Week end 13

I've been sick since Wed/Thurs but have managed to keep running. Cuz I felt I needed the extra rest, I decided to sleep in Sun morning as long as I could. Stayed in bed until about 920am. When I got up, i actually felt much better than Sat night. Thus, I decided to roll the dice & lace em up. Got in 12 miles from Soco gym & hit up a light weight routine afterward. Guess I really am feeling better.

64 miles for the week.

My feet did real good today in the Nikes. Yesterday, I went with the mizunos & my right foot was cranky during and afterwards. I'm going to continue to wear the Nikes, but I prolly need to be careful w/ them, cuz I don't want to end up in a worse spot than I am in currently. Such balancing act when one has tin man tendencies...

Team Disaster pt 2

Today was the last true LR for the Austin Marathon group. That being the case, Rogue had the marathon pace group leaders there to provide pacing services for the last long training run. Didn't know it at the time, but turned out there was a three mile warm-up & then the plan was to run several miles at MGP. The guys & gals took off as normal, except the 3hr pacers & and a few other folks tagged along. Three miles in things began to get interesting when the pacers set us on a 650 pace. Team Disaster (Muz, Andrew, Chris, & I) got sucked in. Imagine that. Before I knew it, we were running 630s up Expo. Oopsie. Fortunately, we were able to rein the pace in some on the 2nd half of the run & keep things almost sane. So much for an easy, easy down week LR. 16 miles at 6:59 avg

1st Hill Mechanics Day

At least for me -- I did not do the hill circuit work last week since I was racing. Today I did and boy was it a doozy. The hill itself is not that bad, but if one goes up it in the prescribed manner...hi-YaH!. All we are doing is high knee form running up a hill. Anyone who as ever done high knees knows that the speed at which you cover the distance is not important; what is important: an upright torso, relaxed arms/shoulders, and the leg drive/lift. Simple.

Today, I did four sets. One set is up the hill w/ high knees, down easy, up the hill w/ high knees, an 800 flat loop at tempo pace, and easy back down the hill. The set is about 1.2 miles. I did a 3 mile warmup/cooldown so that put me at like 10.3 miles. No right foot issues w/ the Nikes. 10 minutes in the ice bucket afterwards just to be sure.

The Marathon (simplified)

Borrowed from Dustin's blog & originally written by Tom D: http://irunmissionhill.blogspot.com/2010/01/boston-race-prep.html

"Mileage is the key to the marathon, the next key is racing up to the distance. The closer your daily mileage is to the time of your marathon, the less important is the "long run." If you are a 2:20 marathoners running 100 miles a week then you spend about 2 hours a day running which is only 20 minutes shy of the time you will spend racing, but if you run 40 miles a week and run a 4 hour marathon...well, it is really a different event.

Of course this stuff is hard to do. The marathon is a hard event."

You may or may not like the above two paragraphs and you may or may not agree. But to me, that is some powerful stuff. Where I am with my running currently, it makes perfect sense. If it does not make sense and/or you do not agree, forget about it, and just keep running. :)

Easy easy Wed

Easy 10 from Rogue w/ Kam & Jason. I felt awful (like I was going to bonk) during the first 3 miles. By mile 5, I was good the rest of the way. On the foot front, this was the 4th time I have worn the new Nikes. The inj area of the foot does great in them (shoe does not aggravate it at all). However, I am not 100% sold on them as an everyday shoe (thinner sole/lower to the ground.) Though, I have been told "lower to the ground" should be a good thing. Time will tell.

Mon/Tues

Easy 4 miles on Mon just to push some blood through the legs. My quads had a decent amount of soreness in them. The rt foot felt ragged. Prolly exactly like I should have felt after a race.

Today, I felt better. The quads were still little sore, but the legs seemed sharp at the beginning of the run. Thus, I opted to go for 8 miles steady and see how that worked out. It went pretty well, though, I did labor a little the last couple of miles. I had 620 avg for the steady portion. About 12 miles for the day.

