I am one with the levee and the levee with me

Top 2 runners are sick. Again. Fevers and hacking coughs... what does that sound like? Coach is more depressed than I've ever seen him... 

5x2:00 fartleks for the healthy ones, beginning at 5:30 pace and dropping to sub-5. I needed more so I hit the track for a 3200m tempo, figuring 5:15 pace would be a good goal. The wind was moderate today, so I just tried to relax and breathe easy. I reached 1600m in 5:13 and it felt great. I felt quick and relaxed, although my legs were tight. It was cold today, and I couldn't stay warm enough. Very tight in the legs and chest, but aerobically it felt great. I stayed on the same pace till a lap to go, then opened up for the last quarter in 69. 5:04 final 1600 for 10:17 total time. The 69 was close to all-out, my legs and chest just felt too tight to go faster. I'm very happy to hit the goal pace, though.

Added an easy 4 tonight. 

60 min on elliptical, no running today. Figured I'd give my foot a little breather after yesterday's pounding.

40 min elliptical, 40 min running. Felt good about today's effort. The elliptical is making the top of my right knee hurt, I need to work on my quads, get them loosened up. Got to watch half of the BSU-Tulane game, which was cool. It made the time go by so much faster.

League meet today, this one to finalize our league championship. Top 2 runners still sick, so we ran 3-9. Average pace of 3-7 was 16:09... Fantastic result. Especially with #3 feeling like he's on the verge of illness (he had a 103 fever the next day... guess he was right). 15:47, 15:59, 16:13, 16:18, 16:30, 16:40. Fastest course of the year, there are good things going on despite the illnesses. 50 minutes of easy running for me.

Easy 12 from Leslie Groves Park. I set out with a 1:30 run in mind, heading upstream along the river trail to see how far it goes. I got to one of the incomplete nuclear reactors on the Hanford site in 25 min, and continued around the enclosure till I reached 30. Very flat terrain, I think this could make a great standard tempo course. I'll have to measure out miles sometime. Reached my car in 1:03 and added 20 downstream before calling it a day. Figure the average pace was under 7:00, so I'll just round it to 12. Calves are sore, ran forefoot the whole way. Longest run I've done on the balls of my feet, I think my calves are taking it better. I like how it feels, though... we'll see if it causes other problems down the road, but I may run like this forever if it doesn't.

So a quick update so I don't completely forget my training the last few weeks. I hurt something in my foot, not totally sure what, that made me think I was done for awhile. But I've been able to run on it if I forefoot strike, so I'm just trying to finish out the high school season so I can pace our guys in their workouts. Which would be great, except the flu has been wreaking havoc on our guys. Our top 4 runners are all out right now with various forms of flu, bacterial infections... whatever you can think of.

As for myself, I've managed to stay healthy so far, aside from my foot, and I'm managing to stay in decent shape. Today we went up to our old friend, Jump Off Joe, and do a steady 3.8 mile run to the base of the hill, then tempo 3 miles on the way back. I was pacing for our #5 and #6, and #5 was feeling good and jumped out to a good pace early. I hung back with #6 and tried to help him out, but he told me at 1.5m to just catch up to the other, his hamstring was hurting too much to hold the pace. It'd been a nagging injury for him this season. I caught #5 and we finished the last mile together, rounding out a mildly downhill 3 miles in 16:15. This is huge improvement for him, as our very talented #3 ran 16:12 for the same run 2 weeks ago. If we can get the other 4 healthy, I think we still have a chance at a top-3 finish at state. The run felt easy to me, I've increased the amount of tempo work in the last couple weeks and feel like it's really paying off. Foot was okay - no pain during the run, a moderate amount after. Still can't tell whether it's tendon or bone.