April 15
PM: 5mi, West Side Five Untimed. Nice easy shakeout on a beautiful night with Gehring. Legs and body felt strong and good.
AM: 9.5mi, 5K Race (15:43/2nd): Race for Justice. Amazed by how good I felt. Opening mile in 4:57 felt very smooth and light. Ran shoulder to shoulder with Biz until just before the 2mi mark. He gapped me on the two short, steep downhills to the Stone Arch Bridge and we basically ran the same pace separated by 3-5s for the rest of the race. I did make a few attempts to close the gap, but each time I tried to pick it up my legs approached empty. Might have had a chance to take him on the last straight, but it's another downhill...Overall, I'm extremely encouraged by this race. Post-collegiate PR (by 1s over Jan. 2006 indoors) and I was deliberately not backing off volume or workouts ahead of time. More importantly, I raced well. It helped that basically the only racing decision I had to make came in the first half-mile. But whereas I have been known to get scared off by fast early paces this morning I put myself right up front instead of tucking in somewhere around 5:10-20. Plus it was very fun to race hard with Biz. I feel a lot more confident about actually racing, not just worrying about pace, on the roads this year.
Week: 80mi. Wednesday's 5mi and Thursday's good 17mi got me thinking about the Corey Stelljes Easy Day (CSED). I am happy to report that I will be attempting to implement this training element from here on out as we count down 9 weeks to Garry Bjorklund (Grandma's).
April 14
PM: 10mi, 1:07:21 (6:44/mi): Upriver. Easy run to Sherman's previewing the Race for Justice course. Legs felt a little heavy. Followed it up with a shrieking ice bath.
AM: 4mi. Shortcut Untimed. Easy shakeout. Beautiful weather is back, baybee!
April 13
8mi, 55:08 (6:53/mi): MN Landscape Arb. Eh. Beautiful place to run but legs and body felt like crap after a long day standing and racing around. Late lunch didn't help either. Wish I'd had a monkey paw.
April 12
17mi, 1:42:17 (6:01/mi): The Legend of Minneapolis. Surprised by how strong I felt. Intened to go pretty easy for the first half and then pick it up Hooley-style over the back half. Instead started out quick (3-4min ahead of normal entering DT, 5+min ahead of normal at the old turnaround) and picked it up through Kenwood and built to a very quick pace around Isles and down the Greenway. Made it back to the river in about 1:26:30 and jogged the 2-2.5mi home. Pace got difficult to handle towards the end of the Greenway, fighting a stitch, but otherwise a great, encouraging workout. For those interested (Schrades and Gehring in particular) I'm calling it 17 because although I did not get lost in Uptown this time I did add an extra half-mile upon my return to Prospect Park to make it an honest 17.
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April 9-15
40 mi again for the week. Glad about that. I also "raced" for the first time in '07. Account as follows:
Rattler 1/2 Marathon (13.1mi), 1:34:56 (about 7:15 pace): With 10min warm-up and 15 min cool-down, I put in about 16mi for the day. This is what matters with respect to Wasatch I suppose -- time on task and overall miles. The 1800ft of elevation gain also made for a solid effort. That being said, I should hope that I don't run a single step at this kind of pace on Sept. 8th! Good for a first place finish this weekend, such exhuberance would be foolhardy in Utah.
True to form in recent years, I raced smart but whimpy. An early lead evaporated quickly on the long, mid-race up-hills. I walked on purpose through these steeper sections, but pretty much let the leader get out of sight at that point. To my ultimate surprise, I caught up after 2mi of technical downhill and took back the lead with 3+ miles to go. Another gradual climb, and in this case silly walking, meant loosing the lead again, but my legs were fresher on the final 600m into the finish. In the ultimate nod to lame racing, I only put my head down and went after it when I noticed the leader's cramping legs. I really should have toughed it out and never fallen back into second over this final stretch... Alas, my "killer instinct" is hard to find. I'll be happy with running wise and see what happens from there.
Weekly total=38 miles
What was supposed to be my last week of high mileage turned into a disaster. I finished last Sunday's 24 miler a bit uptempo and felt good, but didn't have the time to stretch adequately afterwards. On Monday I was understandably very fatigued, so I took things easy. I had some minor heel pain, but didn't really think anything of it. By my second run on Tuesday, the heel was pretty pronounced and by the second run on Wednesday I could hardly walk and had to call Kate from a car dealership on the other side of town.
Thought that maybe a couple of days of biking and icing would do the trick, but another attempt at running on Saturday lasted approximately 30 seconds and now it hurts just walking around.
So the marathon is out as are any dreams of getting an OT qualifier. Still don't know exactly what is is wrong; whether I tore a ligament, have tendonitis, bone spurs, or a stress fracture. Will try a massage as soon as I can, but am not optimistic. Maybe I can get healthy and maintain enough to run a 5k at the last Hayward field meet in 3 weeks. Vamos a ver.
