"There are no compromises." -Once a runner

Kicked out my training partner for the win.  I felt bad for him, but all is fair in love and war, and running is some kind of combination of the two.

I had no idea we could go this fast.  I thought 29:30 would be a good goal for me and 29:50 for Matt (my training patner, henceforth known as Dr. Bedoukian, thing is, he actually has a phd whereas I call myself doctor even though I'm just in my first year of med school now).  Anyway, the doc doesn't have my speed or confidence in maintaining pace throughout a race, so he wanted to go out around 5:50 giving him some wiggle room to still break 30.  I wanted to go out easy and pick it up, but you know how that always works out (especially when your slightly slower training partner goes out faster and you are the only two in the lead).  So we ended up with 5:47 for the first mile feeling great.  The second mile has a bit of a hill, and we went very near 6.  I can't remember the splits after that, but I remember at mile 3 thinking all we needed to do was hold 6 to break 29:30 and yet we still maintained pace.  In the last mile I thought I was gonna lose Dr. Bedoukian.  I had drafted off of him a bit in mile 4 because of oncoming traffic taking up the road.  Near the last 400 I pulled up almost next to him, but decided that wasn't a good idea and backed off a bit, but then felt really bad and wanted to let him go.  When we saw the finish, he had a 3 meter lead on me but my mind went from impossibility to a sure thing.  I turned on the anaerobic fires and, as Cassidy (from Once a Runner) would say, "whaaaail on" winning with a 3 second margin.

This makes 3 of 3 goals for this season (sub 30 5M, sub 18 5k, sub 5 mile).  It was a very good day.

Regular 8 mile loop mostly on dirt.  Had a good feeling coming off such a big PR day before.

Taper for big trail race on sunday.  I can hardly stand only running 5 in a day.

Didn't get the warmup I wanted. The race had 3,700ft vertical. Had to climb bits. Tore me up good. Shouldn't have done this. I didn't go all out, but it still took a lot out of me. Bad training for my mile on the 28th.

Sore quads.  Can't walk downstairs normally.  This is gonna hurt my training.  Stupid bedoukian and his trail races.

This was supposed to be a 200 workout, but we were too sore.  Fortunately we both didn't want to do the workout.  If one of us had wanted to do it, we both would have and would have only made things worse.  Running sore is surprisingly easier than walking sore.  We stopped to stretch and I almost fell over, lol.

Still sore, but getting better.  Morning runs are always hard.  Cardiovascularly I feel great, but this trail race just did my legs in.  I am now convinced I should do plyometrics after every speed workout (that is, repeat workout as daniels would call it, not after vo2max or LT).  If I do hills or plyometrics once a week my quads never get sore, but if I don't...

Did the red rooster ramble as a tempo run.  We actually managed to not race it.  There was one guy there going faster than us, but we just kept to our pace (6:12) and it felt pretty darn good.  It was humid and we kept pace beautifully.  I hope that the summer heat doesn't kill me (going to be in TN for the summer).

Another calendar day.  Felt good despite morning run.  Now its time to really focus on mile specific training for our race on the 28th.  I have met all of my goals for the season, but I will be disappointed if I don't at least PR this race.  In a mildly just world (which, with highschoolers going sub 4, it is decidedly not) I will go sub 4:54 but we will see.

10x400 @ 73s w/1min rest

This was the first time for this workout with only 1 min rest. And it was also the fastest I've done it. Its been a while since doing real speed work and Ive lost 3-5lb since then as well as gaining both fitness and confidence in my running. It felt petty good except for one rep in which I felt really dizzy and almost fell down. But instead of stopping, I just went faster, hitting a low 72 for that one.

Afterwards we did plyometrics and abs to top off a great workout. 

We have decided on doing a mile race on the 21st and if we don't hit our goals (sub 5 for dr. bedoukian and sub 4:56 for me) we will race again on the 28th. As soon as the mile is over with, we are going into base building for marathon training.

Ive been thinking about what my marathon goal pace should be. Its definitely somewhere between 6:25 and 6:50. My 5k and 5 mile times this season suggest a 6:25, but that just doesn't seem doable at this point. Anyway, Ive come to the conclusion that sub 3 should be a given, and sub 2:55 should be my primary goal. And I realized that 6.66min/mile =2:54:30 and, since 666 is the devils number, lol, 6.66 should be the devils pace which just sounds cool.

I have also been thinking that maybe I should take at least 1 mile in every easy run and do it at marathon pace. So I started today with a stretch of dirt trail that I know is 1.65 miles. I went a bit too fast because I didn't have any splits along the way. I ended up going just under 6:30 pace. Oh well, it felt pretty good and was a good way to split up the run.

I am also thinking about starting to detail my eating habits here in support of my effort to lose weight and run faster.

Breakfast: bowl of yogurt + granola ~ 500 calories

Lunch: bowl of mixed peppers + spagetti sauce = 300 cal + milk=100 cal + bowl of cereal = 300-400 cal total: 800 cal. Eating healthy stuff like the peppers and sauce can make you full but leave you hungry (for carbs most likely). So after I ate the cereal I was satisfied, but almost over full and felt bad about it. But given my run today as long as my dinner is reasonable I should still have a healthy calorie deficit.

 Dinner: 2 bowls peppers + spagetti sauce = 500 cal + milk 150 cal + some yogurt 200 cal = 850

 Total calories for the day: 500+800+850=2150 not bad considering 8 miles and core work

Another workout missed. My training parter and I both were sore from plyometrics after sunday's workout. It was my fault this time as the plyometrics were my idea. We are gonna do the workout tomorrow--4x5x400 @ vo2max with 100m recovery between 400s and 400m recovery between sets. Its best to do the workout pretty fresh to get the best benefit. Otherwise we would have to race to hit the times.

So instead I did 8 miles easy with a 1.65 mile pickup to marathon pace (6:35) which was the only part of the run that felt good. The rest was blah because I was alone, it was dreary, I had missed my workout, and taken a test this morning. I almost always feel bad after an exam in med school because I have parred down my life to just studying and running. Losing half of your life every 2-3 weeks for a day or two is not fun. And since running can easily (for me) be overdone, I can't just spend all of my time running when studying isn't an option. Its not that I like studying, but it gives me a sense of accomplishment and because I need to do so much of it, I have structured my life such that it is my only option a lot of the time. At least this exam was very straight forward. The questions I knew I knew for sure, and the ones I didn't I had no clue so I just guessed.

Gonna go for another run with the hash hound harriers tonight and have a few beers as well. I will add those miles after they happen (presuming mileage is like presuming race times, its bad luck).

Edit: Its always difficult to tell, but I ran at least 4 miles with the HHH, probably more.  Unfortunately I drank too much and overate yesterday.

4x5x400m @ 80s with 100m recovery between 400s and 400m recovery between sets.

It felt great. This is my favorite workout. I always feel like a total beast afterwards. I paced it perfectly. First set avged 80.5 second and third set were right at 80 or slightly under and the last set avged 79.5 with a 76 last 400 because it always feels good when its over.

I am glad I waited till I was ready for this workout. The confidence it gives is necessary.

food: breakfast 500 cal, lunch 800 cal, dinner 900 total = 2300 not too bad

I think that I am gonna cut out cereal and instead eat canned fruit with milk.  Its just as tasty and has fewer calories.  Not stopping yogurt either, but might do it with fruit instead of granola as much as I can for the same reason.

8 easy in the morn. Why is it that every morning run is slower than every afternoon run? You would think that after 45 min of running you would wake up and run the last 2 miles faster? But no, steady 7:50-8min pace. Its not that I want to run fast for my easy runs, but I just like it when 7:30 pace is so easy I wouldn't think of going slower. In the morning 8 min pace can feel bad (but so does 10 min pace, or anything more than walking, so 8 min pace is a compromise where any faster would just feel worse).

Short day of classes so about to go out for 20 miles of rollerblading. I don't really know the conversion between rollerblading and running in terms of crosstraining miles, but I probably just wont count it. It takes at least 1.5 hours to do 20 on rollerblades for me, but the intensity is even lower than easy running. I am into specificity of training. So this isn't training except for the fat burned. And I'm coaching some people through a speed workout later and will probably run easy on the grass inside the track while they are going at it. Hopefully I'll get another 6 miles and catch up with Dr. bedoukian (training partner) on mileage for the week.

 Got that 6 miles I wanted.  Just ran in the grass inside the track while coaching a friend through a speed workout.

Almost got beaten up in my PM run today.  I was only 4 blocks from my apt when a car stopped next to me and asked me for directions.  I started giving them the directions and one of them jumped out of the car-AT me.  I took off running and he jumped back in the car and the chased me.  I made the first turn possible and they also did, then I turned down an alley (sounds stupid, eh?) but luckily right at the moment they caught up to me and one tried jumping out again but they were still moving so he only got as far as opening the door and yelling at me.  At that point they were past the turn and could not follow me.  I then booked it home the last 2 blocks.  I don't really know why they chased me.  If they wanted to mug me they would have been disappointed as all i had were my keys.  What I actually think is that they saw this little 'rich' white guy running by himself and wanted to have some fun--aka beat me up and teach me a lesson for being a 'rich white boy'.  This might sound racist, but not only have I seen it happen before, it happened to me fairly regularly in middle school.

Why isnt there a repeat or speed section to this blog? Oh well. 14x200 @ 32 w/200 recovery. Pretty fast for me. This is my least favorite workout. But it comes from lydiard believe it or not. He thought that in order to fully peak for a middle distance event you should do a boatload of anaerobic work in the last 3-4 weeks before the race. This differs from daniels in that daniels says you should do your speed work with as much rest as you need to feel fresh for the next one. If anyone has experience with which one is better please comment.

Who knows if it helps, but it will strengthen my legs if nothing else. It would make sense that it would help with the kick in the last lap of the mile.

Gonna get another 3-4 mile shake out tonight even though I don't need the mileage. It just feels right after that workout. Edit: went out for 3 but did 5 cause i felt so good.

Stress, recover, repeat has become the basic method to my training. I have seen a lot of return from that this semester and hopefully the improvement continues. I guess the devil lies in the details thought. The key is what kind of stresses and how much recovery.

I thought that bedoukian had more miles than me this week, but really he just counts his week from saturday to friday. Take that Matt! Damn, now he is gonna go run 5 and overtake me...

recovery, and I need it

On the trails.  Trail race tomorrow.  Have to get up at 5:45.  Not really sure why I do this.  Its not that I am thinking of not doing it, I just don't know why I do it.

I finally did well in a trail race. I probably could have done better but I was worried about staying on trail so I stayed behind this one guy for most of the race and only passed him when I was fed up with how much he was dieing. Fell twice, once into watery mud, second rolled in dirt, neither were bad falls. The trail was very runnable compared to the last 2 trail races we did. There was one hill on the way out that was extremely steep and long. Not even the winner ran that one. Then it was rolling but pretty technical the whole way. Ran through a stream for 1/2 mile and the leader, who had gotten lost, repassed me going ridiculously fast given the terrain. I really enjoyed the course. On the way back there was a hill that probably gained the same elevation that the big one on the way out did, but it was longer and so not as steep and I only walked a small portion of that. At this rate of improvement, I'll be beating bedoukian in trail races in no time (I know he is gonna read this, and either fake confidence or admit that he is scared). He also got much more beat up by this race, which was all part of my plan so that he won't gain fitness on me. The competition was great at this race. I had people around me the whole time pushing me and I caught one guy in the last mile who had been way ahead. But then a different guy passed me in the last half mile. This is my favorite trail race so far.

