I am one with the levee and the levee with me

4 easy at Mt St Helens. Are there wolves in this area? Apparently, because I heard them all around my camp last night. Spooky.

11 easy, Badger Mt loop.

Workout with the team today: 5 sets of 1200m/600m w/ 200m jog after 1200m, 400m jog between reps. Rougly 1:30 from 1200-600, then 2:30 from 600-1200.

I ran this quite a bit faster than last year. After last week's race, I feel like I should be running closer to Chip and Dak, so that was my focus. They pulled me along to some fast times. It was nice to see Dylan and Tanner also running off my shoulder with several other guys also in the mix. I think our top 7 are looking pretty good.

1200m - 3:50 (uphill)

600m - 1:46 (downhill)

1200m - 3:44 (uphill)

600m - 1:47 (up & down)

1200m - 3:32 (down)

600m - 1:47 (up)

1200m  - 3:30 (down)

600m - 1:47 (up)

1200m - 3:27 (down)

600m - 1:49 (up)

Solid workout. My focus was to hang with Chip and Dak on the 12s and cut down, and then try to hang on through the 6s as best I could. Slight positive split on the last 6 is because my legs were pretty toast by that point, and the uphill felt killer. I think I need more hill work, my teammates were pulling away from me pretty easily on the hill.

AM - 7 easy at Cornwall Park.

PM - First day of class--13 easy, double loop around Padden plus a turf mile. I felt pretty trashed on this run. I need to eat better while I'm on campus. 2 tuna sandwiches just didn't do it today.

AM - 5 easy, 1 loop around Cornwall park.

PM - 11 easy, including turf mile and 8xstrides. Felt ok for how much work I've done the last few days. 

AM - 5 easy, Cornwall loop.

PM - 8 mile tempo at the Northwest soccer fields. Pancake flat grass course, exactly one mile per loop thanks to the genius of Bill Roe. A little bit twisty and turny, a bit of uneven footing, but I like running tempos out here.

Started at 5:45 for the first mile, then picked it up to 5:28, then dropped off to 5:40. Then back to 5:32 for reaching halfway in 22:25. I figured sub-44 was out of the question since I didn't think 5:25 pace would feel good for 4 more miles. But that's what we picked it up to. 5:25 for mile 5, then 5:25, 5:23, and we opened it up a little in the last for a 5:11 to finish in 43:51. I was really pleased with how good it felt to pick it up to almost race pace after 7 miles of pretty quick tempoing. And as always, I'm happy to dip under 5:30 pace on the 8-miler. 

This has been a full week of training, and I'm very happy with how my body is handling it. I'm getting lots of sleep, eating a lot better than usual, and it seems to be paying off. 

6.5 easy with Dylan. I lost my wallet this morning and it screwed up our plans of doing a longer run. Then I skipped my second run because I just felt so tired. 90 for the week.