Wallking the Tightrope

I remember watching white-knuckled last year as Nik Wallenda walked on a tightrope across the Grand Canyon on live TV.  That's a little like how I feel toward the end of a marathon training program, especially for an old guy like me:  always trying to walk the tightrope between pushing another mile, completing another hard workout, and losing balance and teetering into injury.

 
I ran some fast miles on Tuesday, faster than my tempo miles, and the program called for more fast miles today:  10 miles including 8 tempo miles.  After 7 miles I knew that I was pushing it too hard, and I decided to call it a day 8 miles including 6 tempo miles.  (That hamstring high up, tightening up again!)  One of my objectives this year was to run only one hard workout each week, and to complete the long runs on schedule, so I'm not sure how my calendar ended up with hard workouts only two days apart.  That makes, after all, 9 fast miles this week, and a long run only two days from now.   I also discovered that many marathon training plan for guys in their 60s includes no speed work at all, merely the long runs.  Perhaps I should be a little easier on myself?

"Listen to your body!"  Good advice, but so difficult to do, even for an experienced distance runner.  Today I listened.  And I crossed over to the other side, one day closer to my marathon.