Week four of the nineteen week Back Cove 5k Race Series was tonight, and there was a good turn out. There have been over 70 people registered over the past month for the series, which is more than I expected this early in the season.

Today, I went out not knowing what to expect. Since I will be running two marathons this fall, I wanted to see how quickly I could bounce back. I ran the Vermont City Marathon three days ago, and while active have not actually worked out since then. I wanted to see what a fast 3 miles felt like with that little recovery. If I could do that, then chances are I could still use the October 17^th marathon with Dean Karnazes as a last training run and still run around 3 hours in New York City.

The first 150 yards I felt perfectly fine. The next 150 yards really hurt. After that, I was working harder than I normally would for the pace I was running, but I was able to keep above a jig jog. I felt fine finishing the 5k course in 19:03, using the first mile as my warm up. I placed third, about a minute behind first and second and about a half minute ahead of fourth. I stood around and chatted with folk as they finished for about 5 or 10 minutes, and then jogged another half mile as a cool down. The cool down was actually quite painful; easily the most painful part of the night. I felt fine after dinner though.

I think the experiment was a success. I am still going to take it easy for the rest of the week. I will try to get another run or two in before next week, but given my schedule I may only manage one. Next week I will start lifting again in earnest, and will probably run about 20 or 25 miles as an extended recovery week. The week after that I will break into the thirties, and begin my summer training schedule. I would like to be averaging 60 miles per week by the time Beach to Beacon rolls around, and I would like to be averaging 70 or 80 miles per week at the start of Autumn. I still need to map out exactly what I am going to do to get there.