Final Run of the Year

5.89 miles at a slow 8:23 min/mile pace with Larry. The run felt pretty good - almost not worth blogging. Next week will probably be slow, although Sunday looks to be a nice day - so I'll try and get out with a kid or two. Larry mentioned a run in Coelchester on Saturday the 30th, but I couldn't find it. I did notice the the Kelly's Pace Frostbite run is on for this year - January 7th.

Altitude Training

I made it out to Arizona last weekend for some family affairs and managed to squeeze in 1 run last Friday, a 4.5 miler at a pretty slow pace (8:13 min/mile). Feeling a bit slow, I tried picking things up a bit today and finished a 3.8 miler at a 7:43 min/mile pace. After a 7:47 mile 1, a did the next 1.5 miles at a 7:00 min/mile pace. I then walked for ~2 minutes (which is included in the overall time) and did the next 1.25 miles up a slow incline at a slightly less than 8 min/mile pace. The run felt good, although I would have preferred to do the 'tempo' at a slightly slower pace (7:10 - 7:20) and keep it up a little longer.

Also of interest is the comparison between Arizona a Connecticut running. From the graphic, it is easy to see that each has it's problems: Arizona is the altitude (1100'), while Connecticut has the hills (110' change). I'm not certain which is harder. I was having a tough time in Arizona, but that could have also been from the cold I was fighting off (thank you Airborne, nothing like 1600 % of the recommended dose of Vitamin C to take out the legs of a cold). I work for Pfizer, and find it hard to believe that companies like ours haven't tried something like this before - I will pay $5.00 everytime I travel, just for a slim chance that the stuff will work - nothing is worse than getting sick on a trip.

The trip home went well. I got, amongst other things, an iPod Shuffle. I already had an MP3 player, but it was getting a bit old, and it's nice to be able to clip it onto your shirt and forget about it. Now I just need to hit the old bbc6 and see what passes for hip nowadays (besides Lily Allen).

Two more runs

Larry and I made it out for a 5.25 miler on Monday. We did the first 4 miles at a ~8:00 min/mile pace, then did 'the bitch' slowly, and finished with a sub-seven last mile. The overall pace was 8:02 ('the bitch' is really hard). Not exactly a high-mileage run, but a little outside our recent comfort zone.

Today I was on my own, and did 4.25 at a 7:56 pace, although the overall pace was pretty uneven: I did a 8:24 warm-up mile, followed by 2 800m intervals (6:37 and 6:44 min/mile paces) each seperated by a slow 400m. At that point I didn't have another pick-up in me, so I did a mile 7:46, then finished up with an 8:12 mile (slight cooldown ).

I've been pretty good about sticking to the diet and excerise routine. Still no muscles, but I've dropped a few pounds. I'm off to Arizona tomorrow through next Monday. I may try and do a 5k race in Tempe Sunday morning - but I'm 90 % sure I won't be able to make it. This may be for the best since I'm not exactly going to kill a race now.

Frozen Fartleks

Today was the first cold weather training run of the season. The weather dipped to 33 degrees with a brisk wind to go along with it. I went out a little fast (7:28 for mile 1, 7:32 for mile 2 and 3:27 for the next 1/2 mile), before slowing (~8:30 pace for 1.5 miles) and then finishing strong (3:17 for 1/2 mile). An odd run, the totals were: 4.48 miles at a 7:48 pace.

Sunday I took Julia out in the stroller (minus the GPS). We did about 4 miles at a pretty slow pace (stroller + hills = slow).

My wife and I have been pretty good about the diet and workouts. I'm particularly happy with the workouts, since I end up logging about the same amount of time doing the strength training as I do running (~60 minutes each) on a per/week basis. I think I'm going to stick with this for at least the next 2 months, then start training for next April's Clamdigger at the end of January.