Week 2 mile project

 First off - I finished up week 1 which included 8x200s (which are just fun) followed by a 14 mile 'easy' jog down to the Charles and back.  Both were great days to be running - nice fall-like weather.  I managed to keep the 200s at mile pace. 

This last week I did a really difficult 2 mile tempo around the Charles in Watertown.  Managed a 13:31 - which is in between my 13:04 best and 13:56 worst from last spring.  I do this workout again in a few weeks - and it is a great indicator of where I am at for speed.  The next day I did a fun 7.3 mile jaunt around Cambridge - including bits of Fresh Pond and Danehy Park.  The next day I did just 4 miles down to the track and included 2x100s and a 200 for fun (18, 17 and 41 seconds).  Friday was off. 

I rounded out the week with 6x300s at the track.  I managed to do each in under 1:06 - which was my goal - and most were a few seconds under that.  I love the 300s because - as slow as I am - the 1:06 is easy math to do in my head and figure out if I'm hitting the times.  I followed that up with a 2x3M tempo/strength run yesterday.  I do this in place of an 'easy' long run - cut down the miles but add in some MP miles.  Usually MP is pretty easy to hit - but it was super humid yesterday - and I was happy to not float over 7:40s and manage an average of 7:3.

More humid weather to start this week - but I only have 3 easyish days ahead (6x60 second hills tomorrow and 2 easy 4 mile runs).  Next weekend will be a bit cooler - but the runs get a little harder (6x400s at mile pace, followed by 14-16 miles easy on Sunday).  This will be week 3 of the 8-week plan.  

Mile Training. Again

 So with scaling back distance and not really having anything to train for, I decided to go for the mile plan since i didn't really follow it last spring.  This will be 8 weeks - and my mile should be run the first week of November - so hopefully we'll have some 'PR weather'.  I finished last week with a 3x2 mile effort last Sunday (my previously long run was 14 easy up the bike path - which i neglected to blog about).  The 3x2 felt pretty good but harder than I would have hoped.  Part of doing the mile plan is to try and make the 7:30 pace feel easier again.  Yesterday was the official start of the mile plan: 4x800 at '5k pace' which i did in 3:07, 3:09, 3:12 and 3:12 - so a little below my best 5k pace - a good start.  Workout was done at the AHS track with lots of high school athletes bouncing around the in-field.  Gorgeous fall day.  

Up the Pace

 So I did change things a bit with no marathon on the horizon.  My initial plan is to maybe do a 25K (~15+ mile) time trial type thing.  As such, I switched my long runs to be a bit shorter - and last weekend I did an 11 mile 'alternate pace' run.  I remember liking this run last year because, with the mile in-between each pickup, the faster miles feel very doable - but I still get a lot of faster miles in.  The overall pace was 8:06 - which isn't great - but is much faster than my other recent long runs.  

Yesterday I did a similar run:  2x3 miles at MP pace.  These I did on the bike-path - so it was a little slow on the way up: 7:39, 7:33, 7:38.  I was pretty gassed - so going down was: 7:37, 7:09 and 7:37.  I knew the first mile was too slow, so picked it up for the middle mile.  Pretty happy with that.

Tomorrow: 14 easy - should take about 2 hours.