Did a 3.3 mile recovery jog. Felt surprisingly good except for carrying the large dinner I ate prior to the run.

Recovery.  Felt better than I expected.  Back is a little sore, calves tight, and right shin/knee not perfect, but nothing is really sore.  Also ankles hurt a bit from rolling them so many times on the trails, but they are like iron and will get over it.  Hopefully I will be ready to race the mile on wednesday.

running in the rain is great when it isn't too cold.  Mile tomorrow unless the weather doesn't cooperate.  Im a bit nervous.  I like that matt doesn't have any dreams of beating me.  He probably should though.  I think we have very close fitness--close enough that if one has a bad day it could make the difference.

Sweet. It started raining and gusting wind to 40mph about 30 minutes before the race, but luckily it let up just before the start and although we were wet, it didn't slow us down much. I was not properly tapered though, so I think I am currently capable of 4:49. With a 14.4 mile trail race 3 days ago I can't be fully cardiovascularly recovered and I can still feel some soreness in my calves and my left quad. And I might have been a bit faster if I had someone pushing me in the last lap. My splits were pretty much straight 73's with the first 73 counting the extra 9 meters. The first lap I was boxed in and bedoukian was leading. But that was good because the first lap is always easy and if it isn't then you are in serious trouble. Then in the second lap the guy in lane 2 boxing me in fell off and as the pace was steady 73 I kept my position behind bedoukian. Then in the first half of the 3rd lap the pace started lagging and because bedoukian always accuses me of kicking him out in races, I made my move in the front straight with over 600 meters to go. I had to really sprint a bit to pass him because he tried to edge me out for lane one a bit. That might have helped my time, but it also might have hurt it as I started to really feel the lactic acid at that point which is a bit too early. Then in the back straight I really started to feel the lactic acid all over but I managed a 73 as my 'kick' lol. But I guess if pace is even and effort goes up throughout its just about perfect.

The turnout was a little pathetic. I was the only one wearing spikes although many people were at least wearing racing flats or track racing flats. This was the first race I have worn track spikes, and they felt good. Im not sure if they helped, but perhaps 1 second difference. They made the turns and changing speeds slightly easier. And I think that in the rain they gave me more of an advantage than they ever will again. I think they would help more in a more tactical race. But will I ever do a tactical mile race? I am not good enough to run on a school team. But I am starting to think. If I could get good enough to train with the brown cross country team next fall (so unlikely) it would be a dream come true. The thing is, if I could get my weight under control. I bet I could. If I got down to 140 or 135 (160+ now) then I would be fast enough at least to train with them.

Bedoukian came in second in 4:57, breaking 5 for the first time. He claims that he will never run the mile again, but I think he will. If he continues to gain fitness how can he resist racing when a PR is assured.

Trails easy.  Practiced holding in the poop a bit from mile 7-10, lol.  I shouldn't run directly after lunch.  Tomorrow the plan is the same so I should probably have a large brunch.

Trails are deceiving.  I spent 1:50 doing 10.8 miles at what would be definitely sub 8 minute pace on the road.  It would have been more like 14.5 on the road.  Oh well.  Better to save my legs the punishment of the asphalt and not feel quite as good about my mileage.  Despite my 2.5 mile day for the mile race my mileage is still gonna be fine for the week.

9.1 "easy" miles averaged around 22 min/mile only because of running down ski slopes for the last 2 miles.  We summited 5 4000ft+ mountains starting around 1500ft elevation.  It actually would have been much faster except for the 2-3ft of snow after 3000ft which made it nearly impossible to run even on the relatively flat parts.  But it was a good time.  Basically a 3hr hill workout w/full recovery between hills.

 

This 'run' lasted 7 hours and 15 minutes. We ran the runnable parts at somewhere around 8.5min/mile average. Here is how it went down. We ran out at 9min/mile on trails until we came upon some great waterfalls. We stopped to eat and take pictures for 30+ minutes which was a great time. There were apparently 13 waterfalls there (from the name on the map of "13 falls") but we saw 4 or 5 really good ones. Then we set out again and it was good for a while and then the trail crossed the stream and started climbing up an old creek/mountain runoff bed. It became less and less apparent that we were on the trail until we started seeing snow with footprints. We followed the footprints until it became extremely apparent that whoever made these footprints were also lost. Luckily we had a gps, map, and knew that the "trail" was supposed to follow a stream. So we ended up bushwacking for about 2 hours before we found the trail again. Then we started running again until we got to the turnoff for the summiting trial for owl's head (another 4000+fter) took that up and back down at which point we were both out of water, 7 miles from the trailhead, and had been out for 6 hours already. Thankfully, it was all slightly downhill from there and we probably never saw an 8min mile again (pretty fast for trails). We continued to pick up the pace till the last mile which was probably under 7min. Then we got water at the car and iced our legs in the creek and washed off which felt great. We both felt pretty strong when running, but mentally and physically brutalized by getting lost. This morning my legs feel great but my whole back aches from the bushwacking and climbing we did.

Recovery.  Its finally hot here which is both a blessing and a curse.  For easy runs it is nice, but for anything longer than 12 or faster than 7min pace the heat hurts me a lot.  In two weeks I'll be in nashville tennessee for the summer which will be blistering.  Any advice on how to get quality workouts in in the heat?  Liquid is an obvious one, but I just don't think I could ever run as long as hard in 80+ let alone 95+ weather.  I may take my tempo runs to the treadmill which will be very sad and boring.

5 at lunch

7 at night

Bought a garmin 405! Tried it out on both of my runs today.  Pretty sweet.  Have yet to try out the heart rate monitor, but I think I will during my tempo run on thursday.  I don't know my max heart rate and am not planning on a VO2max workout for over a month (till after I build my base for marathon training).  It would have been smart to buy it a few weeks ago when I was training for the mile Im sure I topped out my HR in tons of workouts. 

Felt nausiated for most of the run.  I had cereal for lunch and the milk was probably the culprit.  I usually can run 3-4 hours after I have milk, but apparently not always.  This is just one more reason to run early in the day.  I love milk and other dairy products, but I should really have a full night between them and running to make sure.  Running with stomach problems can really drain you physically too.  But I got it done, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's tempo run.  I haven't run fast since the mile race.  Admittedly that was only one week ago, but it seems like a lifetime.  And I usually do 3 speed workouts or 2 workouts and a race every week.  But don't worry, this is a planned break from most speed while building miles.

2 miles up, 5 mile race (at tempo pace - 6:08 avg), 1 down

Felt pretty good except that Bedoukian was feeling better.  I know he is gonna say this is the turn of the tide or whatever, but its plain and simple to me--he was more fresh.  He correctly took time off to recovery from a slight achilles tendon issue.  I felt fine so I stuck to my 70mpw plan.  I felt fine and stayed with him until 3.5 at which point he started dropping sub-6's and I wasn't game.  I could have stuck with it but I don't think it would have been smart.  As it was it was 77 degrees out and I was running faster than I had planned (6:10-6:15 pace).  He also is thinking about coming out and trying to break 29 in the 5 mile, but I don't want to all out race anything over a mile in 70+ weather.  I am not very concerned that the next time I race 5 miles all out I will break 29. 

 Now its recovery and then the trail marathon.  I am running through this one.  No real taper, but probably a good carb load.  I am going to run it harder than a training run, but easier than a race for sure.  My plan is to stay with sharkey (a 57 year old trail runner who is darn good for his age, but about 5-6 minutes behind me for a trail half marathon) through the half and then re-evaluate.  If I am feeling good, I may drop him.  If it feels hard then I will just try to hold.  I am really only doing this because it sounded like fun.  The idea was to not race it.  But I hate giving bedoukian something like a 20 min lead on me (which is what it would be if I went fairly easy) because he is planning on racing it.  And on top of that, he is better tapered.  But there is a time for racing, and that has passed for this season.  We took full advantage of it and now it is time to get back to consistent training.  I don't think that this will help bedoukian in the long run, but I didn't think we would be getting better so quickly as we have while racing very often.  What do you all think?  Is it beneficial to race often (say, every week, varying distances everything from the mile to the marathon)?

Easy run w/ bedoukian.  At a certain point we saw a girl who looked darn good from behind and was going pretty fast.  But we were already past our planned turnoff.  So we decided to pick it up to tempo pace to catch her to see if she also had the face.  It was stupid because neither of us would have done anything even if she was drop dead gorgeous.  And she wasn't at all, so it just added mileage, which is fine.  We are so stupid and desperate.  All we want is a girlfriend on a college cross country team, lol.  Anyway, other than that the run was uneventful.  Trail marathon coming up.  Im running through, or at least I am just treating it like any other long run and not dropping my weekly mileage for it.  I have to keep saying it to convince myself, but I am gonna go slow.  Stay with sharkey at least through the half.  And I think im just gonna take my camelbak full of nuun with some protein powder because im used to it and I wont have to stop at the aid stations which will most likely be just unopened gallon jugs of water.  And on top of that I will have honey and some power bars.  I agree with bedoukian that plenty of food is key.

Ok, I spent 20 min writing a race report and lost it, so yeah, maybe i'll try again in sections tomorrow.  Its late.

Not sore, legs just feel like they have been used a lot after the trail marathon.  Almost like I need my ligaments to heal whereas my muscles are fine.  Cardiovascularly ok, but obviously need at least a week before i'll be 100% again.

Still not sore, but still not normal.

Feel about 85-90% now.  Almost wanted to do a tempo today.  If I study efficiently enough I will do one tomorrow at the local 5 mile race series.  Its unlikely.  I have my last exam of my first year of med school friday morning.

Very slow with a friend.  Felt good and relaxing.  Matt did the tempo workout but I don't think it was a good idea just 4 days after the trail marathon.  I am sticking to my plan.

exam, 9 easy miles, then hit the road for 10 hours (moving to nashville for the summer)

Continued my trip to nashville and stopped in virginia (will look it up later) at this awesome state park with a 40 mile gravel/dirt path. Went faster than planned despite the heat.

Gonna have to find a loop near my apt in nashville with some more dirt.  This loop has about 3/4 miles dirt and probably 7 of grass if you care enough, but the grass is tall and in bunches that are hard to run on.  I will probably drive the 3.5 miles to percy warner park and do the 8 mile horse trail most of the time.

 Heat index = 100 I took 24oz of nuun and drank it by 5 miles where I refilled at a water fountain (a redeeming feature of this route) not to drink but to poor over my head on the last 3.6 miles.  I was happy with how I felt in the heat.  I definitely can do easy runs in this kind of heat.  But Im afraid that tempo runs and even good interval sessions are gonna have to be done on a treadmill or on the indoor track.  I will experiment with long runs in the heat (which I have had problems with in the past but I was also in much worse shape then) later this week but probably in the morning in 80-85 degree weather instead of 100. 

