I am one with the levee and the levee with me

AM - 5 Easy on the river trail. No watch, 7ish pace.

PM - 8 easy, 6 with Austin and Anthony.

AM - 5 easy.

PM - 7 easy with just Austin tonight.

Wow I haven't been online in awhile.. didn't realize I was so far behind on my training log.

Ran 6 at 5:40 with Austin and Anthony. Total miles? We'll say 12. I know I got 75 for the week, that's all I need it to add to. 

AM - 5 by my apt.

PM - 8 with Austin. 

AM - Supereasy 4.

PM - Supereasy 6. I'm talking close to 8:00 pace. Austin and Anthony ran with me, we spent a lot of time screwing around, just taking it easy before tomorrow's race. 

Took some of my runners up to a meet at the University of Idaho. Pretty good results, for the most part. Should be a good season for them.

I'm not so excited about my own performances. My desire to race wasn't there and the results show it. Ran the mile and 3k, placing 4th in one and 3rd in the other with 4:26.05 and 9:03.5. On a positive note, it's the best double I've ever run. On the other hand, I feel I should be able to hit a 4:20/8:50 double right now.

So in the mile got right in behind this stud high school kid from Spokane and another college guy for the first half. We go through splits of 63 and 2:08 (I'm assuming 400m, not quarters) and I felt like the pace was just absolutely suicidal. I haven't run a competitive mile since high school, and it seemed a lot worse than it was. I don't even know the last time I ran 63 or 2:08, but it's been years. But my legs were responsive. 800m in and I was able to close a gap that was forming between me and the UI guy. Final quarter rolls around (3:15) and I start having PVCs one right after the other and it rattles me a little. I eased off the pace even though I knew it's harmless. This is the part I'm kicking myself about. The desire wasn't there. Anyway, I ran the last quarter somewhere around 70 and feel I blew my chance for my first sub 4:20. 

In the 3k I found a guy to sit on and we went through the mile in 4:43. He put down a surge there and I didn't respond. I figured I could but I knew it would hurt a lot and, again, the desire wasn't there to push myself. Felt like I coasted in the last 1400m.

I dunno, I feel like sometime last week training changed from a stress reliever to a stressor. I'm not balancing myself right and I'm feeling the strain. Lots of things are piling up and I need to figure out how to get in balance again.

On an interesting note, I tried scraping my legs between races with surprisingly good results. That mile should have made me stiff and sore for the rest of the day, but I got the 3k start line feeling loose and supple. Cool stuff. 

PM only - Easy run with Anthony.

PM only - Ran a 6 at 6:00 with Anthony, Justin and Alan. Felt fine and relaxed like it should. A little lingering soreness in my calves, but otherwise everything's good.

AM - 5 at about 7:00 pace by the river.

PM - 8 with Anthony, 6:30-6:50ish pace.

AM - Easy 4 before work. 

PM - Met with Justin, Anthony, and Austin for a 6 at 5:40 run. Not sure on the actual paces - glanced at the Garmin early in the run, told us 5:45 pace, then later in the run and it said 5:30. A little under 5:40 seems about right to how it felt.

The weather has been awesome since December. 60 degrees today, very little wind, a little rain. Austin is just getting over a bout of the flu so he hung back some. Anthony's calf has been pretty tight since Saturday's races so he and Justin went 3.5 with me. Tonight was good... Training has been much more enjoyable the last few days. I still need more sleep.

AM - Ran 5 easy before work. 

PM - Had planned another 5 but I fell asleep and couldn't get myself up till the morning. Guess I really needed it.

Slept for 10 hours last night and it was a m a z i n g!!!!!

Finally dragged myself out of bed and went to Richland High again for my 4-mile tempo. The volume of workouts this week seemsto have gotten to me a little and I stopped after 3200m (10:31) to stretch out, as I felt very tight and was having to push hard to maintain pace. Very tight in the quads and hammies. So took a couple minutes to stretch and then finished the last 3200m in 10:13 feeling much more smooth and relaxed. I'm now questioning the studies that say stretching beforehand hurts performance. It probably doesn't take into account pre-performance muscle fatigue. 68 final lap, trying to make that final kick an instinctive habit.

Splits:

5:15

5:16

2-3 min break

5:09

5:04 

Afterwards I swung over to Desert Hills to run with Austin and Alan for an easy 7 (added 3 to make it 10). Took it easy and messed around here and there. Also wore a Garmin for the first time in awhile, looks like my easy pace has improved to 6:40ish. Cool stuff. 

AM - 6 easy by the Columbia. It was misty and dreary and awesome. I love runs like this.

PM - New shoes!!!!!!!! Figured I'd pushed it far enough in my trusty old Switch and sprung for a brand new pair. 8 easy with some of the guys. Had the biggest group in awhile. Ran the traditional river trail. Actually had a little daylight left when we started.

Met up with Austin and headed to the river. Ran 8 miles at roughly 6:00 pace (48:33 for a slightly-longer-than-6-mile run; didn't have the Garmin so not sure exactly how far). Heartrate at the end was 135, which I'm pretty excited about. My training pace in Utah used to be 135-140. Felt great aerobically... but it still feels like my legs aren't quite up to where my aerobic fitness is. They were tight, especially in the hamstrings. Need to work on those, I guess.

AM - The usual easy 6.

PM - 8 with the guys in Columbia Park. Taylor showed up tonight which was cool. Looks like he's been doing some good work with Phil since tonight's 8 seemed pretty easy for him.

AM - Easy 4. Saw a banana peel in the road that looked rather Mario Kart-esque... is someone trying to sabotage me?

PM - Ran a 6 at 5:40 run tonight. Met with the guys at the HS but they're resting up a bit for a mile TT Saturday so I went off alone.

