14.3 in gilbert hills state park, give me 5 more runs in there and I will start to figure it out. With all the leaves on the ground now everything looked different and I got lost several times and ended up doing 3 or 4 mini loops. Jamie from the running club came with me.
Now this is a reasonable distance. The marathon is too long. I felt good after this run, and progressively increased the pace during the last 40 minutes (130 minutes total). I looked at the indoor track calendar at the usatfne site and there are a bunch of open events. I am really tempted to do indoor track. But if I do I should really wrap up my fall season soon, take a good 2 weeks off with cross training, and then start training fresh for the indoor season. I should ask people how this generally goes. The first possible race I would want to do would be december 8th at harvard. Then the 13th and 20th there are developmental meets at brown. I should probably just wait for the races in january and february or skip it all together and just do spring track (for which there are far fewer open meets).
AM: 5.15 at 7:10 pace. Was super cold compared to what it has been but I need to get used to it. It was only 40 but the wind chill was in the low 30's. I guess mornings also feel colder because your system isn't ramped up yet. At mile 3 after the first real hill I felt pretty warm. Luckily my morning group meets at a place that I can see from inside the lobby of the computer science building. I think we will naturally start meeting inside from now on. Pace felt brisk but not taxing. 7:30 is definitely more recovery-pace for me right now, but I was cold so I kept pushing the pace until I wasn't cold, and then I held it there.
PM: speed workout 1.25 up, drills, striders, 3x(200,400,600,400,200) with 200m recovery between workbouts and 400m recovery between sets -- all at mile race pace. I made up this workout and it didn't sound so hard, but it was just on the edge of what I could do at 5min pace. Times were as follows 37,75,1:50,75,37,37,72,1:53,76,37,36,76,1:52,75,36 It was pretty windy so the ones that missed the mark I am gonna say were the gusty ones. For instance the 72 felt easier than the 76's and the 1:50 felt easier than the other 600's that were slower, but perhaps thats because it was early in the workout. Basically 5min pace feels ridiculously fast to me right now. That is fine. This race in two weeks is a downhill mile and all I really want is to break 5 minutes so that I don't embarrass myself. I think from this workout today I know I could break 5 in a race situation tapered without a headwind. Two more weeks and no more workouts for a month or two.
AM: 5.7 at 7:20 pace. I am gonna run with the girls in tonight's
workout because I want to be very fresh for sunday's race (mayors cup
for those of you who have heard of it). I am doing the 8k and am
almost certain I can break 29... probably faster so like 28:30 is my
goal which is 5:44 pace. On the track a few weeks ago I had a workout
of 3x2miles in which I hit something like 5:54 pace for the first set,
5:50 pace for the second set, and 5:45 for the third set. I wasn't
struggling to do that so if I am actually in the same shape as I was
then I should be able to hold a little better than that for 8k. We
will see.
PM:
4x2km at 6min pace with 200m recoveries. No girls showed up for the
workout so I went ahead and did the workout with henry. But I kept it
steady and relaxed if not comfortable (the english language is not
robust enough to describe different aerobic efforts). Basically I
think I could have hammered out 5:50's but I saved myself a bit because
of the race on sunday.
AM: 5.2 at 7:30 pace. Meant to go slower but this almost felt like a stumble until the last half mile downhill that I let loose a bit. I know I am still not fully recovered from the marathon yet, but I still think I can go sub 29 in the 8k tomorrow.
