The Renegade

One more day off to top off the small break, just for good measure. My shins feel a lot better though.

Tough run today. I jogged a half mile while I waited for coach to show up and he got there and we stretched, ran to the dump road, and then did a bunch of dynamic stretches. It was just me and coach, so he paced me. 3 mile today, just like a few weeks ago. I'll lay the splits down first. 

3 miles- 3:17, 3:02, 3:27, 3:11, 3:26, 3:21 / Avg. 800- 3:17 / Avg. Mile- 3:34  

Total: 19:45

So after that first mile, I fell hard because it really put me in the hole. I can't believe I ran a 3:02 in a tempo, because that's what I was averaging in 800 reps last month. So not a good idea. And I was the one wearing the GPS watch so I should've payed more attention. I really started to hit that wall halfway through, so most of it sucked really bad. I ended up way over my lactic threshold, seeing that my legs were completley filled with that nasty stuff by mile 3. It's just weird to think that that hurt worse than a race and I was racing 17:50 for the same distance last cross season. I geuss theres a difference between feeling good and going fast and feeling good because your going easy. Different kind of fitness too. At one point we were running at a 7:05 pace, and that's really demoralizing because I remember going sub-7 on easy runs in the summer with Mark and feeling good. I geuss the three day break could've done something to me also.

Anyways we ran back and did some 100m strides with 300m jogs in 14.7, 14.7, 14.76, and 14.6. Really slow and sluggish on the jogs, and the strides were basically all out. Then we did some hip drills and hit the weight room, where I did some more reps and sets than usual, mainly because I was angry about the workout. 

Close to an hour easy on the CT-CS-RH loop. (too lazy to write it all out,) I felt tired, but I ame into this week just knowing that it was going to be tougher, even with lower mileage. I started to feel okay once it turned doenhill, as always. 4x100m strides on the turf barefoot after.

Big workout today. 1.5 miels warming up, lots of stretching, and then the prescribed workout was as follows:

(2x1600m @ 6:30pace w/ 400m jog in 3 min rest) + full recovery +  (3x800m @ 3:00pace w/ previous rest) + full recovery + (3x200m @ chosen pace w/ 200m jog in a 90 sec rest) 

Data

Mile #1 400 splits- 92, 96, 98, 97 / Time- 6:23

Mile #2 (forgot split buttton) Time- 6:22

800s- 2:56, 2:53, 2:51

200s- 29.89, 31.36, 29.62

So I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, and it probably took from my workout a bit, but ti's fine. The miles were slower than I've done for some of the 2 mile tempos and they didn't feel as good, but I was tight. Then for the 800s it was nice to push it and go a little faster. I'm glad I was able to run them so fast, and they didn't feel too bad either. I could feel a big blister forming under my left foot, and it was kind of weird because I've been running on those shoes for every workout since january and never had a problem and they're not worn out because they only have 40 miles on them. I change into my spikes for the 200s. The first one actually felt pretty controlled so it surprised me that it was a sub-30 because I don't run a lot of those. I noticed that the spikes felt a little too big, something I didn't realise before even racing in them. There seems to be too much extra space in front of the toe, but it should be okay, they just don't feel as fast as they should. After that I realised I had to go so I did an extremely short cooldown. 

Good recovery run. I did some loops on grass fields in nearby parks so most of my running was on soft surfacces. Afterwards I did some short strides.

Ran the Deer Fence trail in the late afternoon. It was kind of windy but once you get running it isn't cold at all. I didn't feel too good until the last 2.5 miles maybe on the way back. I went further than I ever have before on it, and that's to the bottom of the huge downhill slope and then turning around. It was not fun going up that, since I was running 9:30 pace at best. Then after I crossed the road again and got up the hill over Providence, I felt pretty good. It seems like even when I'm having a sucky run on this trail, I always start to feel quicker on the way back, and it's more uphill than going south. My blister got worse throughout the run, and after being still for a while and getting my haircut, I could hardly walk on it. Also my right leg feels worse. I wish I would've iced it more this week, but I'll do that a lot more from now on. I'm just really worried I'll have to take a another break that's bigger this time and loose all of my momentum going into outdoor.