Long tempo on the treadmill.  This was the longest run on a treadmill I have ever done by 4 miles.  It wasn't too boring though because of the pain.  The reason I did this was to get a good workout and I can't do that in this 90+ heat.  I brought a fan, but I need a bigger one.  And unfortunately it is not allowed to be shirtless in the vandy gym.  I asked if I could sue them if I got a heat stroke when the guy told me it wasn't allowed and he said "sure, I guess".  Given these issues I had some problems on the run.  I started out a bit too ambitious probably--6:30 pace with 1.5 incline.  I made it to 6.5 miles like that and decided that I could not make it to 10 if I kept it there.  I dropped the incline to 1 and the pace to 6:40 till mile 7 but I was already too spent.  I got a cramp and was forced to walk for 30 sec twice but in the end I averaged 6:50 pace even with the two walking breaks so I guess it wasn't so bad.  Not counting the walking breaks it would have been 6:45 pace.  The great thing about this run was the two guys beside me who obviously saw me and thought they could run faster and put the speed where I was but one lasted 2 miles and the other lasted 3/4 of a mile, lol.

AM. Easy 3 to work and 2 on the treadmill. I will probably usually run outside for the extra at least in the morning.

PM. Easy 2 around the park and then 3 home.  Felt darn good despite the heat.  Im feeling thin again which really helps.  I need to spend less time with my parents who eat horrendously.  They aren't fat, but I don't know why. 

AM: easy 3 to work and 2 around the track. Im gonna bring my gps and find a 2-3 mile loop around campus so I don't have to deal with the boredom of running in circles or on the TM. Gonna do a workout tonight with this group that I am faster than. I will take it pretty easy. The coach is a 15:30 5k guy so he knows most of the runners in the area and perhaps he can suggest a group or training partners more at my level. The workout should be good. On my long tempo the other day I felt like I was going fast at times, which shouldnt be the case. It should feel slow, but difficult to sustain. Even my mile pace feels slow when I am properly trained for the mile. It feels slow and yet I can only keep it up for 5 min. I think it is because of the fast 200's that we did. So if I do some fast 400's or 800's then hopefully tempo and marathon paces will start feeling slow again.

PM. Did a workout with the group from last summer. I really like having people to do workouts with, but the workouts don't seem very good to me now. I like to have very specific reasons for the type of workout I do. We did 3x150m, 3x200m, 1xmile, 3x400m, 3x200m. I don't think I am gonna go with them anymore because I think that my workouts are much more beneficial. I don't need that fast stuff almost ever (although I like it rarely just to make other paces feel slower). I need a lot of volume of VO2max pace for track workouts. And tempo I will do elsewhere.

I ran with Ted today for the first time.  He said his easy pace was 7-7:30 and I thought he was probably one of those guys who never runs workouts and always runs mileage hard, but no luck.  He has run a 5k in 14:40 in his college days and many in the 15's since then.  Luckily he is ridiculously out of shape right now which is to say, still quite a bit better shape than I am.  So our trail run was a good bit faster than I wanted to go, but in the end he was like, wow, that hurt.  So hopefully we can run together more and at a more reasonable pace.  He is gonna train for a 2:40 marathon in the fall which considering his speed if he just puts in the long runs he should do it.

AM: 3 to work and 3.45 around campus.  Got a little lost and ended up running .45 more than planned.  Felt good.  I just need to lose more weight so I don't feel bad about going shirtless as it is a must in this weather.

PM: 1 mile around the park and 3 miles home. 

Went home to muscle shoals (yes the name of the town is misspelled, it should be mussel shoals) AL for fathers day weekend.  Found out that my current 8 mile route has a nice gravel/dirt shoulder that I can run on.  Went too fast on this run.  It was 85F and I averaged 7:36.  All I was doing was trying to keep my turnover near 180 and I thought my stride was laughably short.  I didn't feel like I was pushing it really.  In this heat nothing feels really easy, but Ive been going by Daniels breathing test.  If you can do 3 strides per breath in and 3 per breath out and maintain that for a while then the pace is easy enough.  Of course, Daniels thinks my easy pace should be 7:15-7:25 which is just not the case.  It is especially not the case with heat, hills, and slow but soft running surfaces.  Wish I was up in RI to do the trail race tomorrow.  Bedoukian will gain fitness on me with that probably.  I need to think about what my workouts will be this week actually.  I am racing 18 miles on saturday, so wednesday I should do VO2max.  So sunday 8.2 + monday 9.75 + tuesday 6.2+6.2 + wednesday 6.2+7 + thursday 8.2 + friday 5 + saturday 18 = 74.75 maybe too much.  I could cut one of the 6.2's(3 to work + 3.2 around campus) down to 3 if im feeling tired.  But I like doubling 2 days/week for 70mpw.  It seems right to me especially in this heat.  My last long run was the trail marathon, but it wasn't too long ago so I should be fine for the 18 miler.

Added on to my normal 8.2 loop at home cause I felt so good.  8:24 pace very easy

Easy trails with Ted.  Wasn't that easy because he is a 14:50 5ker, but easier than the last run we did together.  I am officially out of nuun and am freaking out.  I went to two different running shops and neither carried it.  I bought some cytomax and some elixer.  After having nuun for so long, having sugar in my drink really makes it less thirst quenching.  Luckily the elixer stuff is almost identical to the lemon lime flavor of nuun.  It will keep me going until I can get to the REI 30 min away and stock up on the good stuff--nuun tri berry.  The cytomax is good, but when I was really thirsty, I chugged a 24oz bottle of elixer and starting on the cytomax but when I got home I made another 24oz of elixer and drank all of that.  I have decided that if I am in a situation in which calories are needed, I will do honey if its a race and bars or real food if it's an easy pace.

AM: 3 to work and 3.2 around campus. Was especially hard getting up and going this morning. Don't know if the 70mpw is finally catching up with me mentally or all of the road running and running without company is getting to me mentally. More likely it is the latter. I think I need a monster workout to get me refocused. But it is hard doing the kind of workout I need without company. I am going to do 4x5x400 w/100 between 400s and 400 between sets of 5 with the fast stuff at vo2max pace (80-82sec for me). The question is should I do it on the indoor track, on the treadmill, or outside? I think it is gonna be outside in the morning tomorrow. This morning it was pretty cool actually. I almost didn't take off my shirt after I dropped off my bag of work cloths at the gym. It would have been a perfectly comfortable temperature with it on, but between a little nipple chaffing and the thought of actually feeling a bit cold during a run I went for it and it was great. Also weighed in this morning at 162 so I think I am on the right track to losing some weight this summer. I have only seen the other side of 160 since middle school once and that was earlier this year in a desperate attempt to lose weight by nearly totally starving myself. I think that the mileage and heat are finally doing their job.

Ugh. The summer heat finally claimed its first workout casualty. At least I finished the workout, but it wasn't pretty. 85F direct sun

Attempted 8x1k with 2 min rest on a measured section of road near my home. Ended up doing 6x1k with avg 2:45 recovery and 5x400 w/45 sec recovery Did 1.5 warmup, stretched, then got going. Times were as follows.

3:19 (too fast I knew with the heat I was looking for 3:24 but it was slightly downhill with a tailwind)
3:24 (as usual second one gets on pace)
3:25 (this one hurt more than it should have being the downhill stretch again)
3:32 (uphill with the headwind I just couldn't hold onto it without compromising the rest of the workout took a 4 min rest after this one to try to get fresh again)
3:24 (the 4min break helped but I knew it wouldn't last)
3:41 (I thought about quiting at this point but I know what VO2max pace feels like and this felt like it despite being darn slow, I decided instead of quiting to do 5x400 with 100 rest to finish out the volume of the workout at least, took another 4min recovery)
80 (perfect, didnt even feel too bad)
79
79 (ouch, heat and short rests starting to catch up to me again)
84 (wow, felt much faster than that)
79 (I totally kicked on this one, I couldnt help it, my times were so terrible I wanted to hit pace for the last one and my legs were not really hurting much during the workout, mostly cardiovascular pain so I went anaerobic in the last 200 and still had only a mediocre time)

1.5 cool down (still 85 degrees so not exactly cool, I wouldn't have gone this far except my measured bit of road is 1.5 miles from my home)

15min ice bath in case I went too hard on this workout.

I almost never die in workouts. My times are always spot on or if any variation get faster throughout the workout. I might try the indoor track at vandy or the treadmill for my next VO2max workout. Here are the possible reasons that this workout went poorly.

1. heat

2. lost fitness

3. 70mpw is wearing on me

4. lack of recent speed work made this harder than usual psychologically or physiologically

5. first serious VO2max workout alone (unlikely, psychologically I was strong to finish the workout, I kept trying to relax in my pace, forcing a 2-2 breath pattern until I just couldn't maintain it anymore, I also tried starting each rep slow enough to maintain but every one was really really tough)

easy run and then some abs.  Want to be really fresh for the 18 mile race on saturday.  But I also still want to get 70 miles in for the week.  Is it silly?  Yes.  Will it help my training? Debatable.  Will it hurt my race performance? Yes.

On another note, I am thinking about making a slight change to my approach to mileage building.  Instead of doing 8-12 most days I think I will start doing longer and shorter days.  I can do 13-18 one day and 3-7 the next better sticking to my training philosophy of stress recover repeat instead of my current stress-stress-adapt which doesn't seem to be working (at least in the short term, lol). 

easy run around downtown chattanooga.  18 mile trail race tomorrow!

I really should have won. I was 30 sec behind #1 and 10 min in front of #3. Here is how it happened.

Woke up at 6:30 and made it to the race at 7:30 and it rained a bit during the drive. The rain cooled it down to 65 but it was still low 80's by the end of the race. Everybody went out really easy it seemed. After one mile I was in 2nd with seemingly nobody near me except #1 right in front of me. But around mile 3 during some switchbacks I saw that there were about 10 people in striking distance. I stayed in #2 until the first water stop at mile 5 where I took the lead. The guy was right on my tail, but it was a long downhill section so I dropped him with some real speed down the hills. Overall the trail was not flat, but the slopes were all pretty gradual. I only walked up hills twice late in the race and was able to really kill the downhills. So then at the mile 8 aid station, I realized someone was right behind me and it wasn't the guy who lead the first 5. I took off and immediately fell sliding quite a bit. I got up and got going just in time to keep the lead. This guy stayed on my tail despite destroying the downhills and going up hills very comfortably until after the water stop at mile 11.8 which was the last water stop. I could have dealt with one more in that heat but it was just enough to get me through. Again here there were some pretty gradual downhills but this time they were more technical. So I finally dropped this guy and eventually couldn't see him even on pretty long switchbacks because as I learned later he had fallen. I fell another time as well and added some sand to my dirt smeared body. Then the heat really started getting to me, and not being able to see the #2 guy I slowed down.  I really had no idea how far I was from the finish because it was a loop course and I wasn't even wearing a watch.  I didn't realize that the guy was gaining on me until he was right behind me.  I held him off for a few hills but then he passed me and I knew it was no use.  Had I known that there was only about 1/2 a mile left I would have pushed a bit harder, but I didn't have much and I think he had quite a bit left.  As I said earlier I finished about 30 sec behind him and 10 min in front of #3.  I beat the previous course record by 7 minutes but since I got 2nd I did not set the course record.  I only did the 1 day of the stage race, but the guy who beat me also just did the one day and the guy in 3rd didn't finish the first day because he got lost and only ran 14 miles.  And I feel that even though the 4th place guy ran 22 miles the day before I still owned him as he finished 12 minutes after me.  I wish I had worn my garmin as I sort of doubt that this course was a full 18 miles.  I think more like 16-16.5.  If it was a full 18 miles I am really happy with the 7 min flat pace that I managed on trails.

