[S]he Conquers Who Endures

5 beautiful recovery miles in FL on an amazing hard packed shell trail. Nothing like soaking up the sunshine, loosening up the tight muscles, and breathing in the salty air after a hard run the day before. AP 8:59 min/mi.

Threshold run on the treadmill at 1% incline on hardly any sleep from traveling all weekend! I was pretty worried about this one, I had a grand total of 1.5 h sleep before the 20 miler I crushed on Sat., Sun maybe has 7 h (big improvement), then another 6 h of sleep last night. Not the best for training, but I can get caught up this week. Thank goodness it also happens to be cut back week for me!

I hit 7:03 min/mi AP for 5.25 miles! This is a PR for me. I really wanted to hit 6:57 pace for 5 miles, but thought it would be better not to push it so I just kept the treadmill at 8.5 MPH. I finished feeling strong and pretty confident I could have hit sub 7 for 5 miles. 

Finished up with some weights. The rest of my training goal for the day is to cut out of work early and go to bed!!! 

AM: beautiful sunrise easy run along the St. Charles River. My legs felt pretty good from the start. The birds were chirping, the air was crisp, the streets were quiet the only un-zen thing about my run were my Boost moon shoes which make me feel like tigger. I must say, they feel pretty sweet on recovery runs! :) 8:45 min/mi AP.

PM: 4 easy miles on the treadmill at 1% incline set to 8:41 min/mi pace with 10x0.1 mile strides at 6:00 min/mi pace. Well, the last one was a 0.2 mile stride just because. :)

I pushed my limits today! I've been itching to try this "endless" hill workout at a steep incline on the treadmill since January. I finally felt ready for it and after my hilly 20 on Saturday, I decided now would be a perfect time to get some hillwork in while giving my legs a break from the downhill. I warmed up at 8:31 min/mi pace 1%-1.5%-2.0% incline for 2 miles, then jacked up the incline to 5% for 4 miles and kept it at 8:31 min/mi! It was so hard at the beginning and I thought about changing the workout to 2x2 miles incline, but as soon as I hit 2 miles, I realized it felt just as bad as the first 0.25 mile and no worse so why not try 3 miles. I hit 3 miles, then decided I couldn't stop there with less than a mile to go so finished the planned workout!! I dialed down to 0.0% incline at 7:53 min/mi pace and took an easy downhill for 2 miles. 

This was a big workout for me. Big Sur has a 4.5% incline over 2 miles. Although I've promised myself not to "race" Big Sur, I do want to get into the best shape possible to enjoy the run and recovery quickly. Plus, I really want to hit a big marathon PR in Oct so why not start working on that now?!

Total climb: 1214 ft 

Track workout. 6x1200m repeats with 600m recoveries. I'm really loving track. I can really feel my improvement each workout, it sure feels grand! My splits were: 4:55.3 (6:35 min/mi), 4:51.2 (6:30 min/mi), 4:50.7 (6:30 min/mi), 4:52.5 (6:32 min/mi), 4:53.5 (6:34 min/mi), 4:50.2 (6:28 min/mi) for an AP of 6:31 min/mi. My last round was with a faster guy who was just trying to get extra mileage in. My crew was done with the workout after 5 sets. I had one more in me. Random dude asks my pace, I tell him, he keeps it pretty consistent the first 3 laps, the last 3 he picked it up. I only had 3 laps left, I can't let random dude shake me. At the end of the last lap we were flying according to my standards, I flipped it to 5th gear and felt really strong. Last lap was 6:10 min/mi pace. I'm beginning to think I'm holding back in my track workouts! Time to step it up a notch.

Easy run on the treadmill at  1-1.5% incline, 8:41 min/mi pace. My entire body felt really, really good after last night's track workout. I'm paranoid about this minor shin pain, but so far it's very mild and did not hurt at all during track surprisingly. I'm going to keep on top of it with ice, inflammatory Rx patch, compression sleeve and sticking to a flat shorter long run this weekend.

I wish my weirdo calves could stand to run in compression sleeves/socks!! I think I have big veins. I should measure them after a hard run. I bet those suckers go from a dainty 13" to 20" pythons during a run!

Solo, windy long run dodging black ice and snow piles. I chose an easy course for this one because of the shin pain I started experiencing this week. Well, I'm happy to report I had 0 shin pain!! I don't really know my pace until I get a mile out because of the GPS. I hit 8:23 the first mile, which is usually inaccurate because of lost signal, I kept the same effort and hit mile 2 at 7:45. Whoops! Oh who cares. I have no idea what my long run pace is anymore after running the last 4 long runs on hills. AP for 16 miles was 7:54 min/mi. Luckily, I still have no idea what my long run pace is. Half of this run was in a pretty heafty, relentless head wind. Actually, it sucked, but I welcomed it. If I can't run hills, I don't mind a little wind resistance to make me stronger!!

Despite the wind, it was a gorgeous day out. So I took a 4 mile walk into Boston, returned the Flyknit (I blame them for my shin pain) and the Lunar Racers. Both are too stiff and have hard cushioning under the heel. I'm desperately searching for a good racing shoe for short distances, so I picked me up some Saucony Type A5 (after trying them on this time). My feet were flailing when I tested them so they must be good. :)