3/3 - 3/9

Mon: 3.5-miles, 6-miles (treadmill) + core workout
Tues: 2x1000m (4:01, 4:00), 6x600m (2:20,19,17,20,13,17)
Wed: 9.5-miles
Thurs: 3-miles, 5-miles treadmill (1E + 2MP + 0.5E + 1MP + 0.5E)
Fri: off
Sat: 19-miles
Sun: 6-miles + weights
Total: 58.5 miles

Pretty good week of training. I didn't feel quite as great as I have the past two weeks, but I'll take it. I signed up to pace the 1:40 group at Tobacco Road with my friend Jerry, so I didn't want to overdo anything this week. I had been planning to head out there anyways and run with some of my friends who were racing/pacing, so I was happy to learn that they still could use a 1:40 pacer (although I would have preferred it not to be because my friend Mike is still hurt!). If I were having an awesome day at Boston, I would Sketcher's GoRun dog dance across the finish line at 3:20, so time to "practice".

I managed to get 3.5 miles in before work when it was still nice outside. The afternoon hours brought a mix of sleet and freezing rain, so Matt and I headed to the gym. In an effort to see how I would do running Tuesday's track workout on semi-tired legs, and because I really hate running on the treadmill, I eeked the pace up a bit faster than Monday's usual recovery run. I started at 8:00 (7.5mph), and increased the pace by 0.1mph until I hit about 7:20 (8.2mph; 4 miles). Then, I went back to 7:30 (8.0mph) and decreased by 0.1mph back to 7:50 or so (7.7mph). I was pretty tired when we started doing our core exercises, so mission accomplished!

I was definitely feeling Monday's treadmill run on Tuesday. That and Tuesday's track workout featured "annoying" distances. I suppose it's good for me mentally, but 1000's and 600's are both 200m too long. Basically, I check-up the pace on the 800m/400m and pray that I hang on, which is less than satisfying. I can figure out what my 1000's map to in terms of a 5k time (multiplying by 5 isn't too hard), but in terms of my mile pace, I don't know. As for the 600's, I know a 2:15 is a 6min/mile, and I suppose I could extrapolate if I really felt like it. Anyways, our 1000's were supposed to be at half marathon pace, but I'm not racing this weekend, so I did them at "normal pace". They felt pretty good, although I would have preferred to hit slightly under 4min. The 600's were supposed to be at 5k/10k pace. Again, I did them at "normal pace", and would have preferred more of them to be closer to 2:15 than 2:20. The last 300m of each just "lactic acid hurt". The 2:13 on fifth one... holy crap. I heard footsteps behind me at ~300m mark, but didn't know whose they were. I didn't want to screw up someone else's repeat, so I tried to hang on. Apparently, Walt was trying to keep up with me, so he also picked it up. Then, Andrew came up beside us, which further pushed the pace. One of us should have just slowed down!

I didn't get up early Wednesday. And, I didn't have time to go out for a run at lunch. So, I had to run all of the miles at once. The run wasn't half bad, but I was pretty tired by the end.

Thursday brought another bought of cold rain. I managed to sneak in a little over 3-miles at lunch, which meant I didn't have to run on the treadmill for quite as long later. This turned out to be a good thing because Thursday night's workout did not go so well. I had intended to do 2x2-miles on the treadmill at marathon pace. I even managed to secure one of the treadmills with a TV, but every station just had the weather on (which was pretty obvious... cold and rain). I settled on PBS because they weren't talking about the weather. The warmup went well, and the first marathon-pace mile was ok. I was learning about the latest in AIDS research and how to interpret the unemployment numbers released at the beginning of each month. It was pretty interesting. I wasn't feeling that great by the end of the second tempo mile though. I was pretty tired, and it was hot in the gym. They also switched to an ad for their pledge drive, which was less than interesting. A quarter mile into the next tempo mile, I wanted to hit stop. I just was not having a good workout. Luckily, they switched to talking about Alzheimer disease about half a mile in, which kept me going for the next half mile. I decided to call the workout there, especially because I wanted to do a 20ish miler on Saturday, and that requires me not to be in a funk. I finished up with a half mile cooldown, and then lifted weights with Matt. Keith, Brian, and Lisa had also showed up at this point... great minds think alike!

Friday was off. Saturday was up again early. I felt awful for like the first 5 or 6 miles, and I wasn't sure I was going to make it to 19+. Everything kind of hurt, I was tired, and it was still kind of cold and icy. We got home late on Friday, and waking up at 5:15 for a long run wasn't super fun. Eventually, I settled down, and started talking to a new girl that showed up after seeing RRO's post online. She was cool, and I was glad she was there so that I didn't have to try and keep up with Jim and Jerry. My watch read 15-miles when we got back to the Art Museum (I had done a mile ahead of time). Jim and I headed back down the hill so we could run back up it. I think I forgot to restart my watch once we crossed Blue Ridge until we hit Edwards Mill, but I'm not sure. Anyways, the run down the hill was nicer than the run up. I was happy to be running with Jim this time for the last bit of a long run because it distracted me and I didn't throw in mini walk breaks (like on the last 17+ miler)! I also felt a lot better on this long run than the last... probably because I was more conservative in the middle miles. Anyways, I wound up running somewhere between 19 and 20, so good enough!

Sunday was daylight savings. I didn't feel like waking up for an 8AM (which would have felt like 7AM) run, so Matt and I just ran from the house. My legs were definitely tired, and definitely felt a lot worse than when I went to bed the night before! Oh well. We briefly went to the gym before work and concentrated mostly on core and arm exercises. 

I am excited to "taper" next week for Tobacco Road (at least I have a semi-real race to taper for this time). I've never paced before, but always wanted to, so hopefully it will be fun.