Easy recovery.  Feel darn good considering I raced 18 miles yesterday.  Might do a tempo tomorrow.

AM: 6.2 miles easy to work and around campus

 PM: Trying multiple new things today.  First, I usually do not double on workout days.  Second, I am trying out the indoor track for this workout to escape the heat.  The workout is 3x2 miles at threshold pace with 3-4 minutes recovery.  The workout was dubious from the beginning.  I had had milk with my lunch which I knew was a bad idea even 4 hours before the workout.  I did a mile warmup and my legs were feeling pretty stiff actually.  After the warmup I took aand hoped that the milk had all passed through and would not upset me.  I started the workout too fast as usual.  But since this is a 9 lap/mile track I quickly corrected my pace and hit a nearly perfect 5:54 pace (what daniels says is my threshold pace, but I was only shooting for 6 flat) with a total 11:47 and it felt pretty easy.  The second one I went out easier and didn't look at the watch except a few times.  I didn't really push it, but I just got up to what I remember threshold pace feeling like and held it to the end with little strain.  This one was 5:49 pace (11:37) and I was really happy with that but was unsure if I could hold it for the last one.  I used the same strategy of not looking at my watch and going by feel until the last 400 when I looked at my watch and I needed just a bit of a push to hit 11:47 again and I did exactly that.  At this point I felt great.  These are the days that I live for.  I like the race PR's, but I really love is doing better on workouts than previously.  I like going into races with confidence that I will PR.  The question is by how much.  Anyway, I am still at the gym, which is 3 miles from home and I have to run home.  Unfortunately this is where the milk catches up to me.  I take anotherlike a firehydrant, but start to feel really sick.  I stumbled home (walking 1 of the 3 miles so im not counting that towards mileage) feeling mentally great and physically horrible.
 

I meant to do 6 but missed my short cut on the trail I was running.  So I did 8 and it got pretty dark towards the end.  Luckily there was just enough light to see and the trail wasn't so technical that it was a problem.  

Worked out with my group today.  But I added on a bit before the workout.  I did 3x1k on the indoor track before heading out for 3x3x400 with 3 fast ones mixed in (our workouts usually total around 3 miles of quality but this one was a bit short).  Considering my times I am fine with the workout being a bit short.

My times were 3:16, 3:17, and 3:15 for the 1ks with 3 min recovery.  My times for the 400's were 79,79,74,79,71,78,72,77,77  with 200 recovery between 400's and 400 recovery between sets.  So recovery times were pretty high but I am pleased with the workout overall.

Twice this week I have gone out with the intention of going 5-6 miles on trails and gone 8+ instead.  I am pretty messed up.

Today it was on purpose.  I wanted to explore and so I added on a 3 mi loop to the 5 mile loop I was already doing.  It wasn't anything crazy special, but good to have more options. 

17 miles on the trails.  My legs felt great, but my stomach did not.  I don't know what made me sick, but it was pretty bad.  It was 93 at the start and 89 when I finished.  I drank 75oz of nuun (an electrolyte replacement drink w/o calories).  Maybe that was too much?  Not enough?  I continued drinking after the run for several hours so maybe I wasn't very hydrated to start.  I am gonna try to do my long runs from now on in the morning.  Today was weird because I was planning on doing it saturday morning but then found out my mom was coming to visit so I needed to do it today.  Another good thing about doing the long run in the morning is that there are fewer chances to eat something that will make me sick.

Did 8.5 in 58:43 - 6:53 pace in 91 degree weather on a course with plenty of hills and .5 miles of trail. 

Longish trail run.  I didn't bring food or water on this run so it was challenging towards the end.  Went to Montgomery bell state park and the trail was pretty nice and scenic crossing several wide but extremely shallow (like, 1cm deep) streams.  Ran with Ted and we are still at the point of pushing too hard to try to keep up with the other person.  The thing is that I am much much slower racing so I never think he is pushing until the run is over and he is like, damn that was hard.  And I am always breathing harder than he is.  This was especially apparent at the end of the run during some hills.  I was hardly able to maintain a 2 stride in 2 stride out pattern.  Tomorrow is gonna be super easy because I have been going too hard lately.  My legs are fine, but I know that my cardio system needs a break. 

Easy Easy trail run.  Started out at a crawl and by mile 6 or 7 I was feeling really good so I picked it up but still didn't push it at all.

There is this classic 11.2 mile loop through a state park just 3 miles from me that I have never done so I did it today.  I usually run the trails in the same park, but I wanted to see what this road loop was like because all of the runners around here talk about it.  It was very nice or at least much nicer than any other road running I could imagine with very few cars through forests with a few vistas along the way.  It was very hilly, and I tried to take it easy, but I did it in 1:26:27 (7:51 pace) so not too bad, but probably too fast for the kind of hills this place has.  

Workout with Ted today.  It was a bit depressing as he is so fast and yet I am running about 2x his volume right now.  He did 4x800m and I did 6x800m.  We started with a 2 mile warmup and some stretching.  Then we started the workout.  He held about 4:40-4:45 pace and I started out too fast hitting 5:10 pace for the first one and then progressing to 5:32 pace by the end.  He finished each one with nearly the entire straight away ahead of me.  Then he would do the recovery lap at nearly 8 minute pace.  I am used to barely a shuffle for recovery.  We went at the line, but he would accelerate for about 30m leading up to the start which increased his lead on me.  It was 90 degrees and I felt it.  We met a guy named whim (sp?) who is closer to my pace but still faster than me (his 10k pace is my 5k pace).  Hopefully we can meet up for some runs and workouts and he won't utterly embarrass me like Ted does.  After talking to whim for a while, we went for a 3.2 mile cooldown.  The heat hugely affects my times on workouts.  If I had done a longer workout I am sure I would have gotten slower and slower.  But at this point in my training I don't think it is about maximizing VO2max time/volume but getting the miles in and occasionally letting my legs/lungs/heart feel some speed to not lose it.  And I haven't lost it.  My last 200m I dropped 32 and the first 100m of that I really didn't feel like I was going fast, I was trying to steadily accelerate through the 200 (my last 800 I hit 5:20 pace again because of the kick).

Easy trail run with Ted.  Felt extremely satisfying.  Would have added on if I had time, but I have to get home.

Ran in a thunderstorm very slowly. It was around 80 and 100% humidity which is much better than 90 and 60% humidity which is what it has been lately.

Same route as yesterday but fairly fast.  Didn't mean to, just started out at an 8:20 pace and over 2 miles settled in to a 7 flat pace.  Averaged 7:18 pace for the run and it really wasn't that stressful.  I had to work, but could do any breathing pattern.  I know when I am going past easy when I can't maintain a 3 strides in 3 strides out breathing pattern.  At least thats what daniels tells me, but he also says that my easy pace should be around 7:20 which on a daily basis I think is not right.

Went to the Sipsey Wilderness area in the Bandhead National Forest 1hr south of where I live in alabama.  Tried to do an 11.5 mile loop but since the trails were not marked I just did 2 out and back sections.  I missed the first turn because some people were camping at the trail junction and had tents over the diverging trail so I didn't see it.  Trail was very poorly maintained but had some awesome technical parts and some bluffs and waterfalls that were mostly dry now. Because of getting lost and bushwacking a bit because of the horrible trail it took 2hr 8min.

6 easy miles on grass with Wim, a new guy I am running with who is a 16:10 5k guy on 45 miles/week.  I hate it when people are faster than I am who don't work as hard as I do.  But it happens a lot.  I was pushing it just a bit because it was early which I am not used to.  The heat is really getting serious.  Even at 8am this morning it was almost 90 degrees.

Horse trails at Percy Warner Park very slow.

3 miles warmup, strides

200 - 30

400 - 74

600 - 1:55

800 - 2:42

1k - 3:25

800 - 2:45

600 - 1:58

400 - 79

200 - 31

2 miles warmdown 

These workouts in the heat are tough. I just did my best to not die much.

AM: 3 - ran to work because my sister needed my car. I am thinking about making this week a cut back week. I have been at 70mpw for 6 weeks now and although it is doable I wonder if it might be better to take one week at 50-60 and then get back to higher mileage. I definitely want to do some tempo work this week because I didn't do any planned tempo last week.

PM: 11.5 easy felt good. Felt like I might bonk because of an early lunch but after the 3 home I went inside and downed a can full of pear juice and it held me pretty strong throughout the rest of the run.

am: 3 to work

pm: .5 up, 2x2miles+2k at tempo pace  5:42 pace, 5:44 pace, and 5:45 pace respectively 3 min rests in between then 3 miles warm down on my way home

I was pretty happy about this  workout.  I did it indoors and again I was surprised at how fast I went.  I started a bit too fast but held pace fairly well.  I am virtually certain that this workout indicates just sub 17 for 5k on a cold day on a flat course.  Sometime soon I am going to make a PR progression chart to better see when I have improved quickly and figure out what I was doing a lot of then and the few months before.

8.5 on the percy warner park horse trails.  I did it at a crawl and in the last .5 miles I heard some people behind me gaining.  Nobody has ever passed me on this route, so I had to hold them off.  I barely made it to my turn without them passing me.  I got a look at them as they went by and I felt a lot better because they were definitely college runners.

12 miles of trails and 3 miles of dirt road in mammoth caves national park.  If any of you venture out there I suggest to get some serious bug spray.  I have never had a problem with bugs on a run before, but these things were massive (same size as horse flies or bigger, almost cicada sized) and no running speed could drop them.  They finally left us when we got far enough away from water.  

First day off since flying home for spring break.  This was on purpose.  I have been at 70mpw for 6-7 weeks now and I am taking a cut back week.  I am also changing my training strategy a bit.  I am going to start doing a 3 week high mileage 1 week cut back schedule.  My high weeks will be 70-80 and my low weeks will be 40-50.  I think that it will be better both physically and mentally.  I have 15 weeks including this one until my fall marathon (cape cod) and here is what I plan mileage wise.

40

70 70 70 40-50

80 70 70 40-50

80 70 80 40-50

70 30

And then the marathon is on the sunday after that week.  It is a bit more than a 1 week taper because I will have taken a cut back week 3 weeks before the marathon.  But I hate tapering.  I am going to be trail racing or racing long on the road most weeks so that will count as 1 workout.  I want to continue going to the thursday night 5 mile races to do as tempos.  So my VO2max work should be tuesday.  My long run is a tough one for weeks that I will be racing.  I am torn between saying that a half marathon race is worth an 18-20 mile easy run and doing the long run anyway.  I could try to take long cool downs for my races but that would be difficult but probably good for me.  With a 2 mile warmup and 3 mile cooldown a 13 mile race turns into an 18 mile long run with a fair amount of sub marathon pace effort.  On weekends that I don't race I will definitely do a long trail run of 18-22 miles.  Another question is should I do workouts on my cutback weeks?  I will definitely at least do some striders during my easy runs those weeks.

