3/31 - 4/6

Mon: 3.5-miles, 5-miles
Tues: 6 x 800m (3:11-3:13)
Wed: 6.5-miles
Thurs: 2 sets of 4 x 300m (hard) - 100m (easy)
Fri: 3.5-miles
Sat: Cary Road Race 10k
Sun: 13-miles
Total: 52.5 miles

Hopefully my last Monday AM run for a while! And, I managed to keep my first mile under 10min this week. Monday night's run went pretty well too, as did Wednesday's and Friday's. Spring has finally arrived, but the pollen has too. Oh well.

Tuesday's track workout was... eh. My back was still tight, and my knee was kind of bugging me. I ran in lane 2 and tried to keep the repeats controlled. I need to get used to not starting everything at the same pace. Plus, Sean told the rest of the group to do 8x600m at 5k pace. I figured that my 800's probably shouldn't be faster than that (my ideal 5k pace would be 6:20, although 6:30 is more reasonable right now).

Thursday's whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-that workout was also eh. My back/hip/hamstring was tight and I was rather unmotivated. I wanted to do something semi-tempoish, and had originally planned on doing 5-7 2min pickups in a 6-7 mile run. At some point during the day, I decided not to head out to RRO to do that run because I was tired and wanted to get some stuff done around the house. So, Matt and I ran from the lab. I modified the workout to be 2-miles worth of 300m hard - 100m easy on Centennial Campus Middle School track, with a 2-mile warmup and cooldown (6 miles for the day). By doing the "workout" on the track, I was more likely to actually run the "pickup" faster than a jog (something I struggle with on the road, especially when I'm tired). However, 2min seemed awfully long (aka I didn't want to run 500m). And, if I shortened it to 400m, I would feel like I had to time it like an interval workout (which I didn't want to do because I knew it would be slow). So, 300m with 100m recovery. I don't think it went well, although I refused to actually time it.

I raced for the first time since November on Saturday. The race went ok. I was a slower than last year, which is kind of disappointing, especially since I didn't think I ran that well last year. However, I was doing more shorter distance speed training at this point in 2013, and my weekly mileage for the 6 weeks before the race was a lot less. That, and I didn't have a race that I really cared about in 2 weeks, so I was probably more likely to push myself. Anyways, the first two miles felt ok. After that, my hamstring felt kind of tight. I had no chance of catching the 1st and 2nd girls, and I was pretty comfortably in 3rd. So, I decided just to work on staying there and not getting hurt. I think ran pretty consistently, save for the second time on the hill where I lolly-gaged up it, but didn't stop. I finished up in 3rd, so not a bad race all-and-all (although I would have preferred it be like a minute faster!).

I felt pretty good on Sunday's run. We kept the pace easy, it was a beautiful morning, and we got to see people on their last lap of the Umstead 100. I don't know how people do that race. Anyways, I wanted to get 13-15 miles in, so I kept running to Cup-a-Joe after we got back to the car after ~9miles. I'm starting to feel a little bit more confident on hills... not fast... but I've stopped freaking out.

T-14 days.