis. He's now my number two honoree for my Team In Training efforts.

Yesterday's training run was 10 miles, and (as you read last time) I ran it doing 3:1 (3 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking) and it went amazingly well. Amazingly, astoundingly well. I haven't done 10 miles in a good while (*last* Disney marathon, possibly?) and I finished yesterday's in good shape, and could have easily done another mile or two. I ran negative splits (barely) - 54 minutes for the first 5 miles, and 53:15 for the last 5. I ran pretty solid 10:45 minute miles for all 10 miles. This translates to a 4:41 marathon time, which I would be tickled pink to run. My goal had been to run it in less than 5 hours, so this 10:45 discovery is far better than I had thought. (Good marathon pace calculator.)

Now the challenge remains to keep training at this level for the next 3 and some-odd months. I can't deny how effective running intervals was yesterday, so I'll be doing that for all my long runs from now on, and, over the next few months, work the intervals longer and longer.

Fundraising continues to rock along and rock my socks off. The folks in my life have been nothing short of amazingly generous in response to my request. I'm up to $2335. If you haven't contributed to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in support of my fundraising efforts yet, please do. It's for a great cause, I promise!