I only run on days that end in a "y."

Nice cool morning.  Since I can't run the 10k tomorrow I decided to run some MGP today.  I arrived late and missed the main group leaving so I was on my own.  Around 2.5 miles I hooked up with Mike Woo - a phenomenal runner in our group.  We ran together to mile 8 where I turned around and he kept going.  We got into a good grove while he talked about strategy for CIM as he has run in in the past.  I turned around and finished out the run on my own.  Just a great morning.  Overall 7:05 pace and that is with a couple warm up miles.  Hills between mile 3 and 5 and coming back from mile 11 to 13.

8:11, 7:50, 7:20, 7:12, 7:07, 6:58, 6:48, 6:59, 6:59, 7:02, 6:56, 7:05, 6:48, 6:39, 6:49, 6:36. 

Great cool morning near 60 degrees.  Still not cold enough to put a shirt on but I'll take it.  lol

Aerobic base run nice and relaxed with a few hills mixed in.

7:40's - 7:20's.

Looks like a med long run day tomorrow.

Nice cool morning.  I decided I would run a 14 mile progressive run though I wasn't really looking forward to it.  I ran an out an back course that is net decline going out and of course that makes it a net gain coming back.  Sounds like a perfect course to run a progressive run on! :-)

Felt nice and relaxed and really did not pay attention to the pace until the last three miles when I pushed it a bit.   

Made a quick water stop at mile 3.5 and coming back at 10.5.

I am thinking that one could run a pretty good marathon on doing nothing else but these types of runs.

Splits:  9:16, 8:10, 7:48, 7:40, 7:24, 7:28, 7:14, 7:21, 7:06, 7:08, 7:09, 6:55, 6:51, 6:34. 

6 recovery miles - 8:33 average pace.

A bit of a warm morning - I think it was around 70 degrees.

Today was 2400m time trial followed by 20 x 200m relay on the track.

I parked at the pool and warmed up with a couple other runners who were going to run a tempo.  I broke off from them after 1.5 miles and headed up to the annex.  The rest of the group were just leaving.  I fell in with some runners at the front of the group who told me we had to do the long warm up - so right back to where I started!  When we got to the track we got split up.  I ended up running the time trial pretty much alone as the group I wanted to run with had started already.  I did OK - I did not push as hard as I could have and still ended up pretty much where I have for the last 2 times that I have run this. I found it mildly amusing when the coach asked me later if I had broken 8 minutes.  Um, yeah, right.

We then did the relay deal with a partner - run 200m, tag your partner, run to the other side of the track and repeat.  20 times each runner.  My legs are pretty tired right now. :-)

4.15 warm up followed by 2400m in 8:27 (5:39 pace)

followed by 20 x 200m 36-40 seconds each (4:55 to 5:29 pace)

followed by 2.5 miles cool down.

Recovery run during lunchtime.  8:43 average pace.   Legs are pretty sore from yesterday's workout.

Woke up late and missed my car pool.  Showed up and started by myself.  Pretty warm and very humid though it was overcast and windy.  

My legs were toast from the culmination starting with last weekends long run/MGP run, Tuesday's progressive run and Thursday's speed work session.  Today was a struggle and my pace started to suffer at the end.  I had 18-20 on the schedule but there was no way.  I got in 15 and was happy with that.  Pretty hilly course today with most miles in 7:20's - 7:30's. 

Soaked my legs in the springs for about 20 minutes which felt pretty good. 

Stayed out a bit late last night and went to see James McMurty play.  Got home around midnight to find out that somehow my Nebraska Cornhuskers came back to beat Ohio State.  I had pretty much given up on them when I had to leave home and head downtown.

Was woken up to thunder around 5 am and it was still raining when I got out of bed at 7:30.  Dan and I were going to meet on the trail at 8 am but we both wimped out with the rain.

I went to the gym and ran 7 on the indoor track and then followed with some core work. 

Deceptively warm out - seemed cool at first - it must have been the humidity.

Kept the miles in the recovery zone as that is what the legs asked for.

