The Next Step

It was a chilly morning (32) but luckily just a light wind. Today I went to the track to run some 800's.  I am trying to work on my speed some so I can run a couple of shorter races (5k or 10k) this fall.  I did a 2 mile warmup and felt pretty good.  It was still very dark out when I started the 800's so it was hard to see the watch and judge my pace.  It didn't get light until about the sixth one.  The goal today was 8 x 800 at 3:00 with a 400 jog recovery.  Here are my splits:

1st - 2:59

2nd - 2:58

3rd - 2:57

4th - 2:58

5th - 2:59

6th - 2:59

7th - 3:00

8th - 2:58

These went pretty good.  I started feeling my legs going around the 6th one.  On the 7th I started to feel like I had to push it harder just to maintain pace and really focus on relaxing.  Glad to get in some speedwork to start the week and happy with the splits.

1:10:01 (7:47 avg) 

I ran in the afternoon today and it was much warmer (52) but windy.  I felt good but just ran easy today.  The pace seemed to come easy for me and felt better as I have been fighting off a cold the last couple of days.  

54:10 (7:45 avg) 

I felt good today when I got started but just planned an easy day so didn't push it.  It was windy and ran back into it so I had to run a little harder on the way back.  The achilles felt pretty today and didn't cause me any problems while running.  It just seems to come and go.  I am planning a tempo run tomorrow so that is the reason I wanted to keep it easy today. 

1:17:53 (7:48 avg) 

It was a little warmer today (40) but pretty windy.  Today I planned on doing a 4 mile tempo between 6:35 and 6:40.  I felt good the last couple of days so I was looking forward running the tempo today.  I did a 3 mile warm up and then jumped into the tempo.  The first mile in the tempo was downwind and I felt very flat getting going.  I thought things might get better as I went along so I continued to push.  The second mile was ok but I was having to run harder to maintain the pace.  This mile was back  into the wind so was feeling it a lot more.  On the third mile I was struggling and having to push pretty hard.  My effort was definitely harder than tempo should be so decided to cut it short and try another day.  Here are my splits:

1 - 6:35, 2 - 6:37, 3 - 6:42

Pretty disappointed today especially after feeling good the last couple of days.  Maybe I should have tried the tempo yesterday when I felt good but I have been trying to stick to my schedule.  I still need to realize that I am just getting back to consistent training so probably will be some ups and downs along the way.

1:07:53 (7:33 avg) 

It wasn't that cold today (37) but it sure felt that way because of a strong North wind.  It reminded me why I don't like to run in Indiana in the winter.  After yesterday rough day I thought I would start off today super easy.  After taking it real easy for about a mile I felt pretty good and picked it back up to normal easy pace.  I felt pretty good the rest of the way but did have more pain then usual with the achilles.  It bothered me for about the first 2 miles.  I really need to get this taken care of and need to do more to try to get it healed.

63:45 (7:58 avg) 

This morning I had to go work at my daughter's school so I didn't get out until the afternoon.  That was just as well because it was a cold morning and still only around 40 when I ran plus a pretty good wind that made it feel colder.  I ran easy getting going and had the normal achilles issues.  That got better as I went along but had some hip issues as well.  I am just feeling kind of beat up right now and need to get all these minor issues taken care of.  I did feel good running wise and picked up the pace the last four miles to around 7:30.  Turned out to be a good run.

1:49:01 (7:48 avg)