5.8 miles on the roads in Percy Warner Park.  Legs feel better but not great yet.

3x1mile, 1x800

splits were 5:37, 5:39, 5:39, 2:43 It was hot and I didn't want to hurt myself on my cut back week.  Its a little sad because the heat put me near where I think my 3 mile tempo pace in cold weather should be now (5:42-45).  I thought about not doing the workout but its difficult for me to not run hard pretty frequently. 

I am out in san francisco visiting some of my undergrad computer science friends.  Ran with the man who got me into running in the first place.  It was good.  And the weather is great here.  The high today is like 75.  This is the first time I wore a shirt running in a while.  Maybe I should do my residency out here.  Many of my best friends live here and the weather is great for running year around.  It is mostly flat but there are mountains within fairly easy driving distance.  If there are plenty of trails I am pretty much sold.

6 miles in the big basin redwood national forest.  Crazy big trees.

12 miles around percy warner park on the roads. The trip to california was fun, but the flight back was horrible and made me miss my run yesterday. I got delayed twice and ended up home 5 hours after my initial schedule said. I loath the nashville weather. It is just coming into its own for the summer with today's 97 and 80% humidity. I waited till as late as I could to run and the start of the run was 93 and the end was 89. And with the humidity sweat hardly does anything except collect in your shoes, shorts, and sometimes gets so much in your eyes you have to pour water over them to stop the sting. I know that sports drinks dont have as much salt as sweat does because I know they dont burn the eyes the same way that sweat does (although perhaps its something like uric acid in sweat that does that, hmmm). Anyway, im pretty much counting the days until I am at least up in providence with slightly better temps and much less humidity.

Ran an unplanned tempoish run.  Was with ted and despite the 92 degree start and tons of humidity we hit a few 7's to start off and then got a bit faster towards the end.  Finished at around 6:45 pace.

I did another workout with my pathetic group.  I should have just gone out later by myself, but it seemed stupid... until I saw the workout.  3x200 800 3x200 800 3x200, 100 recovery between 200's and 400 between sets.  Because this workout was so minimal I decided to run it pretty hard.  I didn't get my 200 splits because I forgot my watch, but I got my times for each 3x200 including the recovery (totaling 800).

3x200 2:45

800 2:33

3x200 2:41

800 2:29 (not bad considering I was pretty tired and it was fairly hot, didnt feel too too hard, even with the previous running I am confident that I could have strung two of these together if it had been a race, I would say I am in 4:43-46 shape for a cold windless mile)

3x200 2:36 (as the workout went on I kept my speed on the 200's but just increased my speed on the recovery)

so that including 3 miles up, 2 miles down, and the recoveries made decent but still insufficient mileage.  I am gonna have to run pretty long tomorrow in the evening and friday in the morning because friday evening I am going home and don't like to do more than 10/day at home (my parents think I run too much).  

18.2 miles at a decent pace (7:45) for me at this point on this course which is very hilly. One crazy thing happened. At mile 12 it was dark and a bird obviously mistook my head for some small animal and tried to catch it. I heard some wings and then felt talons on my head. My natural response was just to sprint for a bit so when I turned around I couldn't see the bird. But it freaked me out a bit.

AM: 6 only 10 hours after the long run. I stretched well after the long run but the pavement took its toll. My hips were a bit sore this morning. I don't think my body is used to running on roads anymore. Oh well, with my time constraints this week I just need to get the miles in as fast as possible so unless every run is a tempo run I need to do some pavement.

PM: 3 wanted 6 but between work and family obligations I needed to pull a quickie.  So I'll have to do 13.something tomorrow.  Sunday there is a race in my hometown.  Last year the winner went 18:06 which I think I could beat even with no taper.  I will go and see how fast they go out in the first mile.  If anyone is under 5:40 I will just tempo the rest of it.  Between the heat and no taper I don't think it is worth it.  On a cold flat course well tapered I think I could go 17 flat now, but I have had several hard days recently trying to catch up the mileage from not running on sunday.

Did the outback steakhouse 5k. Time was 18:57. I didn't race the whole thing, but it was a very hard tempo run. How pathetic is that time? I went out with the leaders for a while but then dropped back a bit. They went through the first mile in 5:20 and I went through in 5:40 and I knew in that heat and humidity I didn't have a chance. So I settled into what I thought was a 6 minute pace. The course was a little strange though and although they had the half miles marked, I went through the second half mile (of the second mile) 20 seconds slower than the first half mile of the second mile, which I also though was slow. So the second 'mile' was like 6:25. I am pretty sure it was long. Then the third mile I felt like I slowed down because I was alone in 5th but went faster than the second mile. Anyway, it was a solid workout. But I don't want to think about the time. If the course was accurate, could the heat and humidity hurt that much? It was only 76 degrees actually. But it was 100% humidity with a very slight rain. Got the mileage in because of a 2.1 mile warmup and 3 separate cooldowns, lol. First one was 2 miles, then ran the course twice with different people while waiting for awards.

EDIT: Yeah, I just checked other race times and everybody did about 30 seconds slower at this race than on other harder courses when it was hotter. And those races are recent. So it must have been around 150m long.

7 easy miles.  Sore from the 5k?  I'm pathetic.

Easy run on the horse trails at Percy Warner park.  Didn't feel like running and put it off till late.  But once I got into the forest, I felt great.  I really notice the difference between long runs on pavement and trails after that 18 miler last week.  My hips hurt for days after that run and I couldn't comfortably use the full range of motion for my right hip.  It feels better now and I vow to get at least 50% of my miles on dirt even if it means fewer miles due to time constraints.

Did a workout on the local cross country course.  There is a 4k and 5k course and because there is a 4k race on this course next week we did that one.  We did one loop to warm up (and a little more because we took a wrong turn) and then planned to do 2 min hard, 2 min easy x8 but I was with Ted and he was doing 2:10-15 and I was always 15 seconds behind him so I finished strong to wherever he was.  And he started on the 2min mark.  So it ended up 2:25-2:30 hard x8 with 1:25-1:30 recoveries.  We did 2 loops of the course during the workout.  There was a doe and her two baby deer eating grass at one corner of the course.  They weren't scared of us at all and stayed throughout the run.  Afterwards we cooled down with another loop of the 4k.  It was dark by then but just light enough to see 4 big deer running across the course at an incredible speed.  It was a good workout especially because it got me away from worrying so much about the times that would have been bad on the track in this heat.

8.5 miles.  I felt like a douchebag because I left my sister's birthday party to go for a run.  And when I got back I couldn't drink liquor for a while because I was trying to rehydrate.  I think this elevates my running to disorder level.  When something gets to the point at which it interferes with your social and family life it is a disorder.

Wanted to try the daniel's type marathon workout on a smaller scale and in a fair setting. At this time of year in nashville, the only way to do that is to go indoors. Treadmills aren't fair in my opinion because unless you have a massive fan the windflow isn't the same. Goal paces were 6:45 for marathon pace and 6:00 for threshold.

2 miles warmup

2 miles marathon pace 6:40

1 mile threshold 5:59

2 miles marathon pace 6:42

1 mile threshold 5:58

2 miles marathon pace 6:39

1 mile threshold 5:53 (wanted it over at this point)

2 miles marathon pace 6:42 (wasn't a struggle to hit the time, I just wanted to stop)

1 mile cooldown

The first two sets of 2 miles MP 1 mile LT felt great. I was amazed at how well I recovered from the lactate threshold at marathon pace. After that it was a chore. It was mostly mentally difficult. Remember, I was on a 9.2 lap/mile track. So I did 119.6 laps and another 4 laps on the outdoor track. On a fairly flat road, I would add 5 seconds per mile. This type of workout is somewhat feasible, especially if there was any rest or recovery between marathon pace and threshold pace. But I don't think daniel's 18-20 mile workouts of mostly marathon pace mixed with threshold pace are doable unless you have better fitness than the paces you are using.

AM: 3 feel pretty beat up

PM: 7 felt good on treadmill then bad in the heat on the way home.

Freedom 5k: 18:42  All I can say for this race was that it was scenic (although I couldn't enjoy it because of the pain, I even had a hard time remembering the turns of the course trying to follow it on my cooldown) and not 100% humid (only 80%).  It was hotter than my last 5k and hillier than any 5k I have done.  I didn't register because it was a whopping 30 bucks for a race in a park which needed no police or anything.  I would have come in 9th.  This race was pretty stacked with several post collegiate runners and college runners.  I beat the first female by 20-30 seconds so it wasn't a total loss.  Also did 2 up and 10k (the course twice) down.

shameful... work got in the way

I can't decide whether to call this an easy workout or a difficult distance run.  I did 1 mile warmup then 2 miles marathon pace and 1 mile easy x4 then 1 more cooldown.  I did this on an indoor track because of the heat (high of 95 and still 89 at 8pm).  I don't know my paces because I didn't have my watch.  I am pretty sure I went faster on the marathon bits than the workout last week that was basically this with tempo miles in place of the recovery miles.  I wish it was still early and I could get a few more miles in today.  I couldnt stand the indoor track anymore though.  14 miles on a track is only acceptable because the alternative is filling my shoes with sweat in the first 5 miles of any run outside.  Tomorrow I will run 13-16 miles on trails.  I need to make up for missing sunday.  I was just too busy to run.  But I did my presentation today at work so that is over with.  However, my family still wants to spend lots of time with me as it is my last free summer in med school.  So it will be difficult getting in my miles for the rest of the summer (next 4 weeks).  Its funny that I have no problems getting any amount of running in during med school but I have problems getting my miles in during the summer.

Really bad chaffing from yesterday's run.  I didn't even realize how bad today's run was making it until around mile 7 (I was planning on doing 2 loops of an 8 mile trail).  This week of running really isn't going my way.  I don't know how the chaffing will be tomorrow.  I used some gold bond which seems to help the healing.

 The saving grace is that I actually needed an easy day but wasn't going to give it to myself because I want to hit 70 this week.  Yesterday I did that marathon pace workout and afterwards I did some plyometrics which made me sore.  Next week was a planned cut back week.  Maybe this week will be the cut back week and I will do 4 weeks of high mileage before the next cutback week.  Tomorrow is gonna be easy because thursday night there is a xc race in the area. 
 

13 miles very easy.  11 trails and 2 on roads.  It was planned as 12.5 all on trails but at 11 it got too dark and I had to walk a half a mile to a road and then it was 2 miles on the road to where I started.  This was the first enjoyable run this week.  Despite my chaffing yesterday a combo of gold bond, body glide, and a speedo (for support).  Runners are probably a bit too open but w/e.

