JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge

Yesterday the team went up to the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge [qualifier] in Boston for what's become the major team run of the year. Back in January I was aiming for running 6:30s, but I ended up doing 24:08 for the 3.5 mile course, which gives 6:54 min/mile avg. Given the weather and the congested start, I was actually happy with it - thankful that I could keep it under 7:00. Hopefully one or two of our teams will qualify the for actually 'championship' which is held October 6th in NYC and I may then get a chance to improve on the time.

The trip itself was fun. We got to Boston a few hours before the race and lounged a bit. Living in SE-Conneticut is nice, but it's always a good change of perspective to hit one of the big cities.

Easy Pre-race Run

Today Larry and I the normal 4.5 mile loop at a slow 8:20 pace. Thursday could be brutal - with temps in the 90's - hopefully it'll cool down before the 7:30 PM start. I'm guessing we'll take the MBTA redline in from Quincy Center.

Tour de Noank

Yesterday I pushed the kiddos around the Tour de Noank course using the double-wide jogger. My time for the five miles was 42:43 - good for an 8:33 pace and 37th place out of 44 runners. Kinda embarrasing - but hey, I was 3rd in my age group. Seriously - the hills and the 45 pounds of kids were actually very hard. Besides, I'd rather a run a race with the girls in tow - rather than not run it at all. Also, I'm glad I kept things easy since I have the big race Thursday. I'll probably do another easy 4-5 on Monday with the boys from work and then take Tuesday and Wednesday off. Oh, another nice thing about this Saturday morning run - it brings my weekly total up to 20 miles.

Last Thursday Hard Run

I did my last Thursday hard run today: ~4.4 miles @ 7:13 pace - still without my GPS, so it's all estimated. I'm downgrading my JP Morgan Chase Goal pace to 6:50 - I'm pretty certain there is no way I can sniff 6:30. The intervals feel pretty easy, but these tempo runs are nowhere close to where they need to be. Oh well. Still looking forward to the trip to Boston, here is the website and team roster.

In non-running things to do, Westerly RI is having its summer solstice festival tonight. It's probably worth the trip over - although I'll have to see how the kids and wife are fairing.

I may push the kids along the 5 mile route of the tour de Noank Saturday morning. I'll have to take it pretty easy of course since I'm officially in taper mode until next Thursday night.

Last Set of Intervals Before JP Morgan, Boston

Todays track workout was a ladder: 800, 1200, 1600, 1200, 800. I did the first two at 2 seconds under 6:40 pace; the 1600 at 6:33 pace, the 1200 2 seconds under and the 800 in 3:09 - so I'm happy with the pacing. The 6:40s felt pretty easy - so hopefully I can manage that for 3.5 miles. I'll update this post tomorrow...

Easy Run, Nice Day

Today I did 4.5 miles with Jotham at a 8:10 pace. Had great weather, and no ill effects from yesterdays headache (allergies, bug, ???). I'm iceing the feet as I type, so hopefully tomorrows track workout will be pretty easy. I also need to get over to Dick's or Walmart and get a stopwatch so I can pace my tempo runs.

Untimed Tempo Run

Today I did another run without my beloved GPS, which remains lost at my house somewhere. I'm pretty sure I did 6 miles total, 4 of which were at the accelerated pace - probably ~7:10 give or take 10 seconds. The weather was cooler, so the run felt hard but not brutal. I'll probably take a few days off due to a case of plantar fasciitis. It's steadily been getting worse - and today was the first time that I've taken a good warm-up, cool-down and stretching. Hopefully with some stretching and iceing it'll improve.

Total mileage for the week: pushing 12.

4x1600s

I the 4x1600 intervals today an almost empty Conn College track. I've misplaced my GPS, so I have no idea what the pacing looks like - but I think I managed to run them pretty hard. Hopefully I'll find it before Thursday's tempo run. Also of note, I have a pain along the bottom of my foot - I'll need to research that - hopefully it won't get much worse before the JP Morgan qualifier on the 28th.

Two Down, Two to Go

Did my second 'short tempo' run today: 3.52 miles at 7:07 pace. The first two miles were right under 7:00 min/mile, the uphill was again a problem: 7:25 and the last 1/2 mile was just over 7:00 - so the pacing was overall pretty good. Next week I may try the 'reverse' bitch run to give me more of a flat 4 mile stretch. The weather felt good until I got around the back of the loop, away from the shore - when it started to feel hot and a little difficult.

The total mileage for today's run was 4.92 and the total for the week was 15.8. I actually feel mutch better now than I did before the run - back to work.

The plot is my pace [top]/time [bottom] versus the distance for my 'tempo' runs - in general I'm pretty close to what I should be based on my pacing charts - which is a surprise - runs like today that I think are a little slow actually look very close plotted like this. Since my best run so far has been the 4.72 miler I did during the 1/2-Marathon pacing in April, I based the rest of the line on that - interestingly, most runs look very close to it. The 9-miler is the most 'off' - but even that is looking pretty close.

6x1200 Intervals

The hardest/longest set of intervals was last night at the Conn College track. I got there an hour early - turns out that's when all the ladies from the team go - so that was nice. I managed to do the whole workout at 6:33 min/mile average (total interval distance is 4.75 miles). It felt *really* hard. The side of my face and neck was getting this cold tingling sensation for the last 3 intervals, but I just tried to slow a little and push through it.

Today I did 4.45 slow miles (8:13 min/mile) with Larry and Dave. Contrasted to yesterdays workout which felt hot and muggy, today was very nice - 60 degree temps. I struggled with the run a little anyway due to a combo cold/allergy thing I still have - or maybe the fact that it was miles 7, 8, 9 and 10 within a 20 hours of a difficult workout made for a sluggish run. Who knows? Hopefully I'll feel a little faster this Friday for another Tempo run.