Step by step, mile by mile

10 post-work with plyos after. legs were a bit sore from weights but i did way more than last time and i'm less sore than last time. idk the exact pace conversion after a 9-hour shift but i'd say it'd have been 7-flat if i hadn't worked.

AM - 6 mile w/u, 3 mile tempo in 17:06, mile c/d.

being my first tempo run since 2017, i guess this met expectations.  i wanted to do 5 but i learned the hard way you can't have rice and beans the night before a tempo, unfortunately. not a bad start but i have work to do, happy i finally had the stones to do a tempo run considering how much i hate them though. lots of room to grow.

PM - 5, gym after. felt REALLY good on the 5, good enough that i might be able to get past my disdain for tempo runs to feel like that again.

AM - 5 mile shakeout

AM2 - 8 mile w/u, 8x100m w/ 100m walking rec, mile cd. timed #2 and #7, 13.99 and 13.02.

felt so much easier and smoother than the 200's last week. felt like i was able to tweak my form a little bit on every one until i was cruising those last couple. hopefully i'm not too tired next tuesday from the tempo run because that 3x300 could be really fun if i'm feeling good. my PR for that workout is something like 40.2, 40.3, 40.2 which i don't think i'll beat, but still. ran the easiest 6:30 of my life that first mile of the warmup, felt like pure jogging.

PM - 5 easy + gym. kept the running extra easy to keep the legs feeling good for the next 3 days

AM - 5 easy. right ankle felt a tiny bit off getting out of bed so i took it extra slow, ready to pull the plug if i felt it on the run. i didn’t, legs actually felt pretty good by the end, i guess it was probably just some DOMS from the sprints yesterday.

AM2 - 7 mile w/u, 5 x quarter mile hill w/ equal jog rest, 81 avg, c/d for 12

was going to do 2 sets of 4 hill repeats, but i took a longer recovery between sets and my legs being a bit heavy my foot caught on a rock and i faceplanted hard. well, i almost did. i displayed the most impressive feat of reflexes in my life and managed to turn my body and tuck my arms and hit the ground rolling in that half-second between trip and impact. i was wearing a thick shirt and gloves so minimal damage sustained, did hit my right ankle on a rock though. nothing major, just gonna be sore for a day or so. decided to do one more after that, times were 83, 82, 81, 80, 79. changing the name of this hill from "stairway to heaven" to "penance". it's much more accurate. actually felt great on these aside from the whole falling thing. to paraphrase rocky, it isn't about how many times you eat shit but how many times you clean your mouth out

PM - 5 easy. skipped gym because my stomach was hurting. felt better by the end of the run but i'd rather get an extra hour of sleep tonight. didn't feel the fall from this morning, but i'll have to get a night of sleep before i really know if all the effects have passed.

SOTD: never in your sun - stevie wonder. SUCH a great song

AM - 5 mile shakeout

AM2 - 5 mile w/u, 4x1200m aerobic w/ 400m rec in 4:17, 4:05, 4:04, 3:58

was surprised the first one was that slow, but told myself to not sweat it and just move on to the second one. effort wasn’t too hard(max heart rate 139 according to the watch), but i thought they’d be faster. putting aside my ego and using perspective with running 4 workouts the past 4 days, i’m lucky to still be standing, let alone feeling pretty normal. plus, even if i feel good there’s no way i’m running this fourth straight workout at 100%, so there’s nothing to do but recover, get in my PM 5 and a long run tomorrow and recover with an easy weekend and i’ll be back next monday in better shape than i did this one. so with that in mind, it was a good one.

PM - 5 after work. right ankle was feeling all those track turns for this morning by the end.

AM - 5 easy. 

right ankle wasn’t giving me trouble but i knew i’d be playing a dangerous game if i went too far. i thought about it, and i think i’d be better off moving my long run to saturday. yes it would be after an 8 hour shift, but i think it’d be easier on the body than doing it after all the weekday workouts. i usually think up my own training, but i saw that bekele did something like this in his prime(the same 4 days of tempo, sprints, hills, intervals), while i did modify it to make it a bit easier considering this is my first real training block since high school, i realize it’s still a tall order. still, i think i’ve proven myself to have a ridiculously durable body, and the tuesday and wednesday workouts are more of fine-mechanics-tuning than workouts. but anyway, bekele did the same monday-thursday workout spread, with a long run on saturday with a day of recovery before and after. i’m not gonna try and make my workload more than the greatest runner of all time by doing that long run a day early. i’ll do another 5 on the treadmill after work, and skip the long run this saturday since it’s supposed to storm something terrible tomorrow.

PM - 5 after work. this shift was pure hell; you'd think dying was going out of style but felt SUPER good, pace wasn't crazy or anything, but even if i hadn't worked i still felt good enough that it's worth mentioning. finished right before the storm hit! score!

real conversation between me and a patient:

pt: what’s your name 

me: gene

pt: what was it before

me: before what

pt: wait were you born a guy

PM - 3. stomach wasn't feeling well so just a shakeout. ran in pajama bottoms over my boa 1" shorts from high school bc i was doing laundry. i can't believe i used to wear those lil skimpy things lol

overall great week of training! mileage could have been higher, but still.