Did the XC series put on by the nashville striders today. It was free! There was a cold front that came through last night, so it was a mild 85 at the start. I was late getting off work so I only had time for 10 striders before the race. Then I jumped in my car and tried to "pre-cool" by turning the AC on full blast because I read about it recently. It would have been better if I had some ice water to pour on my head. I have 2 pairs of cross country spikes and this was my first cross country race. I tried wearing them on trails before and it wasn't great. But on the dirt and grass path they were wonderful. They really gave me a ton more traction than trainers and were super light (5.4oz). It was apparent that all of the high school teams were there and a few college runners as well. But when we went out, nobody pushed the pace much. I would have gone out faster but would have felt silly out in front of these super skinny college runners. So I stayed right behind them and slowly most of the highschoolers fell off (but not all of them, darn them). At 1.5 miles a pack of 5 took off and I stayed back with another 8 or so runners. By mile 2 the chase pack was spreading out with 3 guys in front of me but still in range. With .5 to go there was a big downhill and I passed all 3 of the guys in front of me. After that I just kept it steady and almost caught the last guy from the lead pack but didn't. It was fun that it actually felt like a race whereas most road races feel like hundreds of concurrent time trials. I ended up with an 18:12 which I was pretty happy with considering my recent times in this heat and that this was a cross country course which was flat for half and hilly the other half. And almost all of the course as grass which is slow.  Also I wasn't tapered for this race.  Next week is my cut back week and I will be able to taper for it.  Hopefully I can go sub 18 if the weather is horrible.

So here are the things that were different from recent races that might have made the difference.

1. xc flats vs trainers

2. pre-cooling

3. less warmup

4. less humid, but hotter in the evening despite 'cold' front (they should have called it a less hot front)

5. evening race could have meant that I was more loose at the start

anyway, did course 2.5 times to cool down and get some miles in

easy run at home at night.  75 degrees!  

65 miles in 6 days (because I didn't run last sunday) is good enough for me. Next week is my planned cut back week, but I wonder if I should not hold back on that until my end of the summer family trip. I hate family trips, and this one promises to be especially painful. My mom wants to drive up to providence with me where we will meet my dad and drive on... to maine... Don't get me wrong, I like maine, but I don't like not being able to run or spending 25 hours in the car with my mother.

4 trails and 4 roads

Felt great.  I started out on my 8 mile trail loop very slow and after 2 miles I just couldn't hold back.  I averaged 7:15 for the 8 miles including the first 2 slow miles so I probably did sub 7 for most of it.  Then it was too dark for more trails so I hit the road for another 5.  I tried to go slow but did around 7:30's.  It was low 70's which is probably what made me feel so good.

12.5 on the trails of Percy Warner park.  Felt good (not as good as yesterday, but can't always have that).

8 miles after 4 beers.  Felt good and didn't loose my buzz, lol.

Easy run around nashville.  Found a good pair of sunglasses on the road.  Too bad I don't like wearing sunglasses.  Matt, if you are reading this, do you want them?  I don't see a brand, but they are reddish/maroon with good peripheral vision coverage.

8 around nashville.

9.75 around the farm.  Came home to alabama for a few days before heading up to maryland with the folks as a vacation stop along my way up to providence for the semester.

Cutback week.  Dunno what I will hit for the week.  And I don't really care.  I need the cutback week and I won't be able to run much on the vacation with my parents who dislike how much I run anyway.  It might be even lower than 40.. *cringe*  Probably I won't let that happen.

Legs feel good, but I feel fat.  I can't wait till next week when I regain control over my diet and schedule.

drove all day

8 on the AT in salem, VA.  Felt the altitude (only 3000ft) but otherwise was very enjoyable.

5 around the baltimore airport

8 miles around the chesapeake bay in annapolis

5 around the airport

I drove all day to get to providence, ri.  Then I did the 'haynes classic' training run.

First day of 2nd year of med school.  This week is very busy until wednesday.  Hopefully then I can get some real miles in.  And maybe a workout on friday!

8.7 on the haynes classic, One great thing about this course is that it is so versatile in the distance that you do.  I could do anywhere from 5 to 10 with very little repeat by adding on bits here and there.

Ran to the closest border with MA and back with a friend and then ran the haynes classic to get some real mileage.  I was hoping to do a real trail run today but it turns out I dont get wednesdays off until starting in 3 weeks.

red rooster ramble 5 miler as a tempo run. I did 30:56 (6:11 pace) and won. There was actually a pack for the first 2 miles and then one more guy stayed with me till mile 3 and then fell off.  I was a bit disappointed with this pace, but it wasn't really cold and its the fastest thing Ive done for 3 weeks.  I think it will come back and I will improve a bunch if I get some racing and vo2max work in.

went to gilbert hills and got a bit lost.  I meant to do 13.

5 on blackstone blvd

I havent been on the internet much lately and I just found out that matt is coming to this race tomorrow after all.  I am a little annoyed because I am totally not tapered and don't have a whole lot of speed or endurance right now.  All I have is pretty consistent mileage without a taper.  A goal of mine is to beat matt at one trail race this year, but its not gonna be this race.  I am gonna call which one, peak for it, taper, and go all out.

This was my first trail race after getting back to RI from spending the

summer in tennessee.  I was really not ready for it.  This race went

out and back over 4 mountains...  It was very rocky and rooty and the

climbs were only worse than the descents because they took slightly

longer.  I finished 5 minutes behind bedoukian which was pretty good

but only 5 minutes in front of sharkey which wasn't so great.  I ended

up running most of the first half with sharkey because I kept getting

lost and the pack behind me would catch up.  On top of that, I was

stupid and wore cross country flats which were horrible for the rocks

and I stubbed my toe so bad that it has been oozing puss for the past 2

days and I suspect I will lose it in 2 weeks or so.  I am sore although

not as sore as I thought I would be.  I hope that I am ok to do a

vo2max workout on wednesday or thursday.  Next saturday I will be doing

the wrentham 20k trail race which should be much easier in both

distance and terrain.

Meant to do 8 but ran with a friend who didn't want to do that much and I was a little sick and still sore from sunday.  This week I think I will only hit 55-60 because I will have 2 races and one speed workout. 

10.5 mile fartlek with 14 100m sprints.  I just wanted to make other fast paces feel slow.  I spread this evenly throughout the run so I had tons of rest.

I found a sweet dirt road that parallels a rail road track.  I couldnt follow it too much because it was dark with some tree cover and my friend who I was running with only wanted 5 miles.  It will feel good to crush him in the 5k in a few weeks.

Missed the 5 mile race because of activities fair for running club.  It ran over and I went out for a run (too sore for a workout) and a friend called me only 1/2 mile out wanting to go to a bar which I promised him I would do that night.  So I just went back then.  Lesson learned.

5 mile with the running club then 5.5 miles on my own.  

I felt horrible the whole race.  I was still sore from the race last week.  But my place and time weren't too bad.  The terrain was much easier than last weeks race but still had plenty of hills, rocks, and roots.  I also got lost several time despite the course being well marked.  There were so many flags in places that seemed obvious to me that twice I got to a tricky place and didn't know which way to go and thought I might have missed a turn earlier because most of it was so well marked.  So I ran back to the last flag, realized I was going in the right direction, had to guess at a fork and guessed right.  Another time I bushwacked a bit and ended back on the trail in the wrong direction which I realized pretty quickly.  Luckily nobody caught up to me in doing this and I passed someone while he was lost and didn't realize it until I finished and they said I got third!

It is a little bit sad, but I am pretty much gonna be road racing for the rest of the season.

 I plan to do a shake out 5 miles this evening

Went on a 40 mile bike ride.  I wanted to run later in the day but by 3pm I had a fever and by 8pm I was in bed shaking uncontrollably because of that fever only leaving to have large amounts of watery diarrhea.  So I'm gonna count my 40 miles on the bike as 13 miles easy running because it took longer and it was harder for me because I am not used to it.  The fever and diarrhea were not due to the ride, but a GI bug btw.  I am not that weak.

Although over most of the fever by 7am I was in no shape to run on monday.  I barely managed to walk the 5 minutes to get to my required class.  Still terrible diarrhea and badly dehydrated despite constantly forcing myself to drink electrolyte drinks.

Finally feeling better except slight diarrhea still.  Controllable though.  And I was able to rehydrate (I even felt thirsty which wasn't happening until this morning).  Was able to do the scheduled workout of 5x1km with 400m recovery.  Felt pretty good throughout and didn't push myself anaerobic except on the second one a little bit.  Times were 3:20, 3:18, 3:21, 3:21, 3:25 (I could have hit pace for the last one but didn't want to go anaerobic so I just chilled a bit).

On the plus side, 3 guys and 3 girls came out for the workout (I run a little running club at my school which just started its workouts for the season).  It was a decent turnout considering that it was raining.  And 2 of the guys were a bit slower than me but solid and one guy ran a 2:01 800 in HS.  He just stuck with me until the last one in which he took off with a 3:09.  He isn't in 2:01 shape now, but if he trained seriously he should be able to crack that 2 barrier or at least run some great mile times.

Did the haynes classic with some pretty speedy guys from the running club. The pace started around 8 and slowly dropped until probably about 6:40. Then going up lloyd hill we chilled a bit but not as much as I wanted. My left leg for some reason was feeling yesterday's workout more than I would have liked it to. I was planning on a tempo workout of 4x2km right at 6min pace tomorrow but I might just coach the workout and run easy distance afterwards.

Did a lactate threshold workout today.  4x2km with 400m recovery.  Times were 7:26 7:25 7:21 7:18 So starting at 5:56 pace and ending at 5:50 pace.  Felt good even easy.  The last 400m of the last one we kicked in a bit at 84 nothing crazy.  Had tons left but was happy to be done.  Now I have two easy days and then the 30k road race.  This race will be a real indicator for my marathon.  But I am not going to go 100% because I mean who cares about 30k race times?  I am doing this for a quality long workout.  I wish the marathon was in november though.  I am feeling like I am on the cusp of getting 'it' back but could ride that improvement wave for almost 2 months before really peaking.  Oh well, I will work with what I've got. 

Attempted to find a good 2 bridge run but the dirt road ended sooner than I thought and we ended up running on massive gravel next to the railroad tracks which wasn't fun.

10.5 very slow on the bike path.

 The pre-marathon diet began last friday but I didn't weigh in because my scale was still packed in the trunk of my car.  Today I unpacked it and after lunch today I dialed in at 161!  That means that I am already probably sub 160 in the morning when I would usually weigh myself.  My goal is to be about 155 for the marathon.  That should make 3-5 minutes difference from my summer weight of 165.

Conditions: Rainy, 66-70 degrees

Course: hilly miles 1-14 then 4.74 miles flat along the coast

 Splits were 6:45 (mostly slight uphill), 6:12 (downhill was steep), 6:34 rolling, 6:24 rolling, 6:29 rolling, 6:33 rolling,6:51 hill, 6:28 rolling, 6:27 rolling, 6:35 rolling, 6:51 hill, 6:42 rolling (started to feel my legs here), 6:39 (rolling), 6:51 (bit of a hill),6:41 flat, 6:46 flat, 6:49 flat, 6:58 flat but with headwind, 4:31(6:04 pace) kicked it in a bit

Miles 1-5 were pretty uneventful.  Felt like 6:30 pace was a jog.  Mile 3 I picked up the effort a little to catch and run with a group for a while.  This ended when my shoe came untied at mile 5.  Then I latched on to this guy who passed me while I retied my shoe.  We stayed together till mile 13.  A group caught us and passed us but we kept a fairly even effort in the rolling hills.  The group that passed us around mile 9 included the winning female.  That bugged me, but she was really good.  I consoled myself with the fact that I could beat her at the mile and 5k most likely.  I dropped the guy I was running with in the final hill of the course and he never made up the gap.  At this point my legs were feeling pretty stiff.  They weren't that tired, but the pounding (especially the downhills) took its toll.  I was already pretty happy with my performance so I just rolled in without undue strain until the last half mile or so in which I decided to kick it into another gear.  I probably could have done 6:15 pace for the last 3-4 miles because aerobically I wasn't working and I had glycogen because I had been eating honey.  Its just that the motivation wasn't there.  Oh well, this wasn't a goal race for me, just good training.  And the course was a bit long, like 200m.  Afterwards I took a dip in the ocean to ice my legs for 15 min.  It wasn't super cold, but its what I had.