Is sugar all that bad?  No - it fact, it is the best thing to take for a quicker recovery according to Dr. Mirkin.  http://www.drmirkin.com/public/ezine100911.html

Another morning that felt cool - mid 60's, but the humidity was high enough to negate some of the good temp.

The training group had hill repeats scheduled this morning.  Since I will be doing repeats on Thursday I choose to skip today's group workout. 

I ran the out and back progressive run again.  I toyed with the idea of a tempo run but wimped out in the end.  However, I felt pretty good today which is a nice change.  The 2 easy days helped, I believe.

Overall 7:20 average pace for the run.

9:21, 8:08, 7:39, 7:33, 7:26, 7:32, 7:24, 7:28, 7:07, 7:04, 6:59, 6:59, 6:46, 6:23.

6 recovery miles this morning.  8:40's.

Had to travel to Dallas for work - I thought I would be back on Wed night but I had to stay.  I went out for a 10 mile run - I have realized that my body does not recover too well from those 14 mile progressive runs.  I am glad I wasn't doing the track workout today.   Got in some good aerobic miles and plan on running Saturday's long run hard with 10-12 MGP.

Wonderfully cool morning.  Somehow I missed the memo about the group meeting near the Springs instead of Runtex.  I thought something was up when all the roads were closed.  I ended up parking at auditorium shores, running to Runtex, figuring out we were not meeting there, and then taking off in an attempt to catch the group.  I had arrived a bit early so I knew they were not too far ahead of me.  I started passing people on the Exposition hills, caught up with a big group around mile 6 but never caught up with who I was going to run with - probably because he went for 14 and I went on the 16 mile route.

I wanted to run 10-12 MGP and I ran 13 @ MGP.  I felt pretty good, the pace for the first few miles felt relaxed but it got a bit more challenging near the end - aerobic was fine, legs got a bit tired.  I got to 16 miles and added one more for the fun.  Very pleased with the run.

8:05, 7:46, 7:30, 7:20, 7:09, 6:59, 6:50, 6:53, 6:57, 6:50, 6:53, 6:44, 6:45, 6:49, 6:53, 6:45, 6:51.

 Met Dan down at Barton Springs for an easy 9 miles on Town Lake trail.  No watch today - just out for the run.  I was cool but quite humid.  I ran with my cushioned insoles as well to help with recovery.  I put my legs in the springs at the end of the run.  Great way to start a Sunday.

Another humid morning - cold front tonight should solve that for tomorrow's run, though.

8 mile easy - relaxed run - plan on doing a tempo tomorrow morning so I did not want to do anything crazy this morning.  7:40's-7:50's.

Nice and cool - 58 degrees albeit windy and very dry.

I met Lisa and a couple of her running buddies for a tempo run @ 5:30 at the "rock" which is a point along the Town Lake Trail. For some reason the training group is not doing any tempo runs this fall. Well, I think that is pretty odd. Fortunately, I found someone who is doing them. I really want to get 2 more of these in before the big day.

I ran close to a mile and then met Lisa. We did 3 miles warm-up to Expo and 38th - this is the hilly porting of the Austin course, and then started tempo coming back to Windsor - and worked our way back to LAB and the back to the start. The course was fairly hilly.

I felt really good and the miles came fairly easily - my tempo range according to the charts is 6:11 - 6:29 and I managed that and ended up a bit faster on the last 2 miles. Maybe I was trying to make up for that 10k I missed a couple weeks back.

Lisa and I then ran 3 easy miles after the tempo run. Good workout and legs felt really good.

Warm up: 8:58, 8:09, 7:48, 7:50

Tempo: 6:22, 6:16, 6:07, 5:58, .10 @ 5:58.

Cool down: 7:55, 7:39, 7:36

7 recovery miles around the soft train near work. Also went back to putting my cushioned insoles in the Kinvaras for recovery runs. It seems to help the legs recover better.

AP today 8:30. Found it hard to stay any slower. I think my legs are getting used to running some faster miles as my run progresses so they always want to take off on me.

