Week 6.

How long is this training plan anyway? Ah yes, 10 weeks. With that in mind - I was hoping to get some speed in. Problem is, I'm still doing hill-work. Solution: back-to-back hill-speed days! And that's exactly what I did. Yesterday - great day for running - did 60;75;90;60;75;90. Relatively easy as hill-work goes. The hill we train on rewards longer intervals because it flattens out a little at the top - and as a bonus the rest time (going back down) is longer.

We followed that up with an attempt at a 3x1600 - which we turned into: 1600;800;1600. We were going to do another 800 at the end - but that seemed like overdoing it a little. The first 1600 was form the golf course to just past Avery point (2nd house on the left). The 800 was around Jupiter and the final 1600 was the Sneeker's mile. Times looked good: 6:40, 3:02; 6:35 - actually ran the last one a little faster.

I'm hopping to do 4 miles tomorrow - including a 2 mile 'tempo' (but pretty easy); and then 8 miles Friday.

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...

Week 9: Yasso 800s

Hard to believe I'm in week 9 already. I did some off-track Yasso 800s today. These are suppose to be, in minutes what the goal marathon pace is in hours. That's just too easy for me though - and so I did the 800s at a goal 3:30 - even though I know damn well I won't be sniffing 3:30 come November 22nd. I did them down at Tyler - including the Jupiter loop - for a total of 20:30 - about 6:55 min/mile pace - just under the goal pace - and they felt pretty easy at that. I think they would've been easier if I didn't have the race 2 days ago. Total mileage - about 6.5. Tomorrow I'll probably do the Twilight Trail run again since I think that's easy on the legs.

Bonus coverage: I got a 'beer of the month' for a birthday present - reviews to come soon ....

Off-Track Intervals

I couldn't make it to a track today, so I decided to do my intervals around Avery and Jupiter points at lunch. I did the same workout as I did 2 weeks ago: 2x1200s and 3x400s - however, without the track or a GPS, I just did it by time: 2x5 minutes and 3x1:40s. It felt sufficiently difficult. I may try the hill workout tomorrow and then do the long run home later in the week.