3M half marathon

The race went about as well as I could have hoped. I knew I was ready to go from the moment I got out of bed this AM. And I was good & warm and ready to roll at 640 this morning. But then there was an 1 hour delay due to wind. What in the wide world of sports? I was cold & tight when we finally started. The first couple of miles were slow...very slow. After that, though, it was all downhill from there (literally). Everyone knows this course fast, but I had no idea it was that fast. In hindsight, I maybe could have been a little more aggressive the first half and would have still been fine, because I was never in trouble during any portion of this race -- but who knows for sure. I am satisfied...for today. ;) Here's the pace recap from the gremlin:

646
630
615
616
609
613
618
618
610
609
605
600
549
0:39 (.14 mile)

121.41 total

HM eve

Ran for about 4 miles mid-morning -- I felt a little stale in the first 10 minutes, so I did some short pickups try to loosen things up. The pickups felt fine. The run was okay. My foot felt fine & won't be factor. All systems seem to be a go. I hope to break 1:22 tomorrow.

Easy Thurs

Took Wed off because my foot was tender in the morning. Instead of a run, I treated myelf to 15 min of ice bucket at 5am. Then i went back to sleep.

Thurs, my foot felt better. The group was doing a hill circuit, but Coach told us to miss that if we were racing 3M. This time, I decided to listen. Easy 10 miles for me on Thurs.

One thing is for sure, I should be fresh on Sun.

1st Steady Run

2 mile warm-up, 7 miles steady (623 avg), and 3mile cool down. The run felt good, and I don't think I ran too hard (in control the whole time). Will be able to report better tomorrow based upon how my legs feel.

+ 15-20 -- eow # 11

i have gotten off-schedule this week with the evening running and a minor foot issue. good news is the foot thing hasn't gotten any worse & it did fairly well today. bad news is that i've flaked on my buddies a few times this week. i plan to get back on track with the team next week & should be able put an to end my renegade workouts (because I believe we start our threshold runs).

Happy Birthday Kamran! I know I'm a borderline "loser" for not making it this AM.

All that written, I had a pretty good run today. 21 minute warm-up down to the "0" mile marker at the Trail. 7.5 miles out on the trail & back at an overall avg of 643 for 15 miles. 22 minute death march cool down up SOCO back to my place. 20.6 miles for the day. 64 for the week.

Lucky 13

Or is it the other way around? Evening run from the gym. Managed to beat the rain for the most part. I was pretty slow...dunno why. Hopefully, I don't make a habit out of this. 13 miles at 7:46 pace.

Wacky Wed

Whew, I was lucky to get in a workout today. Since I went ML yesterday evening, I felt pretty much stuck w/ the evening run schedule. When I left this crib this evening around 6pm, it was drizzling and a little cool. I took off as planned, but wanted to go back due the cold rain. I fought off that initial urge to stop and completed a 10 min warmup jog to the Eastside/St Eds intersection. From there, the initial plan was do some 2000s on a road loop just south of St Eds, but upon seeing where I'd have to run (uphill) for the last 1/4 mile, I decided to go w/ the good ole mile distance w/ a 1/4 mile recovery jog. I was shooting for 6 min miles, but that was tough due to the conditions (wet & dark) and my somewhat tired legs. No excuses though: 622, 614, 607, and 600. In hindsight, I should have warmed up more and maybe stretched a little, cuz they got easier as I went. Two mile cool down & I called it a day -- about 8 miles total.

2 in the dark

The Weakness was calling me this morning and I gave in. No morning run for me. I slept like a champ though.

Determined to make up for it this evening, I took off from my place around 5:45pm. I ran down Eastside Dr to the trail, made a loop, and headed home via Congress. I felt pretty good, but was a little slow around the trail in the darkness, especially w/ the headlampers trying to blind me. 15 miles at a 745 pace.

Lunch time spin

Easy 7 at a 722 avg pace. Time constraints kept the run short, which probably wasn't a bad thing.

