Of Mice and Marathons

AM: The Township Formerly Known As Springfield - 6.25 miles, averaged 7:52

Felt good this morning. I reconned another tempo loop. Still a touch hilly, but I think it will work for marathon tempos to work on changing gears and the occasional fartlek (when do I ever run those?). I can't see trying to do mile repeats on it, but I might throw it in for variety.

PM: Holy Sepulchre Cemetery - 6 miles, averaged 7:52.

I took a short detour through here the other day and spent two miles there today. Some of the headstones are absolutely incredible. Some even have friezes on them. It should work very well for intervals when I want to switch from the track.

AM: Pastorius Park Neighborhood + Springside Track - 7 miles, averaged 8:04 w/ 6 x 200 strides. Did 8 x 10-15 second hill blasts near the apartment complex when I got back.

PM: Treadmill - "6" miles in 40 minutes. I paid the slow treadmill tax with a 10 minute warmup on the Stairmaster waiting for a machine. First time on one of those. Going to try to use it a few days a week for 10-20 minutes or so to strengthen some muscles I don't generally hit.

AM/Lunch: 60 minutes on the treadmill (all @ 1%)

10 min @ 7.5

10 min @ 8.0

10 min @ 8.5

25 min @ 9.0

5 min @ 8.0

PM: Treadmill - a bit over 5 in 40 minutes with Megan

Lunch: 60 minutes on the treadmill at 1%

10 min @ 7.5

10 min @ 8.0

10 min @ 8.5

10 min @ 9.0

10 min @ 9.5

10 min @ 7.5

PM: Treamill - 4 miles. Did some weights. Megan assures me with my mileage I won't bulk up. Time will tell.

AM/Lunch: Germantown and Forbidden Drive - 12 miles, averaged 7:39 w/ 5 x 5 minutes with 2:30 recovery jogs

Interval 1: 6:02 pace

Interval 2: 6:06 pace

Interval 3: 6:11 pace

Interval 4: 6:05 pace

Interval 5: 6:11 pace

2.75 up/~4 down. Paces varied by terrain, tree cover, rocks, kids, and so on. A bit much for a sharpening workout but I kept the recoveries longer than normal (no more than 30% usually). Hoping to move faster than this on Saturday morning. I think my A5s are the go to shoe given that there's some mud and loose dirt. A trail race technically but with a 25:13 course record it's very fast (and not what most would call a trail race).

PM: Treadmill - 4.5 miles next to Megan

Pastorius Park + Springside Academy - 6 miles, averaged 8:29. Did some strides on the road and some on the track.

This puts me at the 2000 mile mark for the year. Last year I hit it on July 20. So not too bad considering how I started this year with a very slow start. If I don't end the year with an injured November and part of December I'll have a very solid base of miles. Hopefully 3700-3800, which would give me a decent increase over last year, but we will see.

AM: Run for the Hill of It 5 Miler. Not a good time for me, but it was a decent effort. I feel like I am going to be stuck in ~6:00 minute purgatory for the rest of my running career. My legs were fairly tired today, so maybe I accomplished my goal (get a hard effort on mileage loaded legs); I don't know.

Megan wanted to run, so we walked a bit so she wouldn't have to warm up too far and then ran (~1.3). Picked up my packet and continued to warm up for 3.25 with a half mile at marathon pace. Felt sluggish as I knew I would. Did a few strides just to loosen up. Race didn't start on time (they never do). I shut my Garmin off and didn't bring my Timex, so this was my first blind race, which is I guess how they use to do it in the days of chest hair and mustaches. I think I ran the appropriate effort.

Some faster young dudes took the pace out conservatively and strung it out after mile 1 as I knew they would. I stayed on the single file train and ran with a guy, traded places into the turn around. 13 minutes?! I'm having a great day! Nope, the clock is very off (I had to do the math after the race and that would be very very fast for me). I got by him around mile 3-3.5 and worked on the next guy and we traded places before he got back ahead of me and I wasn't able to outkick him. Just before the finish line we got a 29-and-change update and a "pick it up for sub-30." I almost died. I thought I was at least running in the 5:50s, but hopefully faster. I should have beat the guy in front of me, but was too pouty about my time.

1st half = 14:45 (5:54 pace) 2nd half = 15:21 (6:09 pace). Guess I died more than I thought. No one ahead of me ran a negative split, but one was a very close positive split.

Waited for Megan who ran 40:46 with a 47 second negative split. She asked if I was going to run it in with her which I did for a little while until I told her to beat the young woman in front of her by taking the tangent right of the edge of the fence post and straight to the finish. I let her go and she finished nice and strong.

It was pouring at the end of the race and a bit before. I pouted for a while, then we walked about 1.5 miles with Megan and then we ran a mile home (a good day for her). I got the idea to do some hard 400s as we were climing the College Hill, so I did another 1.25 to the track after dropping off my mud spattered singlet. Did the 400s then 1.25 home.

4 x 400 w/ ~85 seconds rest averaged 76.1

Those burned a bit, but I did have a decent amount of time from the race until I did the workout (legs were obviously pretty tired).

PM: Likely off. Don't need the mileage even though a typical PM, post-race shakeout would put me at 90 for the week.