8 x 1000 track repeats on the agenda for tomorrow - can't wait! (Really, I can.)

Arrived early at BS Pool area and ran until I met the group coming in the opposite direction from RunTex. That was close to 3 miles, turned around with the lead guys and ran back with them to Austin High.

We did not do any drills but went straight into the 1000's. Fell in with Matt and Joseph and we traded pace duties. Felt pretty good until repeat #7 where I was about the pass my friend James but he was having none of that. I finally let him go because I was not going to kill myself with one more repeat to go. Still my fastest 1000 of the day and it took all the mental toughness I could muster to finish the last one.

Recoveries were active 200m with no standing around - when we got to the start off we went. We did not even stop for a drink. This was challenging but good.

3.5 easy miles @ 8:50 AP followed by 8 x 1000m repeats with 200m active recovery between each.

1000m in 3:38 (5:50 pace)

1000m in 3:35 (5:46 pace)

1000m in 3:35 (5:46 pace)

1000m in 3:41 (5:54 pace)

1000m in 3:39 (5:50 pace)

1000m in 3:34 (5:44 pace)

1000m in 3:30 (5:37 pace)

1000m in 3:34 (5:44 pace)

3 miles easy back to the car. Actually hit the parking lot in 2 miles, continued down the trail for .5 and then back to get in an extra mile. I am not running a long run on Saturday as my wife will be out of town, so plan on going out today at lunchtime to get in another 7 or so to make today a 20 mile day.

On the way home I heard on the radio that today was the coldest October 20th since 1953. It was around 48 degrees at the start of my run.

AFTERNOON RUN: I had to go downtown for work so I had the opportunity to run the Town Lake trail during lunch time. It took a mile for my legs to get the message that yes, I was serious about running when I had just finished a hard workout 5 hours early. Definitely some good training in sugar depletion mode. I wanted to run the miles at a good effort to simulate a long run.

7 miles around the trail: 8:12, 7:36, 7:19, 7:13, 7:28, 7:34, 7:06. Tough last couple miles - if you ever want to duplicate that feeling you get at the end of a marathon, try doing this! :-)

Nice cool morning, nice short recovery run.  Legs had a tough time to get going, the first mile as 10:30 or something like that, back into the high 8:00's by the 3rd mile.  Wore my cushioned Kinvaras.  I think it helps.

Had to go downtown again for work.  Used my lunch hour to run 6 miles on the trail.  This time I took the trail from BS Pool and headed towards the wilderness.  This is a "real" trail with some good technical spots but after about a mile and a half it flattens out in to some very pretty tree covered pathway.  Mostly single track hard packed dirt.  Really a joy to run.  Ran to 3 miles and turned around. 

Hard to get the legs moving again after 2 days off.  This week should be a recovery week, I will try to keep the miles under 50.  

Easy run this morning - trying to save something for mile repeats tomorrow.  Low 7:50's - 8:10s. 

3 miles warm up followed by mile repeats on the hilly loop course with 3 mile cool down.  Coach said 4 repeats if racing the 10 mile race this Sunday, which I plan to do.  Legs were not feeling particularly strong this morning so not sure what is up with that. Still pretty happy with the pace considering the hilly nature of the loop.

Rather humid this morning and 65 degrees. 

1 mile @ 6:03

1 mile @ 5:55

1 mile @ 5:51

1 mile @ 5:56

A short recovery run this morning.  

Last warm and humid day for a while, I hope.  The group schedule had a fartlek run but that always turns out to be equivalent to a 15x300m repeat workout.  After Tuesday's fun I decided I would instead just go out for a easy medium long run.  My legs - calves in particular - were a bit sore, maybe from the hills on the repeat loop.  I have also started running in the Kinvara IIs and not 100% sure but they seem like they don't have as much cushioning as the I's, I could be wrong though.  So, long story short, I decided to stay in the neighborhood and do the 12 mile route with the big hills on the front 5 miles. Most miles for the run were in 7:30's-7:40's.