RunTex 10 Miler -- e.o.w. #10

It was very cold at 7am in Georgetown this AM (12 degrees). Fortunately, there was no wind. As such, i was not in much of a mood to get an extended warm-up. I may have run 1/2 mile outside. I scooted back into the high school after that and did some light stretching & form running where it was nice and warm. The first mile of the race was frigid (cheeks & thighs felt frozen). After that, I slowly adjusted to the temps. Running 630s the first half was sorta boring; I mean I know that is not a jogging pace, but it almost felt like I was doing a LR at just a slightly faster pace. The course was an out & back so I was mainly checking out the terrain (i.e., hills) on the way out. I counted three real hills I would have to tackle on the way back. These are country road hills, which means long, long climbs. Two of them were about three quarters of a mile, but not super steep (thankfully). Anywho, I made the turn in like 32:25. I counted 6 guys ahead of me and 4 of them were within about 1/4 mile. The plan was to gradually pick up the pace over the last 5, but once I made the turn, I decided to just work on catching up to the 4 dudes that were in sight (rather than watching the gremlin). I managed to catch the last of the 4 w/ just under two miles to go. To ensure no one caught up, I picked it up just slightly w/ a little over a mile to go. When the gremlin clicked for mile 9, I noticed I was at 554 pace so I decided to just hold that for the way in (unless someone came up on me). No one did, so I did not have to unleash the fast twitch kick...thank goodness;-) 30:40 for the last 5 miles w/ 553 last mile. 1/2 mile cool down afterward. Pretty solid workout...

This afternoon I ran 5 miles from the apt. So that put me at 16 for the day and 55 for the week. Weak week mileage wise, but two good quality workouts. Oh shit, I almost forgot...I got 3rd overall and 1st in my age group. Cool!

Sat. shakeout

Easy 5. The race tomorrow will definitely require cold weather clothing. I am ready.

Cold Front of the Decade

No joke, I saw that the above title was the main heading on the print edition of the Statesman on Wednesday. Is that all they got? Maybe it was a joke.

Anyways, it was 46 degrees this morning when I got up. Thus, i decided to brave the conditions. The real front did blow in when we were running, but it was not that big of a deal. 12 miles at a 7:22 pace

Track Day

i was lazy in the morning and could not find the desire to get out of bed to do the track workout i had planned. thus, i ended up doing it in the evening. the plan was to do five 1000m intervals (85 sec a quarter pace or about 3:32-3 total) with 200m recovery jog and four 400s (80 sec pace) after that.

i was really dreading doing this after work. started at the gym & warmed up to Austin High (2.2 miles). all the sets of 1000 were a little slow. i just couldn't get into an 85 sec a quarter rhythm -- one lap would be too fast, then one would be too slow, etc. here are the results: 337, 336, 335, 334, and 334. i decided to only do 3 quarters, but they went much better (60 sec recovery in between): 77, 76, and 72. pretty sure i could still bust 60 on the open. ;-)

Tues MLR

MLR, 14 miles, 714 pace

Week end 9

Nine weeks of training for Boston 2010, and all is going pretty darn well. I had the minor foot issue a few weeks ago, but i seem to have been able to work through that. That little problem is almost gone, and let's hope it stays that way.

This morning, it took me about 20 minutes loosen up, but once I did, the run was over before I knew it. 10 miles (734 pace). I had a pretty solid week (mileage wise) -- 85.2 total.

A long one in the books

i was a little antsy about going 24 today. in the past, i've felt a noticeable difference ( read, more difficult). a couple miles into the run, though, i could tell my legs had recovered nicely, and as a result, the miles just clicked off one by one. before i really new it, we were half way through. then around 15, mr. musal decided to pick it up a little. i would later find out that he just wanted to be sure he didn't slow me down. haha, because i could feel it (not it a good way) when he dropped us from 710s to 645s; however, after 10-15 minutes, the ole legs adjusted. we cruised it on in the last 10 and ended up finishing the 24 miler in 250.50. i had to look at the gremlin (i.e., garmin) to figure out that that equated to a 707 pace, but muz knew the avg before i did via calculating it in his head. he is such a nerd. ;-)