Tuesday - I had the idea of having a really long sleep after a long day of travelling yesterday but that was soon shattered as I woke up 6 am. At least this meant that I could get my run done early before it got really hot in Phoenix and then I could get back up the road to Flagstaff in decent time. I felt surprisingly good on my run and ran the 15 mile loop in 85 mins. My legs weren't tight and there were no after effects of the race lingering in them so that was promising that the strength is kicking in. After having some breakfast I had a good nap before heading up to Scottsdale to pick up Greg's kilt for him and then onto Flagstaff from there. I made it up in good time and headed right out the door for my second run so I could be home when Julie got off work. I just did a loop of Buffalo park from my house which brought me up to 22 miles for the day. I found this out when I was training for London that once i've got a month of marathon training in my legs, 20+ mile days don't feel much different from 15 mile days so hopefully that trend continues for this next 6 weeks. I don't even remember falling asleep as I must have conked out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Wednesday - I woke up early and headed down the road to a lab to get some blood drawn so I could see where all my levels of iron, hematocrit, blood cells and hemoglobin were at. It took 5 minutes and then I headed back to the house to have some coffee and toast as I had fasted for the test (I did this so I could check my cholesterol levels also). Everyone was working out up at Buffalo so I met them there and just ran very easy on the trails out the back of the park as I needed to recover for tomorrows workout. It was bitterly cold and windy so I was glad that I was sheltered in the woods. I didn't envy the guys doing the long steady state run at the park though as it is very exposed on the loop they run. I got back to the park in 60 minutes and waited for the guys to finish so I could run another 20 minutes with them. They seemed to have had a good workout despite the weather so that inspired me to have a good workout the next day. Jordan and Brett came over to the house afterwards as I had offered to make them some pancakes. I made a ton of them and then quickly crashed as i always do after eating any kind of pancake. I was still really tired for the next run so I ran very easily for 9 miles. I did this out by Lake Mary Rd as I was meeting Jason afterwards to time his workout. I ran on some new trails which was great as I could just switch off and enjoy the run and the scenery. I got back to the car after 40 minutes and Jason had just arrived so I ran with him for his warm up and then I drove him out to the starting point of his workout. Jason had had a bad race a week before so I had given him an easy week of training after it and he seemed to have recovered well as he ran the workout quickly and in control. I was starting to get really hungry (I had an protein bar and some PowerBar Endurance while Jason was running but it wasn't enough) so I headed straight home and cooked a big dinner of potatoes, broccoli and a massive steak I had been marinating. It really filled me up and I felt so much better. I relaxed with Julie the rest of the evening, catching up on emails and watching TV.

Thursday - This morning was going to be a big workout. 20*1 minute hard with 2 minutes recovery fartlek on the urban trail. This seems like a lot of recovery but Greg thinks that I need to keep my speed up so the extra recovery (a minute more than usual) would help to let me run fast for the entire workout. He was right! From what my Garmin was telling me I was flying on the reps and got faster the further I got into the workout. With 20 minutes of warming up and down it meant that I was running for an hour and forty minutes but it passed by really quickly. As I was jogging back to the car, I started to cross a road that another pedestrian was crossing at the same time. I saw a car coming but he had a stop sign so I figured that would mean he would stop. Wrong! Instead he ran straight into me and narrowly missed the other pedestrian. I slammed onto the hood of the car and started giving him all the abuse I could. Luckily I wasn't hurt at all but did get a numb hand and arm for a while. The guy just gave me a plain stare the whole time as if he had no clue what was going on. Once I looked at his car and realised I had made a nice dent in it, I quickly ran on with a big smile on my face.

I got back to the house and made some scrambled eggs with beets in it for the first time. It tasted really good so I think that will be more of a regular addition to my eggs now. After a really good nap, I spent most of the afternoon writing training programs that needed to be sent out this week. I ran again at 2pm as I had a massage with Dana at 3.30pm. I felt good on the run and my legs hadn't tightened up from the morning so I was hoping the massage wouldn't be that painful. Dana only found a few spots that were a little tight and knotted up so that was good as I could relax for most of the massage. I headed home afterwards and (accidentally) made an all white dinner for Julie and I. I made tilapia with white yams and white asparagus. After this Julie and I just ran errands for the rest of the night and then managed to put our feet for about 10 minutes before heading to bed.