Previous 2 weeks (Since Relay): One week off and one Big week!

One Week Off:
After the relay - I went to Florida for a few days visiting family and logged a total of 5.5 miles in one run (on a 68° 5am morning run). One run in 6 days - yep, that's right. Motivation waned, had a sore ankle/shin and the heat/humidity of central Florida helped me decide to take it easy. Driving ~11 hours back was not sop fun either. But I was home for that Friday where I relaxed, unpacked and thought I'd try to make up some miles that weekend and I think I did ok. Sat: 10.2 miles, followed by cutting our grass (just think Hill Workout), then 3 hours walking around at a local downtown street event (Artisphere). Sun: Another 16.2 miles - so I still ended up with almost 32 miles for the week. Only note for Sunday is running with other people makes it so much easier. Ran 2-3 miles with 2 women and it seemed to go by quickly and easily.
One Big Week:
After my normal Monday yoga session - Tuesday logged 7.7 miles and felt good. Legs seemed somewhat fresh. Missed that! Wednesday, planned another 7.7, but added a bit more and stopped at 8.5. Still a bit fresh and my fastest mile was again my last one. Both days ran a steady pace, slightly slower on Wed. Rested Thursday. Friday, ran 10.2 miles before work (as I always do). Sleep was difficult this week as my 18 month old would frequently wake up at 1am, or 3am, or 4am (on my rest day) and be up for an hour or 3. There were at least three straight days of waking up at 4am or earlier. That run was fine though, not so much energy, but it was a hot and humid 68° again. The following day was Saturday. In order to not miss as much of the day with my family, I woke at 4:30am again. I was out running at 5:45am and ran on the road around Oak Grove. It was 70° and to mimic the Chattooga River race, I ran with just a water bottle the first 7 miles (what I think I'll do on race morning for the first out and back section), then put on my camelbak. I decided to go with my smallest one with a 2L bladder and that seemed to work well. Packed a bagel and some Gu, plus a power bar and got 5 more miles in before it was time to head over to Paris Mtn State Park. It opens at 8am and I was meeting
Kathrin and Terry (2 Relay teammates) to run the Greenville Track Club's Xterra 15k Trail course. We are doing that race in 2 weeks and decided we needed to run the course at least once. Did ok on the flat section, but had some difficulty with the steepest section. Kathrin wasn't feeling her best, so she cut it short once we made it to the top. The next section I am very familiar with and we cruised until we went around the upper lake and headed back in. I needed to walk quite a bit as my legs were heavy and had little energy. Couldn't get cool either - by that I mean not just back to normal Hot. I did better coming back into the upper parking lot and took it easy on the Steep downhill before doing so-so on the flat section to finish up. Just under 2 hours for those 9.3 miles, but with the heat and already having gone 12 miles - doing 12+ minute miles on trails at mile 21 for the day I'll take. I was tempted to walk an extra 2.4 miles to break 50 for the week (Mon thru Sun), but had somewhere to be. Still - 47.7 is the most I've ever done. That was actually in 5 days too. I can always look at my 7 day stretch where I ran 63.9 miles. Who knew I could do that?! (Looking back, I had done 62 once before, and nothing else over 49 I think). I still find it hard to fathom being on my feet, moving forward for (hopefully, Less than) 8 hours while I do this 50k. I know my training has been lacking the longer hours on my feet (~5 hours), but I am going with what I've done...so -
My Taper begins! Whew.