Same Time, Same Channel

V0₂ max - 9 miles w/ 5 x 600 m @ 5K race pace; jog 50 to 90% interval time between.

9:14 am, 45-50° F, 30% humidity, wind 6 SSE, sunny.

I guess we really are having perfect running weather here right now. I should enjoy it while it lasts.

I slept in a little bit this morning and then got up and did some work and got kids off to school. I saw Michelle out running when I was driving my second son to seminary. Then about an hour later, I saw Carly out running when I was driving my first son and his string bass to school. So I felt a little like a slacker because I hadn't run yet. So after I got the last kid off to school and got to a good stopping place in my work, I went out for my run.

When I first started, I was really dragging and wondered about the wisdom of trying to do this workout. But after the first two miles I started feeling better.

I went to the high school track instead of the middle school track for the first time. The high school track is softer and nicer. It took me just under 3 miles to get to the track and then I ran on the track a bit to finish that third mile before starting the intervals. Last time I did 600 m intervals, I only did 200 m recovery, but since I'm coming off my two highest mileage weeks ever and a hard run last Saturday, I decided to take it a little easier today and do 400 m recovery, which caused my recovery to be at least 90%, maybe slightly more, than my 600 m repeat time.

There was a guy mowing the soccer field by the track and he waved at me when I was doing the recovery before the last interval.

I love and hate these short intervals. They're hard, but they're short, and I feel good after I'm done. I've got 1200m intervals next week. That's going to be tougher.

AP: 9:18.
Splits before the intervals: 10:55, 10:19, 9:16.
Pace on the 600 m intervals (with rest pace in parentheses): 7:20 (9:36), 7:10 (9:52), 7:13 (9:48), 7:08 (9:51), 6:43 (10:26) (I was anxious to be done and really pushed it on that last one.)
Splits after the intervals: 9:55, 9:34, 0.85 @ 9:11.

Medium-long run.

4:47 am, 55-58° F, 22% humidity, wind 15 mph S, gusting to 26 mph.

I've got a busy day today and so I had to do my run early in the morning. This run took a long time. I started well before sunrise and finished well after sunrise. It would have been a fairly pleasant run if not for the wind. The route I took has a long stretch that goes south and is mostly uphill, so that was into the wind today.

I was surprised that my legs felt better than I expected them too. But they'll probably feel dead tomorrow.

I was stopped at one major intersection this morning, and there was a runner at or approaching each of the four corners of that intersection. I thought that was kind of funny.

I've got take care of a bunch of things at home and I've got to pack because I'm leaving for San Francisco (actually, a little south of San Francisco) tomorrow morning. It's a business trip. I'm coming home Friday night. At least it will give me the opportunity to run at sea level a bit before the Newport marathon. I've got to work all day today and go to an orchestra concert at the high school tonight. Good thing I did the laundry yesterday.

AP: 9:19. Splits: 9:51, 9:19, 9:28, 9:20, 9:35, 9:28, 9:35, 9:23, 8:46, 9:03, 9:04, 9:11, 9:03, 9:22.

Recovery run + 10 x 100 m strides.

4:49 am, 46° F, 42% humidity, wind 9 SSE.

I was only supposed to do 6 strides, but I neglected to check on what my workout was before I headed out the door this morning, and I had it in my head that it was 10 strides for some reason. Also, I was only supposed to run 6 miles, but I ran too much before I got to the track, and so when I finished the strides, I was slightly over 6 miles and I still needed to get home. Thus, the 6.5 total miles. It would have come out about right if I had only done 6 strides. Oh well.

 Now it's rush rush rush to get all the kids off and get ready to go to the airport.

AP: 9:57.
Splits before the strides: 10:26, 10:21, 10:38, 10:13, 0.82 @ 9:59.
Pace on the strides (with 100 m recovery pace in parentheses): 6:51 (10:08), 7:06 (10:13), 6:45 (9:58), 6:55 (10:31), 6:51 (8:46), 6:47 (10:34), 6:55 (9:54), 6:32 (10:10), 6:57 (9:01), 6:32.
Pace after the strides: 0.46 @ 10:03.

General aerobic run.

5:00 am, 45° F, 84% humidity, winds calm.

