Liftoff

AM: 10 very relaxed and easy miles, 7 of them with my wife, which is sadly very rare. We had a babysitter this morning.

AM: 8 miles.

PM: 6 miles at lunch with Quint.

Shifting gears. With the 10k and 15k in the rearview mirror, my training for the next 6 weeks is focused on a mile road race and track 5000.

Main St. Mile - 4 weeks away: I ran this last year in 4:45, which I didn't feel was a good performance. This year, I'm planning to focus on mile training for the next 3 weeks and do my best to get under 4:35.

Florida Beach Halfathon - Day after Main St. Mile. The reason this race is on my calendar is that it's last in a series I started last fall. There is some decent money for top 5 finishers. I currently hold the #2 spot. I'm hoping just to hold my place in the standings. Not a goal race.

Carlsbad 5000 - I really wanted to run this, but some of my relatives are out of town that weekend, so I had to reschedule my trip to CA.

Ryan McCall Open Track Meet (5000 meters) - 7 weeks out. I really want to run a 5k before the heat sets in, and this is probably a little late, but it's the best thing for my schedule.

I have a reasonable sense for 5k - marathon training, but much less experience training specifically for the mile.  I'm always open to suggestions/criticism/random ideas - I would really love to hear about any workouts that have really helped runners in the late stages of gearing up to run a mile.

AM: 6 miles, super foggy morning.

PM: 9 miles at track. Workout was 7 x 1000 with 200 rest.

I've recovered better from the past race than the 10k, but I still wasn't ready for a full workout today. I took it by feel, starting around 5:40 pace and working down. I felt better as the workout went on.

1. 3:28
2. 3:32
3. 3:24
4. 3:23
5. 3:17
6. 3:13
7. 3:06

AM: 7 miles.

PM: 7 miles at lunch with Quint and Josh.

AM: 7 miles.

PM: 8 miles.

An interesting and frank conversation with Quint at lunch, which really started a couple days ago at track with Lee. In a nutshell, both guys have told me they think my races this winter are underperformances.

The thinking is that I race too conservatively, not really finding another gear beyond what I have established in workouts. The workouts I did that were most specific to my races this winter were:

• 10k: 3x2 miles, averaged ~5:21. Couple weeks later averaged 5:21 in a 10k.
• 15k: 5 mile tempo, averaged ~5:28. My 15k pace was 5:28.
• 1/2: 2 weeks out ran 8 miles @ 5:35, averaged 5:36 for 13.1

If anything, my serious track workouts are more skewed, where I run sub 5:00 pace for most repeats. That said, my best distance is probably 5k, so shorter reps are more a strength than say, marathon pace.

I'm a little divided. On one hand, I'd love to think that with some minor tweaks I could be running at a higher level. I do think there is plenty to think about in terms of what they're saying.

On the other hand, I'm comfortable with my approach, which is pretty good at predicting what will happen, and arriving at incremental improvments. I guess the question is whether I'm artificially limiting myself, or am I just dialed in to what I can reasonably do?

AM: 12 miles. After discussion with Coach Joe, I decided to attempt .75 on the road at target mile pace. I wanted to have a sense for how that would feel, to help decide if it was worth spending a couple weeks training for Main St. Mile.

Pulled the plug at .35. I think it will be fun to chase this goal at some point in the future, but I am going to need more than 2 weeks to ramp up to it. By deciding to skip the mile race, I can focus more on my last two races of the spring.

After this misadventure, I met up with a group of friends training for Boston and we ran 6 miles together at their MP. That was more fun.

PM: 6 miles at lunch with Quint, mostly easy, but 1 at 5:30 for no good reason.

AM: 8 miles.