Ok, it’s time to get real: I wanted to title this week’s post, “The one that almost did me in.”

Sure, the scenery is beautiful here in Oregon (see photo above). And the summer weather is ideal because it cools down at night to the perfect temp for morning runs.

But after topping out at 24 miles last week, this week’s jump up to 39 was a bit of a shock.

Duh, you say. You’re marathon training. What do you expect?

Yes, I do realize that running a marathon will require a good about of (gasp) running in preparation for it.

But as a runner who does more than her fair share of cross-training, I can tell that it’s going to take my body a while to adjust to the mileage and frequency of the Hansons Marathon Method.

But that’s the point — running on tired legs to train them to tackle the tough final miles of the race — so I’m keeping the faith and taking it one day at a time.

That said, the “easy” runs are going well; depending on the distance, I’m averaging 8:40-9:00, although I expect that to slow a bit as mileage continues to build.

The run I look forward to most, though, is the tempo run (run at marathon pace, which is ~8:46) because it comes after a day off and feels like a pretty natural pace right now.

My least favorite (or at least the one that requires the greatest motivation) is that Tuesday speed workout.

It may not look like much, but factor in the warm-up, cool-down and all those recovery laps, and I put in eight — yep, count ’em, eight — miles around the track that day.

As you can see from the times, I was a little amped up the first two laps, but then quickly settled into a consistent pace.

Sure, those last two felt a hell of a lot harder than the first few, but it’s encouraging that this pace was do-able for the duration of the workout.

That means that I (hopefully) picked the correct pace for the marathon. But time will tell just how accurate I am as I complete more of the speed and strength workouts.

So, as you can see, they’re a bit of a double-edged sword — tough to get psyched up for, but so helpful for gauging fitness, getting a feel for pacing and building confidence.

Next week will be an interesting one because I’m thinking about switching workouts around (a bit of a no-no, according to the program) due to a business trip.

Hubby and I are also running a 10K on Sunday, and although it’s technically part of this week’s workouts, I’ll be adjusting the schedule accordingly for that, too.

So stay tuned for week seven…where the working title of that recap will probably be “All the moving pieces!”