Getting Ready

Two more races this year. I wanted a few good runs this week so that I can take next week a little easy. I did 7.5 miles on Monday - my longest run since the half. Wednesday was an easy 5. Yesterday I did 5.5 - with 3+ miles at tempo pace - which I'm pretty sure was under 7 min/miles. The first mile was 6:45 and the last mile (Sneakers) was 6:45. Inbetween I went slower - but not much slower. It felt good to run fast.

Sneakers!

A ho-hum week. I had much more energy than last week and made it out for runs on Monday (5.8 miles), Wednesday (5.1 miles) and Friday (6.3 miles - including a 6:35 mile pickup). Friday's run was the best since I managed to get a little extra distance and a mile pickup. I'm a little frustrated with my running group since we haven't been pushing the pace much - but it's just as much my fault - I need to make time to get some more distance in and/or some more intervals and tempo runs. Really, the tempo runs just aren't happening. Then again, I am enjoying the social aspect more and my 'goal' run for the season is done and over - so maybe the motivation just isn't there. I'll have to retool my goals soon - I think I'm mentally having trouble with this holding pattern.

Off the Track and Into the Pool

Thursday I did off-track 5x800s. I wanted to do 6x800s - but I was feeling a little sick so I ran the second to last 800 at an easy pace. I think I managed all of them at about a 6:20 pace - although being off-track it's hard to tell. The day wasn't very nice - kinda cold and windy. Yesterday - more marginal weather - so I headed for the pool. It was the first time in 5 weeks and it felt difficult. I didn't do any of the 'fast' interval workouts - instead I did a 400 warmup (mixed), 400,200 free; 100 pull - and 100 cooldown (50 back, 50 breast). 1200 total - a good start. I'll try hitting it once a week - taking it easy and maybe resume 2/week workouts in December.

With many of my friends doing marathons this time of year - I've been considering a spring marathon - but have decided it's probably impossible given this years kid drop off schedule. Maybe next fall or spring...

Lull

I hit a lull. A wonderful, beautiful fall weekend - and I was just wiped out. Too much training? Too much other life? I ended up not running until yesterday, following last Friday's 7 mile tempo/interval run. The Friday run was good - I did 7 miles including 1x1;1x2;1x1 mile intervals - all at about a 6:40 pace. Felt fast. Saturday nothing. Sunday 1 hour strength. Monday nothing. Tuesday 5 miles easy. Today??

More Mileage Please!

This is what I do - data analysis. The unlabeled y-axis is the pace in seconds (360 - 6 minutes; 420 - 7 minutes; 480 - 8 minutes). The two plots are the same data - my race paces versus the distance -however the plot on the right has the distance on a log scale. I think this is more appropriate as my 'best'/pareto races appear in a nice line. The one exception is the marathon - which should be faster - apparently about 7:50s! I better get training!

Last Saturday I did a quick 4.2 miles - with 2 mile pickups in the middle. Monday I did 5 miles - pretty easy around work. Today I did 8 miles - again pretty easy - but I'd like to keep some 8-10 milers going until 'race season' ends.