Week 5

I just recovered from a pretty bad head cold so I will it take it easy this week if necessary.  Last night I ran a nice 4 mile progressive run starting at 8 minutes per mile down to 7:12 minute per mile pace.  I felt pretty strong at mile 3 and finished the 4 miles feeling pretty good.  The night before I mapped out a new 5 mile course with about 1 mile of steady hill climbing.  I need to keep myself  from getting  bored with my winter running so I have the feeling that I will be doing more course creation as the months move on.  I have a few weeks left before I start really training for the River Bank Run and am enjoying this halfway serious training plan.  My goal for the next few weeks is to hover around 30 miles a week with maybe half of the miles being run at a faster than marathon pace. Speaking of marathon pace, I think that this year might be my Chicago year.  I'm going to wait to see how I feel in February, but I am thinking that I want to focus 100% of my efforts on running The Chicago Marathon in October.  If I can keep myself healthy and get stronger I might be able to do this thing.  Honestly, I can not imagine running 7 minute miles for 3 plus hours, but we will see.  We will see.