I am one with the levee and the levee with me

6 recovery

AM - 12 easy including a mini-mini-workout of 6 x 200m levee sprints.

PM - 6 easy

This was my Haile G inspired Christmas 10 miler.

Workout. The last 2 weeks have been solid with big workouts and plenty of distance at T and MP. Since the long runs have gone well, I wanted to deviate from the well-beaten Daniels path slightly in order to hit some faster paces. Today would have been a good day for a 5k-pace workout, but experience has shown that 5k pace at 4:30am on the levee doesn't go well. So I did 6 x mile cutdowns, starting at T and working down to 5:05. I would have liked to see sub-5 on the last 2 or at least the last one, but I couldn't get there. The usual light winter breeze was there, and it impacted the even numbers. (I say "winter breeze" but it was 60°F. Winter in New Orleans.)

6 x mile (3:00 rests)

5:25 (down)

5:23 (up)

5:10 (down)

5:12 (up)

5:05 (down)

5:07 (up)

I felt pretty terrible on the warmup and first rep and thought this was going to be a blown workout. Was working up a fartlek in my mind to sub into if things went downhill, but I surprised myself on rep 3 by nailing the targeted 5:10. Then hit the targeted 5:05 on #5 and still felt decent. By the end I felt like I could hit 2 more in the 5:05-5:10 range without going to the well. I think that's perfect for this workout.

Saturday will be a long grinder. It was important to get an injection of speed today.

AM - 12 pretty slow. Windy morning and didn't feel great.

PM - 6 easy

12 easy

Big workout. 23 miles with last 10 at MP. I ran into some of the local runners and continued on with them. Their run dovetailed nicely in with mine, so I made some adjustments from the original plan to stay with them until they finished.

First 4 miles easy starting in 7:55 and dropping to 7:00. Then the 5-12 dropping from 6:50 to 6:20. At 12.5 we started MP. I started in the Bostons and hung with Rich in 5:44, 5:43, 5:41, and 5:46 (with a 180 and a goodbye). Ran to my car to swap out the Bostons for the Flyknit Streaks. The difference was night and day. Streaks are a fantastic shoe. Mile 5 was only 5:47 due to another 180 and sluggishness getting going again after the stop.

Then I settled into a comfortable pace. Surprised myself with a 5:33. Eased up just a little but still went 5:35, 5:34. I was well past mile 20 and feeling like I was hardly working. It was... surprising. I didn't intend to speed up but the next split was 5:30. Then I did speed up but only saw a drop to 5:28. 

Averaged 5:38 for 10 with the last 5 in 5:32. I'm ready to roll. I was thinking I'd be happy to break 2:30 again given the setbacks, but I'm setting my Houston goal at 2:26:xx. It would be disengenuous to say the fast miles were easy at the end of a 23 miler, but I was hardly stressed given the workload. I felt like I could continue running low-5:30s for another 10.