The Renegade

Once again, I slept in for xc, so I decided to maybe go do a track workout since the field is finished. That didn't go so well. I tried to do a workout I heard about in a book about Alan Webb when he was running at Michigan. It involved a 1600, a 1200, an 800, and a 400, all with 2000m tempo in between. My goal was a 2000 of 7:44 consistently, a 6:00 mile, a 2:40 800, a 1:10 400, and I don't remember what my goal was for the 1200. Also I was going to allow myself 1 minute rest in between segments. The only part that I hit really well was the mile, which I ran in 5:59. But that really took it out of me, and I was beginning to realize how hot it was. I switched the rest to 2:00, and then tried the 2000 at tempo. Before I even got done with the first 800m, I realized I was way off pace for a 7:44, and I was suffering, so I changed it to an 800 and didn't attempt any of those runs again. then I was way off pace for the 1200, and got a pretty long recovery afterwards. I was actually debating with myself coming up on 800m if I should even go through with the next lap, but I did. I don't really remember what the 800 was, but it was was probably around 3:00. I got a long recovery, and than gave the final 400 every thing I had. It ended up being a 1:16, wich is 6 seconds slower than 800 pace, but it felt so much faster. I think I will make it a goal to complete this workout someday with the times a gae myself, but for now if I attempt it again I'll try going at I-pace for all of the sets, and maybe take the tempo segments down to and 800, and run it outside of the track for a little less redundancy.

I got lucky with the weather today, seeing that it was rainy and overcast during my run at a time when it would normally to hot for my taste. I ran twice, once at 6 PM and then again at 9 PM. The first one felt kind of hard, but I got through it. I my 3 mile run at night, I finished with a time of 21:30. About halfway through I decided to pick up the pace so I did and it felt pretty good. I really picked it up with an 800 to go and put myself mentally in the end of a race. 

We got in a pretty good workout at practice today. After our 800m warmup on the track and stretches, we ran to the river trail and went back and forth until we had done 8 x 1:30 @ Tempo w/ 2:00 recoveries. Of course I can't really say that I took those at tempo. It would have been to easy. Damon, Jake, Isaac, and I were together almost the whole time. I was the one who started taking it quick, and then they came along. We did most of them at about 2 mile pace. I was fine, and then I sort of hit a wall during number 7. Then for the last one Damon took us through it somewhere in between 800 and mile pace. After that was over with, we ran back to the school and did some strides on the track, and then a 5 minute round of core with the team.

I went to XC this morning feeling kind of soar and tired, and my warmup felt the opposite of fluid, but the run actually turned out to be pretty great. Our goal time was 45 min. and we hit it. The run was about 6.5 miles long and it was pretty much all in River Heights and Providence. The big long hill at the Nature Park didn't feel too bad, that's for sure. We did a little bit of core after that and then my run home felt pretty good.

Another great run today at cross-country. Either I'm doing something right or I'm just lucky but everybody else seemed to be feeling awful, and I wasn't. We were told to pick a group to run with and stick with them. (good thing that's what I always decide to do, because it paid off). So I ran with our coaches (Chazel and Todd), Vickie, and Jake. We ended up running all the way to Gossner's on 10th West, and then just turned south and made a big loop back to the school. We were going at a pretty good pace and I don't recall us stopping once, even for traffic, but I still felt awesome. Towards the end we did 4 20 second pushes spaced pretty far apart, and they were pretty dang good, and fun, too. When we got back the rest of the team had already started core, so we did about 3 minutes of it. I ran home again, (bike problems, but at least I get a ride to practice), but this time I didn't feel so good. Probably because I waited about 30 minutes to leave, but now that think of it I eventually warmed up again with about a 1/2 mile left.

I'm so glad to get the mileage in for the week. It's only a couple miles less than last week but it felt alot less volumonous. I did the exact same thing today as I did last Monday, the mile warmup and then the huge half-marathon loop. I timed it stopping my watch every time I rested last time and got 1:33. This time I didn't really stop it at all and it came out as 1:49:50. So not bad, I'm still super excited come raceday.m I only had 4 real stops, 3 if it weren't for the traffic on main street. I took a drink at Aggie Ice Cream in the middle of mile 4, rested a bit at the top of a big trail incline at the end of mile 6, took a brief drink in the nature park, and then waited for mainstreet to let me pass. I think I took the beginning faster than I did last time, and I'm pretty sure I held a pace the whole time, too, increasing a bit at mile 10, and dramatically speeding up at mile 12.