On another note, congrats to the many racers this past weekend. Looks like Solidarity was well represented.
April 16
AM: 8.5 (57:57) Str8 Shot.
Felt sluggish, but I suspect most of the fatigue is from the race yesterday, and not so much the mileage. Such is good. Oh, and it's nice out. Really nice out.
PM: 4 (28:45) WF Ext. Ran the other direction on the extended part with Biz on his run, before I turned around. Still feeling sluggish, but not really reflected in the pace- we were moving along decently- not the slowest I've ever run. It also wasn't fast. Whatever.
April 15: warmup, raced for Justice, cooldown. Good and bad. I'm choosing to focus on the good. Despite being significantly slower than last year, I still contend that I'm currently in better shape than I was. Legs felt strong but still pretty flat from Friday's workout. Ran relatively even: out in 5:00, missed the 2 mile, and the 3 mile (Tom, I remembered as I was falling back to sleep last evening that I actually did check the split. . .) which I believe was a bit long was 15:12. Felt the pace slip a little bit over the last couple miles but wasn't particularly interested in working any harder than I had to. Was able to drop the pace over the last 100 meters or so as circumstances dictated but never got too uncomfortable. I'm feeling like something sub-31:30 is possible at Get in Gear. 5:00 pace feels pretty reasonable, though the problems appear to arise when the pace slips much below that. Word. I'll echo the mad shout-outs to the LSCC krew on a solid thrashing of the rest of the field.
April 16: AM MTPO 1:04:54 Felt great! Real easy, smooth, relaxed, etc. It's almost as if the recovery week has allowed my body to perform better than it otherwise would.
PM MTPO 1:00:30. Started with Chapel and a peanut butter sandwich, raced a big-ass front-end loader up the hill from the river towards the golf course, and finished by chasing a biker down Fillmore. Felt quite playful. It's funny what a little sun and some rest will do for a guy.
Monday: 7, 52:30, up the river to Franklin and back along the other side. without warning, the hammy was tight for the first 4 or so, but loosened up nicely on the way home.
tom, you better get billy hall back in your lineup. he's heeeeeating up!
Tuesday: LSCC plus getting over there, close to 9 in total. fairly slow. then pizza, which ran a little long...
legs kinda tired. no barking from the hammy.
second time in two nights I've been posting on here when a grand slam has happened in the baseball game I'm watching/listening to. thank you, jeff weaver.
April 17: AM Toilet Tour 12 1:26:33 Was en route to do MTPO rev when, well, issues arose, paper was low, and there was a misjudgment of proximity of "the last resort." Anyway, it got to be a little long.
PM LSCC + over, I don't recall the time but I think that tends to get considered to be about 11 by Mr. 'Paw. Wasn't particularly hungry, but gave the newcomer a show afterwards at the pizza joint.
April 18: 22 min warmup, still reprocessing some dinner. Then, 21 "power hills." Used the short steep section of the hill between Polk and the waterfountain. 7 sets of 3: run, bound, spring. Recovery was walking back down, 'cause it's steep, and that can be hard on the body sometimes. 10 min cooldown. Actually felt pretty darn good. Sleep is a bit lacking so I need to keep an eye on that, but it wasn't much of a problem this morning. Bedar.
April 17
11 (1:18:28) LSCC+
Ran over with the Biz and an apple. Or rather, Biz was eating the apple. Anyway, good run- James showed up, and may become an LSCC mainstay over the next couple of weeks. He also mentioned his intent to run Get in Gear. Good recovery day, nice and easy.
April 18
9 (55:37ish) Wkt.
Dave's 10k Workout. Dave mentioned something at least similar to the workout I did today as good 10k work, so I named it after him. Biz and I reconstructed the following as what he described: 3x 2k at 10k goal pace, full recovery. If you can get through it, supposedly you can run your goal pace for 10k. So I tried to run between 6:35 and 6:40 (79-80s).
Ran 6:35, 6:34, 6:28. On the first one, I started off a second fast, and lost that second on the last lap. The second one, I started off a second slow, and got it back on the second lap, and then got another second on the last lap. The last one went 78, 79, 78, 79, 74. I'm very pleased with the way the workout went. I was hoping to be able to hang on to 79s, and it turned out I could move a little bit off of that pace. I won't say the workout was easy, because I was definitely tying up at the end, but the paces were faster than I had thought they would be. Recovery was 400m jog, and about 50m of walking- not quite full, but ample. The second one was definitely the hardest, until I opened up in the last 200 (accounting for all 5 seconds on that lap).
Overall, great workout to have under the belt. One last hard day this week on Saturday.
Chap,
That's one of my favorite workouts. I think when Dave had me do it at Carleton, the workout involved 800 m jog between reps. I've done it a couple of times since and kept it at that for recovery. I agree that it is pretty accurate for the 10k.
On the injury front, got a massage today. Things in the heel are feeling better, but I don't think that I am any closer to running yet. Can't say that I am enjoying the biking or the pool too much.
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