I'm in Foster City, California. There's a workout facility in the hotel, but why run on the treadmill when I can run outside. So I just ran the streets of Foster City. Part of this run was on a path along the bay. It's pretty flat here. The only real elevation change was on some bridges that I had to go over. I did not see any pedestrians out during the 5:00 hour, but I saw a few after 6:00. I saw one woman twice. She was running, but she had a big coat on. I guess she thought it was cold this morning.

It looks like it took me a mile to wake up this morning. I just ran at a comfortable pace for the whole run. I suppose it is a little easier to run at sea level than at high elevation.

This wasn't exactly my scheduled run today, but I've switched things up a bit the last half of this week in order to do a 10K race on Saturday morning. I was going to do the 10K and then the 5K, but changed my mind and am just doing the 10K.

Now I've got to get ready and get to work. We're going out to a Brazilian steakhouse for lunch today. Yum.

AP: 9:11. Splits: 10:39, 9:38, 9:17, 9:06, 8:48, 8:46, 8:41, 8:56, 8;48.

Recovery run.

5:19 am, 49° F, 69% humidity, winds calm.

I'm still in Foster City, CA.  I go home this evening.

If there's one thing this training plan has taught me, it's how to run slowly. It says "recovery run" on the training plan, and I slow down. So I had a fairly pleasant easy run this morning.

I saw a few people out, more than I saw yesterday. But people don't seem to be very friendly. In Colorado, when you pass another runner or walker, you often, but not always, give some kind of acknowledgment. No one even made eye contact here.

As for yesterday's lunch, we went to this place that is like The Cheesecake Factory, but without the cheesecake. It was okay. Nothing exciting.

The trip has been nice enough, but I'll be glad to go home tonight.

AP: 10:15. Splits: 10:29, 10:16, 10:20, 10:14, 9:59.

My heart wasn't in this race. When I got up this morning, I wanted to go to bed more than I wanted to go run a race. But I had paid for the race, so I went and did it. It was okay, but not great.

I didn't get there particularly early. I picked up my bib and chip, then ran 2 miles of warmup and did my dynamic stretching routine, and then it was time for the race to start. The race was on the trail that I run most Saturdays. It sent out a ways to the north and then turned around, went past the start to the south, took a detour onto a road, which meant going down a hill, turning around, and running up the hill, then out so more, and then back to the start. The hill was in mile 4.

The race was chip timed, but they didn't have a timing mat at the start. So I guess they just went from the gun to when you crossed the finish timing mat. I started my watch when I crossed what I guessed was the starting line and got a time of 50:22 for myself, but my official time is 50:33. So it's a little more than 2 minutes off my 10K PR, but I feel okay about it since I'm not really trained for a 10K right now and I'm in the heavy part of marathon training. My average pace (according to my Garmin, not the race results) was 8:02 and splits were 8:23, 7:58, 7:59, 8:18, 7:55, 7:53, 0.27 (again, the Garmin distance) @ 7:20.

During about the 2nd mile, I came upon a woman who looked like she was probably in my age group and who was running about my pace. So I ran with her for maybe a mile and talked with her. She was here from Kansas City visiting her sister who has 1-year-old triplets. After a while, I pulled ahead of her and stayed ahead of her for the rest of the race. I finished about a minute ahead of her. But then I talked to her again after we were both finished and I met her sister and the triplets. She was also registered for the 5K but she was going to just run it at an easy pace and not race it. I had not registered for the 5K, even though that was my intention at one point, but I ran the 5K with her as a bandit. According to my watch, since I didn't have a number or a timing chip for the 5K, was 31:15. So that's an AP of 10:06 with splits of 11:00 (very crowded at the start), 9:39, 9:44, and 0.1 @ 8:59.

After the 5K, I went in the rec center and changed into dry but cooler clothes (shorts and short sleeve shirt - whereas I was wearing pants and a long-sleeved shirt before), and then I went back out on the trail and ran 5.7 miles to give me 17 for the day. AP: 9:29. Splits: 10:09, 9:41, 9:17, 9:24, 9:12, 0.70 @ 9:04.

It was chilly at the start of the first race - 40° and 21% humidity. By the time I finished the last run, it was 59° and 12% humidity. Winds were calm the whole time. It was great weather for running.

I'm tired. I'd like to take a nap.