Thought for the week: Running in the Northwest is pretty awesome. You get the best of both worlds: hot summer days, but cool evenings and mornings — i.e. perfect running weather. Ask me again how much I love it here when we’re in the thick of the rainy season, but for now we’re soaking up all the sunny goodness.

This week was the close of what I call the “ramping up” phase of training where, after building mileage in the first few weeks, the addition of speed and tempo workouts are delivering a nice dose of reality. But next week starts the “oh, crap” phase where things like 10 mile tempo runs and mile repeats on the track start to creep into the picture.

I think my legs are finally starting to adjust to the increased frequency and mileage, though. Although some days are more of a struggle than others when it comes to early-morning workouts, I don’t have as much of that dead-legged feeling that I was dealing with a few weeks ago.

And if we’re being really honest here, the incentive of being able to pluck fresh, ripe blackberries off all the bushes along our run routes may also factor into my motivation for getting out there.

My love/hate relationship with Tuesday track workouts also continues… It takes a lot of focus to commit to running in a circle for anywhere from six to eight miles total (this week it was six 800’s at a 3:45 pace with 400 recovery in between), but it’s an incredible boost of confidence when you’re able to NAIL the paces.

I’m always a little faster than I’d like out of the gate because it takes some time to settle into a rhythm with the first one, but my next five were in a tight cluster ranging from 3:39-3:42. Of course, the last one or two feel super tough, but by that time you can count on some adrenaline because you know you’re near the end.

Another one of my goals for the week was to get my plantar fasciitis under control with some self-care techniques until I can get some professional help up in Portland. I’ll go into more detail in an upcoming post, but right now I’m icing with a water bottle, taking Advil for inflammation and using a rubber lacrosse ball to try to loosen up my feet.

I also went in for an impromptu massage this week, and the therapist spent 60 minutes entirely on my legs — from my glutes down to my toes. Some spots are slightly out of whack and I’m compensating for weaknesses in other areas, so I’m planning on doing some kind of combo of gait analysis, massage and preventative physical therapy to keep everything in check.

But in the meantime, it’s one foot in front of the other. Many thanks for hanging with me through the first two months of training; it’s been awesome connecting through comments, tweets and posts. Eight weeks down, 10 more to go!

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!”