So what does this mean for my marathon.  Well, I still have time to train, and what I learned from this is that the cumulative pounding on asphault makes a given pace more difficult later in the race.  So I am going to make sure I get several 20+ milers on the road before the marathon to get used to the pounding.  I also plugged my time into mcmillan's running calculator and it said I could expect a 2:57:32, so although not much room for error, at least I am not already behind the ball and this course was pretty hilly which my  marathon is not.  I also need to get in the proper vo2max and threshold work such that I actually peak for the marathon as opposed to just running it off base training.  I am not afraid of the glycogen wall anymore, now I am afraid of the asphault wall (or hill perhaps, as it doesn't destroy you all at once like the glyco wall, but gradually makes you stiff such that a given pace is more difficult to maintain).  We will see what I can put together for the half marathon in two weeks.  I think I can manage about 6:20 pace which would put me just under 1:23.  I think my goal will be breaking 1:23.

Objective: Active recovery from sunday race

Did the haynes classic training run with dan (2:01 800m runner) and will.  Dan wanted to push but luckily I had my garmin and told him I wasn't going under 8 and really wanted to keep it above 8:15 because of my race yesterday.  I am only really sore around my groin muscles (hip adductors).  So that is good, but I would rather not be sore at all.  This is the kind of sore that might keep going for several days.  I just hope it doesn't hurt my workouts on wednesday and friday.  

Objective met.

Objective: more active recovery from sunday race

Haynes classic training route.  I am really glad that I didn't have a workout scheduled for today.  I really needed the recovery.  I started out slow and when it felt uncomfortable I slowed down.  I didn't have my gps with me but I bet I was going like 9 to 9:30.  I wasn't sore I just felt sluggish.  Tomorrow I have a vo2max workout.  I am not sore so my legs should be fine.  But I don't know if I will be fully recovered aerobically to hit the times I want.  We will see.  Its not a workout you can really force.

objective met

3x5x400 with 100m recovery between 400's and 400m recovery between sets.  Times were something like 75, 80, 79, 80, 80, 79, 78, 80, 80, 75, 76, 78, 80, 81, 81.  Nobody wanted to do a 4th set and I had hit several of them too fast so I decided to call it a day.  Did some abs and then 4 miles warmdown because I saw a friend who was just heading out for 4 easy.  Lost my keys beside the track though.  Hopefully I will find them tomorrow in the light.

Ran the downtown 5k course and a bit around campus.  I lost my keys at the hope high track yesterday so I went back there in the daylight to see if I could find them.  Someone definitely took them because I know where I put them.  How lame is that?  What are they gonna do with my stupid keys?  Was gonna go further but I got frustrated looking for my keys and just ran back after that.  I don't need the mileage right now anyway.  I have a workout tomorrow and will use the downtown 5k this weekend in place of a vo2max workout as well.  I will probably hit 70 despite only 6 today.  Next week I will hit only 50 probably because I will want to taper properly for the half.  Workouts will be tenuous.  I want to do a 20+ miler sometime next week but all I can imagine doing is the 5k on sunday, and a long run on tuesday or wednesday because the half is on saturday.  Maybe I should do one of those crazy long runs that incorporated some threshold and marathon pace work.  I also have friends in town on tuesday and one of them will want to run with me.  So the workout will have to be wednesday.  Ok, to the planning.  2 miles warmup sounds good.  Then 2 miles at marathon pace followed by 1 mile at threshold and 1 mile easy x 5 = 22 miles.  If I have to cut the last set of fast running and just jog it in that is fine, but I will go 11 miles out so I have no choice but to get back somehow.

3x2 miles at threshold pace.

11:48 (5:54), 11:46 (5:53), 11:32 (5:46)

Pretty much a breakthrough workout for me.  I didn't struggle at all.  I can feel my left achilles and my right hamstring a bit now but during the workout they were fine.  A 14:50 guy came out to do the workout with us and after walking through the first one in 11:15 he decided to make it his business to string me along.  In the second one he let me pull us through 5:58 in mile one and then took the lead and pulled me to a 5:48.  And then in the third rep he took the lead after the second lap which was already 5:45 pace and kept us about there.  I kept thinking despite feeling relaxed that I might blow up.  But it didn't happen and I felt like I could have done another 3 at 5:54 pace.  One thing was that is was the first legitamately cold workouts of the season at 55 degrees.  I hope that the half marathon is like that or even colder.  If 5:54 is really my threshold then I should be able to do 6:10 pace for the half which would be high 1:20.  And while I am dreaming big, 6:06 pace is sub 1:20.  If I extend my speed fairly well and continue to see training benefits I just might be able to do that.  But for now I need to focus on the 5k this weekend.  While it is not a goal race of mine, it looks like I can PR, so I will shoot for about 17:15.

This was pretty stupid.  I meant to go for an 'easy' 13 with a guy from the running club.  But this guy is the same guy who pushed the pace below 7 on a run 2 weeks ago.  I needed to recover from the workout yesterday, but instead we averaged 6:52 pace for 13.1 miles.  And it wasn't a very even pace either.  We started out at 7:15 and then slowly dropped it over 10 miles to 6:40 and then slowed a bit to 6:50, 7:05, and 7:15 for the last mile which is mostly a hill.  I am glad that I can keep this sort of pace the day after a workout, but it isn't good training.  I guess daniels says that marathon pace can be substituted for easy pace occaisionally.  So hopefully it wont hurt me in the long run, just for tomorrow's 5k which I was already running through in a serious way.

4 second PR.  Bad time considering the quality of workouts I have been doing, but good time considering no taper and 74 degree weather.  First mile got stuck in the crowd and still went 5:24, second mile went through at 11:03 so that mile was 5:39 and went through mile 3 at 16:58 so that mile was 5:55 lol.  Those splits are horrible.  I felt bad right off the gun.  I thought about dropping out of the race in the first 200m (I usually think about it at some point, but not in the first 200 usually).  I only thought I could do fairly well when I saw my first mile split.  On a cold course had I been tapered I could have held that pace, but I had do play the cards that were dealt and that I dealt myself (through not tapering).  The first mile is slightly downhill and the second and third miles have some slight uphills but nothing on that scope.  I think seeing my splits I allowed myself to slack off a bit in miles 2 and 3 because I knew I was gonna PR.  The heat affected me a lot as well.  I know I am just making excuses but I think they are legit.  I trained through this race and payed for it, but I PR'ed despite that because thats where my fitness is.  I would give myself 15 seconds for the heat and another 15 for no taper.  So I plan to go 16:55 by the end of the season.  There were 3000 people in this race along with 55 elites so I was pretty happy to finish top 100.  It was the 5k road national championship and I stretched right next to shalane flanagan and some of the other elites.  I even accidentally got in her way when she was leaving for her warmup.  Maybe I will post a 'missed connection'... I think we had a moment.  j/k

5 on blackstone and then 2 with some med school friends.  The 5 were at a good pace with some striders thrown in but the 2 were like 10 min miles and then we walked another mile because one guy got a stomach ache.  Some people are just not very hard core.  And this guy is like 5'7" 135lb.  If I had his BMI I would run 15:30 for the 5k.  But I guess you can't control stomach problems all the time either.  Might go out for another run later.  Haven't decided yet.  I don't think I need the miles, but after my exam this morning I don't have anything to do (because all I do is study and run).

 PM: 7.3 including 3.2 at 6:40 pace (was running with some girls who were doing a tempo run).  Didn't mean to go quite so far or so fast but I felt good the whole time.

5x1k 3:18, 3:20, 3:20, 3:19, 3:19

effort was less than previous workouts and times were better so I was happy about that.  I was planning on doing a long run today but all of my undergrad friends were in town for 1 day yesterday AND I was done with my cardio exam so I had to party.  Of course I overdid it and was hungover most of the day.  By the time I felt good enough to run it was too late to run and be back in time to coach the workout (I am the president of the running club so I needed to be there) so I decided to just run the workout instead.  It was a solid workout.  I think previous workouts I was pushing too hard.  This one felt just right.  I didn't have to go anaerobic to hit my times.  Usually I really have to push the last 200m but this time I just cruised it.

5 easy at lunch

8.6 easy on the haynes classic (I do this route differently every time now, if I don't bring my gps I only know it is somewhere between 7.8 and 9 miles, this time I brought the gps)

Probably shouldn't have doubled, but didn't have much to do today and felt good.  Tomorrow I will do an easy 5 and a lot of stretching.  Everything feels good except the past two days I have had a sore throat.  It seems to be gone this afternoon but sore throats often are worst in the morning.  Hopefully I am dodging a bullet but who knows.  On the other hand if I got sick and lost 5lb I might lose the half marathon but win the marathon (winning and losing is only vs. bedoukian... I need to get a new rival but Ive never met anyone with so similar fitness to me).

coached a workout and did the warmup/cooldown and striders

Not the best start to the day.  Got ridiculously lost on the way to the race and despite planning on getting there 1 hr ahead of time we got there 7 min before the race started.  I did not get a chance to use the restroom or do much warmup.  Once the race started I felt great.  The first 2 miles were downhill and we did something like 6:06 and 6:15.  There were about 5 of us in a pack behind the 2 leaders who went out in probably something like 5:20.  We were trying to hold back and did to a great extent, there was some major altitude loss in those miles.  In fact the whole first half was slightly downhill and the entire second half was slightly uphill (until the last mile which was significantly uphill).  Nothing of note happened until mile 6.  Those miles went like 6:21, 6:18, 6:24.  Then at mile 6 there was an aid station that had gu's.  I wanted one but bedoukian grabbed the one I was going for so I grabbed another one but didnt quite get a hold of it so after a few seconds of juggling it without quite getting it I dropped it and decided to stop and get it.  It took me only 20 seconds to catch the pack but it winded me a bit.  I concentrated on relaxing and once I felt good I took the gel.  That mile still went 6:24.  Then we hit the turnaround.  Without talking about it we picked up the effort a bit because it was now slightly uphill and we all wanted to average around 6:20.  We did 6:16, 6:21, 6:18, 6:24.  The pack stayed together until mile 8 when we lost 2 guys.  At mile 10 I decided to show my cards because I knew that the last mile was significantly uphill and I am a bad climber.  I moved ahead of bedoukian and the other guy with a 6:15 mile 10.  I knew that it was uphill because I was feeling good and pushing but the times weren't that good.  It felt like a training run until mile 10.  I felt like I could kick the last 5k in at 19 flat on a flat course.  Then mile 12 was more uphill and I was starting to feel my legs a bit-6:20.  Then mile 13 despite pushing as hard as I could with the other guy only 10 seconds behind me I only managed a 6:53.  Luckily he was hurting as much as I was.  When I saw the top I almost hoped that he would catch me just as we crested the hill because he was 50 something and I am 23 and I knew I had tons more speed than him.  But he didn't.  It leveled out for the last 300m and I kicked it in.  I am pretty happy with the time.  It was 65 with 97% humidity which was not even a little bit cold.  And the course was not "fast" as advertised though not very slow either.  In 50 degree dry weather on a flat course I know I could have kicked it in under 1:23.  And I am happy with 3rd place for sure.  Number 1 went 1:19 and 2nd went 1:21 so I had no chance of catching them although both blew up pretty bad.  They just had that much time to spare.  And I beat bedoukian which is always a plus.  Of course he always beats me in trail races (by more than I beat him in road races) but at least I am successfully defending my nitch.
Oh yeah, and I have a cold with a stuffy nose.  Not that bad but when making an all out effort it can't help... Man I am the king of excuses.

