Hands Off My Water And Yasso 800′s

Dear Keller Branch Trail Garbage Detail Workers: Please don’t touch my water! I think it’s great that there are people willing to clean up after slobs and for that “thank you” but with warmer temps and obviously lot of people on the trail (like today) there is a very good chance we have strategically placed water bottles so we can stay hydrated. Hydration is extremely important for us in the heat. Usually just a little extra observation and you can tell the difference between trash and treasure. Example: trash – just thrown about and looks dirty, old and used. Treasure would be hidden in the shadow, sitting upright and not even opened or looking shinny and new. I needed that water and you threw it away, shame shame.
Sincerely, all runners.
Obviously that happened on my run today and I really could have used that water where I left it. However, I’ll put part of the blame on myself, I saw them picking up trash and I thought warning them of my water and I didn’t. So my bad, lesson learned for me. Thank God Running Central was along my route so I was able to pop in the store and have a few drinks.
Last week I had a decent week of training with a few bumps. I was experiencing some knee pain and realized it was time for some new kicks. I got a pretty sweet ass pair of Saucony’s, I’m a minimalist shoe kinda gal but like support and cushion and the Sauc’s have always done well for me. And as a bonus I got some inspiration and some trash talk on my shoes (see below pic).

I struggled a bit on my long run this past weekend, the mileage was easy, but I pushed myself at a quicker pace and a challenging course as I ran the first half of the Peoria Heights Half Marathon route. WOW that’s going to be the toughest 1/2 marathon ever, good luck to all my friends running it next weekend.
On tap for week 7 is the beginning of three tough weeks of high mileage, today was 9 miles and I smoked it. Tomorrow is my shorty of 4 miles, Thursday is 5 and Saturday is my long run of 18 miles, that will be the longest distance I have ever run, looking forward to a new PR in distance. Thursday I plan to try some Yasso 800′s at either a 4:15 or 4:30 pace. Although I’m not really concerned with my marathon time, being that it’s my first, but I do want to see what they are all about. The simple rule is if I could run ten 800 meter sprints in 4:15 then that’s is what I will be able to run my marathon in. Now 4:15 is a bit fast for me right now coming off that injury so I’m thinking 4:30 is more realistic but I wont know until I try so that’s what I plan to do. Some say that the Yasso 800′s are spot on and others say it’s a load of crap so naturally I want to know and you don’t know unless you try. (Disclaimer-I know that you’re supposed to do these throughout your training, but oddly I only really heard about them just recently. I want to see how well I can do and if I can even do 10 of them. By no means am I thinking I can do this so close to the race. The next marathon though…well that’s another story.)
How’s your running/training going?