57K!!!

Ok these distances are getting crazy.  so where do I begin?  How about the 12k run on Tuesday.  Well, it is what it was, a 12k easy run with Stacey, her longest distance yet so she was thrilled.  I was happy to oblige her to push the extra 2k.  Wednesday was my night off from running so I did about 20 minutes of cross training. 
Thursday night, my workout night again.  I started with a 3k warm-up, arrived back at the house to run 5k with Stacey.  this portion was my simulated marathon pace so we cruised along pretty good.  Our pace for this was 5:45 per km....Ok so it was a little faster than my predicted marathon pace but one can always dream, right?  After a 5 minute break, I started my 3k at a tempo pace.  I ran my fastest pace yet, averaging 4:51 per km.  Again, probably more of a VO2max run than a tempo but i figure its probably better to push a little than to back off a little on a workout night.  I'll have plenty of time to recover later.
Again, due to the forecast of shitty weather on Saturday, I ran my 5k recovery run and 6 strides on Friday afternoon, after I got home from my course.   I didn't wear my NB Minimus this time due to some snow on the sidewalks.  The last thing i need now is to fall on some ice/snow.
So along comes Sunday, another long run.  Surprise, Surprise.  This time I decide to run the 2nd half of the Bluenose course and an extra 6k to add up to my total of 27k.  I figured this half would be easier than the first half that I ran last week.  Wrong!  What I've come to realize is this...when it comes to long distances, there's no such thing as easy, at least to me.  I wouldn't say I struggled but my avg pace seemed painfully slow, 6:30 per km.  Part of the run was through Point pleasant park, and the frost was coming out of the ground, leaving it very soft and hard to run on.  Again, I had a knot develop in the upper right side of the back of my neck/back during the run.  I believe its a sign that I'm not breathing properly, causing myself to hunch over.  Some weeks are worse than others but this week was pretty bad after I finished. 
I finished the 27k in 2:56, not really happy with the time but as I write this the next day with no soreness at all, I was probably a successful long run.  Just 15.2k more kilometers and I would have run a full. Just???? I'll never run that distance during training of course.  I burnt 1600 calories during the run and judging by the fact that my legs were very warm for the next 5 hours, I probably burnt a couple hundred more on just "afterburn."  I couldn't get to sleep when i went to bed because i was still throwing off heat at 11pm.  I think I'll have to run a little earlier to avoid this next week or have a cold leg bath when I get home.  My music of choice this time was Coldplay and Dave Matthews band.  Stacey ran the last 6k with me.  All in all it was another successful week, then again, I'm at the point now that any week that I'm not injured is a successful week.  Just 11 more long runs to go and I can rest.

Onward and Upward.