A mid-week

Not much going on this week.  Tuesday I did the 4th hill workout - 45,60,75,90,75,60,45.  Wednesday I ran home from work via freshpond - 8 miles total - really nasty weather though.  It was suppose to be one of the nicer days, but it was 40s and windy - blustery feel.  sucked.  this morning the plan was to run into work, but I had a sick kid (and another with a concussion) - so i ran into work, drove the car home, took the concussed kid to school and talked to the nurse, then took the sick kid to the health clinic, then went to work.  not exactly as planned.  overall - 15.5 slowish miles.  I'm hoping to do 5x800s either on or off track on sunday...

Runs Divided.

This week had four runs in groups of two.  Monday night after work, I did 5 mile run up and down the bikeway.  Tuesday morning I woke up and did more hills: 30,45,60,75 and back down.  That is 3 of the 8 hill workouts done.  I took wednseday and thursday (ct) off.  Yesterday I ran 4.1 miles from work.  The weather was a little crappy - not the best run.  Today was very nice though - the weather was cloudy and drizzly, but no wind or cold.  I did 7 miles up and down the bikeway, but did a split 2x2 mile tempo.  The pace for the first two "up" was 7:30 and 7:26, while the pace down was 7:09 and 7:11.  Strava has a conversion for elevation change - and those 4 miles look like: 7:22, 7:04, 7:27 and 7:21.  That's about how it felt.  The end of the second one was really hard, but then running back down was pretty easy.  Also on Strava - I am over 50% done on my climb challenge with 1076 meters.  I clearly won't make it to 2000, but maybe i'll aim for 1200.  I'm just short of 100km for distance for the month - should make that easy.

5K St. Pattys Day Race

Yesterday, I kicked off spring with my first race of the year down in Somerville.  I finished at 21:30 - a good 40 seconds off of last year's time and over a minute off my best for that race.  Not great - but not bad all things considered.  Once again my back kinda hurt during the race - that really does slow me down.  But I was also having breathing issues.  Also, my gps watch decided to do some weird cool-down count down right as the race started - so i didn't get good mileage.  I'd say I ran about 6:40, 7:05 and 7:10.  Just estimating.  So not the best - but the prize this year is the mile race - so I'll have to get to doing some speed work.  Should be a fun 10 weeks.

Race Week

So last week I finished with a 4 mile run into work on thursday and a 5.6 mile run on Sunday.  Both were pretty unremarkable - but happy to use my new watch.  We had our snow storm Tuesday - but I was motivated that morning to go hit the hills for my second hill workout: 45, 60, 45, 75, 45, 60, 45 - use that stop watch!  Today I just wanted to get the legs moving - 5.1 miles up and down the bikeway. I'll probably take the next two day off - maybe a short run Saturday.

Fresh Pond Tempo

Today I commuted home via fresh pond, and did a short tempo run - probably about 15-16 minutes over maybe 2.1-2.2 miles.  I about died at that point and shut it down - which is too bad because I started the tempo at 1.5 miles and wanted to get 2.5 in.  As a result, i only had one full mile of pacing - 7:01 - not bad.  I'm completely wiped out now, but looking forward to the commute back to work tomorrow.

Sucking Less

Feeling better about things.  Managed a solid 5 miles Sunday night to kind of rescue last week, and did some hills this morning - 6x60.  What, you ask, has motivated me?  My new spiffy garmin gps.  It's actually a few models behind - but seems to pick up the sat pretty quick and does a good job on the run.  It works real well with strava also - i just download it to my computer and can see my run.  I'm hoping for a nice run home tomorrow.  Should be awesome!