Felt better the further I went which I attribute to inadequate warmup (1 mile's worth) but it was all good. Again, indeterminate length but measured 33:31 for roughly 6 miles. It's well within .1 mile anyway. HR of 150 at the end.

Easy 10. I've never done this many miles and I can't keep enough food in me. I felt sooo hungry the entire run, but I'd already eaten 3000 calories by the time I got out. It's ridiculous.

Ran a 1600m time trial with some of our top guys on the Richland High track. We've had super-calm weather for the last month or two and today was the first day we've had any wind. Go figure. My goal was to pace them 3 laps at 67 and let them do whatever they could the final lap. The wind was coming up the homestretch and was just brutal, especially since my singlet wasn't enough to keep my arms warm. Splits went 66, 69, 70, and 71. I just got tighter and tighter. Anthony kicked in a 68 for 4:33, I was 4:36, Justin went 4:40, Austin 4:45 and Phil 4:50. The effort was equal to my indoor race two weeks ago and so I figure the times were about 10 seconds slow. Which means these guys are going to have a monster season when they start doing some mile- and two-mile-specific workouts.

Afterwards I drove out to Jump Off Joe and ran it. It won't matter how many times I run it, it's always going to surprise me how steep it is. I don't know how percentages work on inclines, but I've run down 10% inclines and this is much steeper. The wind was in my face on the way up too; it was just a brutal run. After the steepest part the road leveled a bit and I was able to stretch out my stride some and it finally hit me how much lactic acid had built up in my legs. I've never felt anything like it, it was like my legs had become encased in wood. I loved it. 11:59 to the top, close to my fastest run up it.

I had played with the idea of  tempoing the 3.7 back to my car but felt the 16:30 I'd spent at VO2 max should just about do it for the day. Took it easy and enjoyed the feeling of running my first 80 mile week. 

AM - Easy 8 by the Columbia.

PM - Added 6 with the guys from Kamiakin.

AM - Easy 4

PM - 6 miles at 5:40 pace. I've gotta start doing these my way instead of catering to the guys I'm running with. We only did 1 mile warmup since our basketball team is playing in the regional playoffs. It just doesn't work for me. It took me a full mile at 5:40 pace to really feel comfortable.

Feeling a little tired, I don't think the 3 workouts a week thing is working very well. Maybe if running were all I did and I could sit around and eat ice cream the rest of the day it would be perfect (wouldn't that be sweet? I bought some Haagen Dazs chocolate peanut butter ice cream last night... pure heaven. I woke up at 3am and with a craving and nothing to stop me....), but work has been a little bit physical and I'm struggling to feel relaxed in my workouts. I was planning an 8-10 miler at 6:00 pace Thursday, but I think I'll push it to next week and stick with just a Saturday workout. We'll see how that works out.

Also I'm starting to get a little Plantar's fascitis in my right foot. I've always been able to stretch it out, but somehow my stretches aren't reaching it. It's like my toes have locked up and they won't let me push hard enough to get a good stretch. It's been slowly creeping up on me and didn't go away with the new shoes... I'm starting to get worried.

Meant to run more tonight but I was just so tired. 6 easy miles with Austin and Anthony.

AM - 8 easy miles on the Columbia. Met some guy on the trail who was running about my pace, which threw me cause he had grey hair and the level of competition among grey-haired men in this area is relatively low. Anyway, turns out he's from the Bay Area and is a structural engineer in town to tear down a building.

Which made me think, how'd I miss the boat on this job? This is every kid's dream, to travel around the US blowing things up. As a kid you pretty much know policeman and firefighter are the only two options, maybe doctor and scientist as you get a little older. They really need to introduce this as an option earlier in life. I'm pretty sure I'd be qualified on childhood experience alone.

Anyway, on the way back I stopped by one of the restrooms (they stay open all winter... and they're heated... talk about a hobo paradise, eh?) and it was like a scene out of horror film. There were spiders everywhere, covering every inch of everything... I've never seen anything like it. They were on the toilet seat, in the corners, inside the bowl, hanging from the ceiling, doing trapeze acts from corner to corner... Black widows, large fuzzy brown ones... everything you can think of. Talk about a tense atmosphere. But I'm happy to report the purpose of the stop was a success. That's one situation I now know my bowels can handle.

PM - Easy 7. Met with Anthony and Austin. They were supposed to do 12x400m intervals earlier but instead ran 4 or 5 at 5:40. I'm going to stop showing up on days they're supposed to do track workouts, tempo runs at 5:40 are only going to get them so far. I never thought I'd be this kind of a bad influence.

AM - Easy 6 out on the river.

PM - Ran 8 with Austin and Alan.

Had a great day of training today. The workout was 3x3200m, trying to hit as close to 10:00 as I could. Austin and Anthony came as well, their workout was to do the first mile of each of my reps, which is a lot of rest, but they haven't spent much time at sub-5 pace, so I figured it would be okay.

I was planning on 3 min rests, but after the first one (10:13, 5:05-5:08), I needed a quick pit stop, and also switched from my racing flats to spikes. The rest ended up being 4:30.

Second rep was 10:07 (5:01-5:06). The pace was much easier to maintain with the other guys in front of me. First half felt great, but I was laboring to run faster than 76s on my own. Took 4 minutes rest.

The guys offered to alternate laps on the last rep to pace me to 10:00 and it made all the difference. I don't think I'd have maintained pace on my own. 4:59-4:59 for 9:58.

The best thing about the workout is I had several gears left. It was difficult and painful, but not an all-out kind of painful which has me excited to get into some longer distance races.

Afterwards we went cliff jumping out on the Snake river. It was about 60 degrees, sunny, about a 35-foot drop, and water temps just above freezing. And it was absolutely wonderful.