Great Long Run

Another perfect spring day. I left work and did my run home in about 1 hour 13 minutes. The run is between 8.5 and 9 miles - I'll call it 8.75. This would put it at a 8:20 min/mile pace. I actually felt like I was moving pretty good - but maybe I started slower than I finished. Regardless, this puts the weekly mileage over 18 miles - with Saturday's race still to come. A pretty good week so far.

I did notice my knees were a little sore from the outset. The back felt great though - so that's good news. Next week will be dialed back quite a bit - so maybe the knees can recover a little.

Just Another 5 Miles.

Today, under beautiful sunny skies, I made it out for what I call the "normal route" - both loops - 5.3 miles. We covered it in 41 minutes flat: a 7:44 min/mile pace - probably finished a little faster than we started. I'll try and do the run home on Wednesday and do the L&M race Saturday.

Sunday Intervals.

Today I hit the Fitch High track for an easy interval workout during the first hot day of the year. 2x1200 at a sub 6:40 min/mile pace, followed by 3x400s at a 6:00 min/mile pace. It felt good and pretty easy despite the heat - although I did take plenty of recovery time. The great thing about the Sunday intervals is that it really opens up the rest of the week. I only have one crucial workout and I think I can belt that out Wednesday afternoon.

Daddy Day Care.

So I've been on daycare duty the last few days. With the girls at preschool, I headed over to the Mystic River (CT, not MA) and did a 5.5 mile run down river road. It was a perfect spring day. Temps aren't too hot, nice breeze. I took it pretty easy heading upriver: 8:37 min/mile pace, and 7:38 min/mile coming back. It felt great. First real spring day of the year.

Yesterday I took the girls to the Y and did 8.6 miles on an exercise bike, then headed to Kelly's pace to get some new Brooks Adrenlines. Odd news of the month: my foot grew! Apparently. I'm 10.5 and a little snug at that. I tried the ASCIS 2140s: unbelievable comfort - I have serious buyers remorse - but didn't want to risk a return of the Plantar Fasciitis.

I may head back to the Y tomorrow and do some more biking to round out the week. It ended up being pretty good: 18 miles running and at least 2, probably 4 xt-miles. I'll also try and do my intervals Sunday - so next week can get off to a good start.

Earth Day Long Run.

Made it out today for my 'long' run. Originally, this was a scheduled 9 miler tomorrow after work, but something came up, so I went today at lunch - same as last week: 7.7 miles in about 1 hour 4 minutes. I did the second half about 2 minutes faster than the first. It felt difficult - probably because I did my intervals yesterday. Yesterday I headed over to Conn College in between rain drops. I'm glad I did, although I didn't get the entire workout in, I got 8x400s. It's probably best I didn't get the full 12x400s considering I had the long run today. The other good news is that I managed about a 6:10 min/mile pace on the quarters - which is much faster than I remember doing before. It was fun.

Time Trial Day

Today I did a 4 mile "time trial" down around Avery/Jupiter Points. It was really more of a 4 mile tempo run - I couldn't really bust out the sub-7:00 pacing. Or, if I did, I didn't know it. I surmised the 4 miles using Google Earth: starting at the golf-course (Shenny), heading around the two "points", over Tyler - back up to the top of Meeche and back down to the start, plus 2 minutes after that. Roughly 4. If it was, my pacing was ~7:20 min/mile. It felt faster, maybe it was, who knows?

The good news is that the hardest part is over: now I have 5 weeks of intervals and longer (but easier) runs + 1 or 2 shorter races before the Memorial Day 10K. The bad news is that the beginning of next week looks like lots of rain - so it's hard to tell exactly I'll be getting the intervals in. Ok, time for the weekend.

Hills!

Did my first hill workout with 'the team' today. The workout was: 30,45,60,75 seconds - and then back down. I took it pretty easy with my aching back. Feels ok now. No running tomorrow - just the swim class at night.

Long Run Monday II

I made it out for a long run today: 7.7 miles over 1 hour, 8 minutes. A pretty slow pace - but that's ok - it was incrementally longer than last week - good enough. The rest of this week will be interesting. I have a 4 mile time trial toward the end of the week - both Thursday and Friday look sunny and reasonably warm - so both days are options. between now and then I'll aim for one easy, relatively short run and then do my Wednesday swim class. The time trial will be interesting - I hate these tempo workouts. Next week begins a stretch of interval training work - which I find a little easier. In 2 weeks - I'll try and do the L&M Spring Stride [3.5 miles] or the Tour d'Noank [5 miles]. A lot of random thoughts: I just took my fisrt Aleve. I wasn't aware that both Naproxen and Ibuprophen are so highly protein bound. A little worrying.

Happy Easter Everyone! Simpson Style!

Enjoy the Dobblebock!

Oh and a link to some other last suppers.

Tempo Intervals.

Tempo Intervals - if there is such a thing. Absolutely killed. I'm very sore now. The workout was by time, not distance: 12,6,12 minutes - almost 2 miles twice fast - sandwiching a 6 minute run. I was lucky enough to have the fast Dave running with me - so he pushed me through. Also, the weather was great - finally. 50s and not much wind (compared to the rest of the week).

As bad as the workout was, what's killing me is this Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday run - then four days off because of crappy weather. I managed 17 miles running: 7.3 Tuesday, 3.5 Wednesday and probably around 6.5 today total + another 2100-2200 yards in the pool last night: a good week to be sure - I just wish it wasn't condensed into 3 days. Hopefully I can get out early next week.

Long Windy Running

Today I did my longest run since the winter's Lestertown jaunt, under nasty,windy conditions. These were the type of conditions that, quite honestly, make me not want to run. It sucked. The results we not bad though: 7.36 miles (I did the Jupiter Loop twice, turning around on Meeche) in 1:02:40 minutes - an 8:31 min/mile pace. I did the second loop faster (8:20 pace) compared to the first (8:42 pace) - so again, I'm happy with my pacing - although part of that was that I was just sick of running. I'll probably try to get my intervals in Thursday since Friday is suppose to be more rain. How the hell do people train for Spring marathons?

Next week, I'll bump up the mileage to 7.5.

2x2 Mile Intervals

Brutal. Ugh. I went out today and did 2x2 mile "intervals" - which is really more of a tempo work. As shown in the Google Earth picture, I've mapped out a one mile stretch of road - relatively flat. I did the first 2 mile interval with near perfect 7:10 min/mile splits (14:20 total). I then wanted to slow the pacing on the 1st mile of the second interval - and did that one in 7:20, then came back with a 7:08 last mile. I wanted to get a feeling for pacing more than anything - and I feel like I did that pretty well. The work out killed though - feel pretty worn right now.

Last night I did the master's swim class again. I had my own half-lane - which was nice, but the swimming felt bad - poor breathing or something.