Escape to flat land

Ahh.  To Yulefest or not to Yulefest.  I did the gobble gobble gobble 4 miler last Thursday and ran the same time I did 2 years ago: 27:31 - a 6:53 pace.  I also did the same battle green 10k as two years ago.  And that same year - I did a 20:24 Yulefest 5k - a 6:34 pace.  Should I try again?  I'm kind of tired of racing.  The thing with racing is it is hard - harder than normal.  Race isn't until 12/10 - so I may postpone a decision for a few days and hope it doesn't sell out.

Today I made it out for a 4.6 miler around the Charles from work - a decent 7:40 pace.  Last Sunday I did a cold 5 miler at about an 8 pace.  Neither run felt particularly good - kinda weird how quickly I lost it - had about a 2-3 week period were I felt awesome.  If I were smart - i would take it easy and then try running Yulefest hard.

Cambridge Half

Today was the second annual cambridge half.  Early start and rain made me a little nervous heading down - but things went pretty smooth.  Parking was easy and registration was fast - so i sat in the car for a while and avoided getting wet.  It was raining all morning and rained in the starting chute and pretty much the whole race.  They start in waves.  They actually had a sub 1:30 wave.  I thought that was a bit weird - it accounts for less than 5% of the field - why bother? 

Anyway - I had to wait about 20 minutes in the rain at the start - but felt pretty good once we got moving.  I went out a bit fast - but dialed it back since I've been sick for the last 5 days - and wasn't really sure how much I was going to have in the tank.  I tried to run about 7:20s, but was a going a little slower than that: 7:14, 7:24, 7:22, 7:24, 7:29, 7:28.  Realizing I was going too slow, I made an effort to pick things up and was going pretty good for the next few miles: 7:21, 7:12, 7:15 - but couldn't really maintain that the last 4 miles: 7:23, 7:29, 7:21 and 7:34.

Overall I feel this was an opportunity lost, but I'm somewhat satisfied with the result anyway.  My initial goal was 7:30 (or under) - and my paces were set off of that.  I felt pretty good through October and lowered that goal to 7:20 - and lowered it again after a great 10k - thinking i would defenatly go below 7:20 - but that may not have been realistic.  Factoring in being sick last week - i'm pretty lucky to have been able to pull this out and run as well as I did.  The time puts my projected marathon time at 3:24 (2xHMT + 10 minutes) - which will hit the qualifying mark - but miss actually qualifying - so a bit more work to do there.  Nevertheless - that 7:45 pacing should feel a bit easier after this effort.  

One week out

I was feeling pretty good Sunday morning - so I headed out a little fast - aiming for 7:40s-7:50s - but ended up doing: 7:43, 7:21, 7:29, 7:22, 7:15, 7:32 and 7:17 (+ 7:50 uphill for 0.6 miles).  7.6 at a 7:30 overall pace - when the workout was suppose to be 5 easy.  Gotta love the chilly weather.  Had a headache later and feeling a bit head coldy now - but nothing too bad. 

Today (tuesday) - the workout was just for 6x400s - I decided to run down to Fresh Pond and do them there.  They felt ok - maybe around 6:20s (1:35 or so/quarter) - but it is hard to say off-track.  Legs felt super sluggish on the way back up the hill - but that is probably ok.  Just rest between now and the race - probably an easy 3 miler on Friday to shake out the legs.

Chillin

I had two more 'hard' runs this week before kind of easing back a little.  The first was Tuesday - I left around 12:30 from work and only needed to do 3 miles at a short tempo pace.  This was suppose to be 7:10 or so based on my 7:30 HMP.  I ended up running 6:51, 7:09 and 6:51- for a 6:57 average.  A good 13 seconds below goal pace.  Excellent.  It felt hard but not too bad - and better than my summer 5k efforts.  Temps make a difference.

Second run was this morning.  Goal was 7:40-7:50, but I was pretty sure i'd get that easy.  I went out pretty fast because of the downhill, and was able to keep a decent pace through Davis: 7:05, 7:16, 7:23 and 7:30 (some deliberate slowing).  Then going up: 7:36 and 7:39.  7:18 down and 8:14 for the last uphill mile.  Averaged out to 7:30.  Again - felt hard but not too bad.  I think I can definately go for 7:20s the first half of the half - and then either focus on maintaining or speeding up the last 6 miles.  Very cold run.  Right calf tightened up a little.  I stopped to stretch and it seemed better. 

I have a 5 miler planned for the weekend (easy).  And i'll do 6x400s off-track Tuesday or Wednesday.  Then maybe another 3-4 Friday with some strides thrown in.  Easy!  Should be pretty amped to go on the 19th.

Battlegreen 10k

Made it out to Lexington to do my first race in over a month.  Perfect fall weather ended up equaling my best 10k effort ever!  That despite some serious hills.  Here are the mile paces: 6:34, 6:50, 6:47, 6:52, 7:22 and 6:36 (last bit was 6:25 sprint to try and catch some age-groupers).  That mile 5 hill was no joke.  42:57, which ties my Niantic bay 10k time from a few years ago.   I really need to find a flatter fall 10k - probably could've smashed that old record with a few less hills.  According to my training plan, that would put my "planned" HMP at 7:09 instead of the 7:20-7:30 range - something to think about.  Not sure if i want to go out that aggressive... 

I had a pretty good 5M tempo on Thursday: 7:19, 7:04, 7:15, 7:12 and 7:12.  Need to do 3 miles at a 7:10 pace on Tuesday. 

Solid Fall Running

Been pretty busy lately.  So i'll give a quick rundown of the last few weeks.  I'm on week 10 of the training plan now, and haven't blogged since week 8.  I finished off that week with a really nice 10 miler at a 7:42 pace - including the last brutal hill - so probably below 7:40s.  However, that weekend I was down in Mystic and missed my intervals - instead I did a slow 7 miles Sunday night - better than nothing.

Last week (week 9) started with a 15 miler and HMP+30.  Overall pace was 8:06 - probably close to 8:00 or under if I don't include the last hill.  So very good.  A nice relaxing run.  Some rain, but pretty warm that morning.  I followed that up with my 'medium tempo' run Thursday which was a bit slow - just under 7:30s for 5 miles:  7:36, 7:25, 7:40, 7:15 and 7:18.  I was ok with that since the pacing was good - faster the last half.  I'll probably try and do something similar today.

That week finished up with off-track 3x2000 intervals.  I think these were run at under 7:00 min/mile pace - maybe 6:45s with the GAP pacing - but it's hard to know off-track.  Looked like middle-school soccer did me in. 

This week started off with probably my best run when factoring in both speed and distance.  I did 7:46 over 12 miles. Really good pacing the entire way.  That's only 16 seconds over HMP - with a lot of hills - so feeling pretty good about being able to hit 7:30s for the race.

Today is another 5 miler medium tempo.  Sunday is either intervals or battlegreen 10k.