Just as I was lamenting to myself how sore my legs were and how slow I was going and not feeling good at all, I looked at my watch and I was running a 7:05 pace.  I thought I was at 7:40 - so that made me feel a bit better.  I slowed it back down though and tried to keep things easy since this is a recovery week and I am racing this Sunday.  I have also been fighting a glute issue for a couple days - it has not bothered me in a quite a while but it is starting to rear its ugly head. It all starts with a tight lower back on the right side and goes all the way down into the glute and lower hamstring. That's what I get for not stretching like I should be.

So here is an interesting article.  The gist of the research is that in order to increase endurance and power your body must become more efficient at converting sugar to fuel.  The way to do this is to train in a sugar depleted mode and then on race day eat lots of sugar [via GU/gatorade, etc.]

http://www.drmirkin.com/public/ezine102311.html

Had a nice sleep in until 7:30 am - I almost forgot that recovery weeks mean to get some extra sleep in as well.  Ran 6 easy around the trail at lunchtime.  8:15 AP.  I tried to keep it in recovery range, I guess I get too impatient.  

Probably do some easy miles on the trail tomorrow and a few strides.

Met up with some other runners from the group that are also racing tomorrow.  We ran a very easy 4.6 on the trail with 6 x 100m strides and then picked up our packets.  

Pretty cold out there, I will need to dig out my el cheapo gloves for tomorrow. 

Wonderful morning for a run.  I think the starting temp was 50 and the race began at 7 am - so we did not see sunrise until about 7:45 or so - most of the race was in the dark.  No wind - pretty close to perfect conditions.

I woke up at 5:15 and downed 2 scoops of carbopro and 1/2 scoop of powered gatorade mixed in water.  Got my stuff ready and headed out the door.  Met up with some other runners at the Annex around 6 am and went out for a 2.4 mile warm up run. 

15 minutes before the start I took a Gatorade Prime pouch and headed for the start.  We made our way through the crowd to get up front. 

My strategy was to start off in the 6:30s, conserve energy to get through the hills, and then pick up the pace from there.  The hills start around mile 2-3 and end around 4-5 or somewhere in there.  There are a couple of hills after mile 5 and then it flattens out back into town, with some minor inclines along the way, especially the last mile. 

I seem to run races like my training runs - go figure - and that means progressivley. 

I started out with a running buddy and we ran together until mile 6 or so when I started to pull away.  It was good though to keep the first miles in check.  It is hard to hold back when people are passing, but I kept telling myself to stick with the plan and save the energy.

I don't know what happened with mile 2, but I defintely left 12 seconds out there - I think I slowed down too much here - too worried about the hills coming up. 

Coming onto the hills I tried to take them a bit easy and if there was downhill to hit it a bit  faster - I just am not that good on downhills though so I am not sure what I picked up on the downhill parts that we had.  The hills were hard but not too bad - I just kept remembering the hill repeats we do when we get to the top we have to speed up to the end of the street - this came in handy today.  I ran the first 5 miles in 33:xx and thought I was really going have to speed up and run a negative split to make my goal - at the time I thought if I could run 1:05 I would be happy.

My last 2 miles were my best - there were a couple runners from my group that were in front that I had in my sights.  This really helped me drop the bomb on the last 2 miles and was a huge boost to pass both of them along the way.  I turned the corner towards the finish and could see 1:03:43 and ran as fast I could muster to get under 1:04 but alas it was not meant to be - I missed it by 6 seconds.  Still, very happy with the performance given the course and that I had not run it before.  I think next year I will be much better prepared.  The chart said I should be able to run a 10 mile race in 1:03:54 or something - so I have no doubt I could break that on a flatter course.  Looks like after today I will shoot for a 1:23-1:24 at the San Antonio half in 2 weeks.

Overall splits:  6:26, 6:43 (left 10 seconds out there), 6:42 (another slow mile, another 10 seconds), 6:34, 6:32, 6:30 (survived the hills), 6:16 (time to start picking it up!), 6:13, 5:57, 5:58.  Average pace 6:24 for the race.

4.25 miles easy around the trail after the race.