Final Stretch for Tarzan Brown

Ahhh, Fall weather, fall running and football. Wednesday Larry and I did our 'short tempo' run 3 miles at a 6:49 min/mile pace (well below the 7:10 goal) and today we did the brutal 3x1 mile intervals: 6:24, 6:32 and 6:36. They felt horrible - and I stopped at 0.9 miles on the last one. Still, I've managed to paste together some very good training runs these last few weeks. I'll watch some football this weekend, then do an easy 6x400 (probably Tuesday) and an easy 3 miles next week for a taper.

One More Week

The FIRST [tm] training program states that "From our running experience and previous research, it appears that training intensity is the most important factor for improving...running performance." Well, to follow their intensity is difficult. Last week I completed the 6+ miler at close to the calculated 'MT' pace (7:25); finished the 6x800s at close to the calculated pace (6:20, I was 6:25) and ran the 3 mile 'ST' (7:07, 7:06 and 7:18) very close to the goal - all these workouts killed. Luckily, I only have this week to go before next week's taper.

Today I did an 8 mile run at close to the 'LT' pace of 7:40. I ran the first 4 miles with Larry who'd been a little out of action - so we went a little slow (8:00/mile), then did the next 4 miles I did myself: 7:31, 7:28, 7:29 and 7:29. Not bad. Hopefully I can live through the 3x1600 on Wednesday.

Ratcheting up the Intensity

I was motivated today to try and get my 6 miles 'long run' in at a faster pace after looking through the FIRST 10K training program. The 'long' runs in this program should be run at ~7:40 pace and a 6 miler is really more of a 'medium' tempo run, which should be ~7:25 for me. Today, I ripped-off the 6.4 miles at a 7:28 min/mile pace. I had pretty good splits as well: 7:32, 7:25, 7:19, 7:13, 7:25, 8:09 (the bitch) and 6:37 for the last 0.4 miles. Hopefully I can get my other two runs in between rain storms this week.

Great Weather, Great Runs

This is absolutely the best time of year to be a runner in New England. This week's schedule:

1. A very social Rock - possibly the last of the year (although the water temp. is still 64).
2. A decent 'long' run: 6.4 miles at a 7:54 pace.
3. More hoppin intervals: 10x400 at an average pace of 6:10 min/mile. The speed chart is shown above.
   

Total milage this week was a little off: ~15.5 (again, including the swim as +3 miles). Next week will most likely see me back into full running.

C4 Week

This week was the C4 symposium at work - which probably doesn't ring many bells for most people - certainly not runners, but did make it a little difficult getting out. To expediate getting the bus through our front gate, I road it in from the hotel with our visitors - which a few hours later gave me the perfect oppurtunity to run home from work (since I didn't have a car). I was pretty pockey: 1 hour 22 minutes for the ~ 10 miles (a 8:26 min/mile pace). Much slower than the last time I managed this last spring (~ 7:50 min/mile pace). Nevertheless, it was a good mileage boost at the begining of the week.

The next day, our group did the Rock (3 mile run, 1/2 mile swim). As always, an excellent, relatively low impact workout. I took Wednesday and Thursday off to emerse myself in science and then went out today at lunch for 3x1 miles intervals. I didn't realize it at the time, but I ripped the first two pretty well: 6:19 and 6:08. The final one I had a 6:40 pace going, but quit ~0.8 miles into it. The weighted average is ~6:20, which is much better than I would have though considering my corresponding 6x800 pace was 6:35. Gotta say, I'm feeling pretty good. Total mileage (with swim converesion) ~ 20 miles. Next week I'll probably be back around 17 miles.