5 on blackstone.  I feel really good.  Not sore at all.  Right hip was a little stiff but that was it.  It loosened up after the first little bit.  All I can think about is the marathon.  But I am not nervous.  I finally feel like I know what to expect and how to deal with it.

Yup, thats right, 4 miles.  I hate the taper.  Tomorrow I am doing 9 with some friends w/a bit at MP so I decided today needed to be super easy.  But in the 30+ minutes that I am not running

Did the haynes classic training run with 4-6 striders on slight downhills.  Run felt good.  I feel rested and im only 3 days into my taper.  Tomorrow I will do some mile repeats on the track but im not gonna go crazy with them.  Just 5:36 pace.  I do most of my vo2max work at 5:20 pace but its sometimes difficult to keep up for 1k's so its probably too fast.  We will see how this change in workout methodology goes.  Its probably gonna be too easy.  My 5k pace is 5:38 but I am sure that I could go 16:55 tapered now (5:27 pace).  If the first 2 feel too slow I will finish it up in 5:28-30.

3x1mile with 400m recovery

5:31

5:32

5:40

I meant to do 5:36 for all of them but I couldn't hold back.  Then at the same effort the pace dropped.  Oh well, still probably effected by the half marathon.  I could have hit the last mile faster but I didn't want to push it and I still averaged faster than planned.

Blackstone + some trails for a pit stop.

4x2km w/400m recovery

7:21 (faster than I wanted to go)

7:24 (better, but still too fast)

7:20 (felt easier than the last one so I didn't stop it)

7:05 (kicked it in a bit, ok a little more than a bit, but still felt good)

Tried out some new shoes-the nike luna racers.  5.5oz but still have tons of cushioning.  I like how the st3 racers fit better but do I like them 2.3oz per foot better?  Not sure yet.

Went up to Gilbert hills and did a trail run.  Went really slow.  Seems like a short distance but spent 2 hrs running so I didn't want to do any more given that the marathon is just over a week away.  I think I am gonna change my workout schedule as well to perhaps 2 marathon pace runs of 5-8 miles just to feel the pace for a while.  I think that the early pace is crucial to success and we can't afford hitting 6:40 flat for more than 1 mile or hitting 6:55's or 7:00's in the middle miles.  My natural pacing would probably be something like 6:40's until mile 10 and then slowing to 7's until 20 or so and then not being able to speed up when I should because of the fast first half.

Did 3x2 miles at marathon pace just to get used to the pace.  I knew from the start that it would be a exercise in holding back (which the first 15 or so miles of the marathon also will be).  

Basically hit 6:48 pace the whole time.  It was extremely easy.  I wouldn't really call it a workout, but at least I can't say my taper wasn't good enough.

Wasn't gonna run today, but it got to be 9pm and I didn't really have anything to do and the day didn't seem complete.  I really won't run on saturday, but I figured this wouldn't hurt.  I ended up running 6:45 pace with almost no effort.  My usual 8min/mile doesn't seem like moving in this weather (cold).  I will be sure to have several easy easy days before the marathon.  

My last "workout" before the marathon.  I didn't break this one up into parts, just ran it.  Went to the hope high track.  I am a little concerned that my GPS (garmin 405) is inaccurate.  It was (and has done this in the past too) overestimating the distance by a significant margin.  I ran 24 laps (less than 6 miles really) and it clocked it at 6.10. That is almost a minute off.  The half marathon course clocked in at 13.15 which I was not concerned about because the tangents could account for that much over 13.1 miles.  The 30k I ran a while back clocked 18.74 (.1 over the 18.64 that makes up 30km), still not THAT significant over 18 miles.  But it is definitely more inaccurate on the track.  We will just have to not entirely rely on my watch, but also on the mile markers and time for the marathon.

Coached a workout and did the warmup/cooldown/striders and even drills with them because it was our first real speed workout of the season.  Finished a few of the sets with people which were basically more striders for me except one 200 in 34 trying to pull henry to a 69 400 in his last rep (I wanted him to do controlled speed but he was going all out, so when he hit a few 70's I figured why not build some confidence by getting him to break 70 but it didn't work, he hit 70 again).  Then I did one mile in 6:30 and warmed down with the group.  

Didn't run.

Ran a workout... with the girls.  Most of it was around 6:30 pace but in 400's.  Felt good, no running tomorrow.  Then the marathon.  The weather is looking better now.  Looks like it will be 47-48 at the start and 57-58 at the end.  Just about perfect.  I might need gloves (but no shirt).

Short story: Goal met! Chip time of 2:57:53 went in right with bedoukian (he beat me although same chip time).  We pretty much needed each other to go that fast.  More to come later (after a bath, some ibuprofen, and a beer).

Night before: Ate at ihop a large thing of french toast and hash browns, then went to get a pizza lol and I ate 1/3 of that (bedoukian ate a full half of it).  Got horrible sleep, but in a hotel, the night before a marathon it wasn't too too bad.

Pre-race morning: Up at 5:30 Ate muffin, bagel, 2 cups coffee went to start around 7:30.  Temps were about 47 at start, perfect.  But it heated up quickly (probably my only slight complaint for the whole day).

Race started at 8:30, bedoukian and I trashed our shirts, and it was on.  I took my honey/coffee mixture pretty regularly and consumed 700-800 calories of it total plus probably 100 calories of gatorade at the aid stations.

Splits (I was using half mile auto lap on my garmin so this is gonna get complicated

1: 3:27.4, 3:25.1 : 6:52.5 conservative first few miles

2: 3:24.9, 3:29.6 : 6:54.5

3: 3:19.6, 3:15.6 : 6:35.2 downhills

4: 3:21.7, 3:14.6 : 6:36.3

5: 3:26.2, 3:12.9 : 6:39.1

6: 3:27.6, 3:26.8 : 6:54.4 ran with some other people wanting to go sub 3

7: 3:23.1, 3:25.2 : 6:48.3

8: 3:23.8, 3:24.1 : 6:49.9 decided to ditch them

9: 3:21.0, 3:25.6 : 6:46.6

10: 3:22.8, 3:31.2 : 6:54.0 dont know why these miles were slow, didn't feel slow but didn't hurt either maybe slightly rolling hills (but only to a person used to running downhill at this point)

11: 3:31.5, 3:14.0 : 6:54.5

12: 3:26.8, 3:25.3 : 6:52.1

13: 3:18.1, 3:28.9 : 6:47.0 (hit the half at 1:28:47)

14: 3:20.4, 3:42.7 : 7:03.1 (both bedoukian and I stopped to poop at different locations and although I was faster, bedoukian caught me very quickly which was good)

15: 3:24.5, 3:21.8 : 6:46.3

16: 3:26.4, 3:22.5 : 6:48.9

17: 3:16.1, 3:20.9 : 6:37.0 from here to 21 I started pushing it

18: 3:21.1, 3:19.0 : 6:40.1

19: 3:25.2, 3:21.0 : 6:46.2

20: 3:23.5, 3:18.0 : 6:41.5

21: 3:23.8, 3:24.0 : 6:47.8

22: 3:28.3, 3:22.2 : 6:50.5 we both started hurting on this mile, was definitely the longest feeling mile of the race

23: 3:26.1, 3:24.6 : 6:50.7 right hip flexor not working right, shortening stride significantly

24: 3:28.9, 3:30.0 : 6:58.9 left quad beginning to fail/sieze up

25: 3:27.7, 3:23.6 : 6:51.3 continuation of previous pain but pushing effort (if not pace) nonetheless

26: 3:30.7, 3:20.4 : 6:51.1 went through several stages of feeling good/wanting to die, yeah you know what I am talking about

26.2: 1:05 (5:25 pace) bedoukian realized we could break 2:58 if we floored it, hit a half-runner as I was doing my final surge 20m from the finish, bedoukian probably could have outkicked me if he wanted here because this person cut me off.

Incredibly my garmin actually said 26.20 miles right at the finish.

 Overall I would say quite even splits. First half was in 1:28:47 and the second was 1:29:05 which included at least a 15 second poo break including slowing down, pooping, and speeding up again... yes I am that fast.  Who knows what would have happened had bedoukian and I not run together the whole time.  I was wanting to surge at mile 20 seeing people we could pass (all of whom we did eventually pass anyway).  But then towards the end I was probably dieing more than he was.  I think that he would have beaten me even if I had surged at 20 like I wanted to.  Without the support I would probably have done miles 24, 25, and 26 around 7:30 pace.  So I think we have answered the question on endurance vs. speed on the road for us.  It falls very close to the marathon.  I am pretty confident that I would have won a 23 mile race, probably 24, and bedoukian probably would win a 25M race or above.

Went out with the hash hound harriers. Was pretty stiff at first but quickly loosened up. My left quad and my right hamstring are a bit sore, but nothing to write home about.

Feeling pretty good once I loosened up.  Still a bit sore.  No wonder since my left quad was about to fail for the last 3 miles of the marathon.  Meant to keep it a little slower than 7's but I ran into the brown xc team and didn't want them to pass me on their next lap of blackstone blvd (a road with a sort of park in the median with a dirt path) so I picked it up.  Then when I saw I was going 6:30 or faster I tried slowing down.  It didn't work.  So 6:30 pace 2 days after the marathon.  Why?  Not sure.  All I know is that I really wasn't struggling.

AM: 6 at 6:50 pace with jordan.  I can still feel the marathon in me, but I am already really wanting to get back to training.  I should probably recover more.  But I will make this week and maybe next week fairly low mileage.

PM: Wasn't stupid, didn't do the 400 workout I planned for my club.  Instead I just did warmup/cooldown and striders with them and coached the workout.  Did 2 400s with the girls in 88 and 84.  I thought the worse problem was my left quad, but my right hamstring is turning out to be the one that hurts when I run.  I think one of the striders might have pulled it a bit.  It felt bad during the warmdown.  I am not running with anyone tomorrow, so if it hurts at all when I start I will just bag the run.

AM: 5.63 at 7min pace.  Funny, I had 1.5 beers last night before bed and this morning the 7 pace felt almost like tempo.  It was tough.  I think I am gonna limit alcohol to 2-3 drinks on 1 night of the week.

 PM: rest probably