Distance runners; We can do it longer.

Finally felt better today. Went for an easy 8 after school.

My lungs felt fine but my legs were so stiff, hopefully that wears off over the next couple of days.

A.M. 6 easy before school. I wanted to get out at least 15 minutes earlier then usual since I was going longer but I actually left at 5:30, which is 30 minutes earlier. Too early! I felt buzzed the whole run I was so sleepy.

P.M. 4.5 with the guys. Kind of a stop and go kind of run with all the streetlights. I added 1.5 more on the treadmill afterwords and still had some time to work on my awesome benching skills :P

2 mile warmup, 4 miles@6:00 pace, then a 2 mile cooldown.

4 nice and easy. I love recovery days!

Tried some speedwork today. A 2 mile warmup and cooldown and 8 400's with a recovery jog of the same distance between each one. The splits were as follows....

1. 72
2. 72
3. 71
4. 77
5. 74
6. 76
7. 75
8. 68

A really easy run just to recover from speed yesterday. I don't know if I'm tight from the workout in weights we did today or my speedwork....

I got this book called Lore of Running today for my birthday. This thing's a beast! It's nearly 1000 pages all about training and running in general. You might want to check it out if your really into finding the best way possible to train.

Another interval session. This time with 200's. There's too many splits too name them all. Over 20 splits at least. 

Recovery from yesterday and for tomorrows run. Lifted some weights after the run too. 

Another tempo run today. Did it again by the river where it's nice and flat. Decided to do tempo intervals where I run a 6:00 mile then jog for 3:00 because I was running with some slower guys from the team and I didn't want too hard of a run on my birthday ;-)

 Drivers license here I come!

Recovery from yesterdays tempo run.... Yay!

Went to Spokane

It was one of those days where you think you're going to have a ton of free time but you end up doing things all day. 

In my case, doing things involve going to watch the US National Cross Country Championships which was in Spokane this weekend. It was awesome seeing all the Olympic runners tear it up with all the college guys. Unfortunately this meant I didn't get a run in besides running around the course with my camera. 

After just two days of unplanned rest, my legs felt like rocks on this run. Maybe it was the fact that it had been raining ALL day, including during my run. I came back soaked and tired, but glad that I actually got a run in.  

Went for a run with Alan after school today. Nice and easy for tomorrow's workout. 

Did a set of 10x400 on the track with some guys from the team. The normal 400 revovery jog between sets and a 1.5 mile warmup. This workout seems to go soooo slow once you get into the later intervals. 

Easy run to recover from intervals yesterday. Supposedly there's going to be a time trial this Saturday so we'll see how that goes.

Since I didn't run Monday I screwed up my calender here so everything's a day behind.

An easy run with Alan today... I think

Stopped at the school to meet some guys for a run but I was 5 minutes late and everyone had already left. Lame. 

So I started heading home but I ran into my running group on the way there and headed back to Kamiakin with them. I probably only ran 2.5 but that's alright the day before a race I suppose. 

Today I finally got to see some results of my 600+ off season training miles I've put in. We started with a 10 minute warmup and some strides on the track. After that we broke out the short shorts and started the mile race. I tried taking 200m splits with my Garmin's auto lap option but it wasn't as precise as I'd hoped it would be. Splits went something like this.

• Lap 1 ~68 seconds - This lap was just keeping with my pace. I made sure not to get in the way of any of the people who were shooting for 4:30's and after they passed me I just tucked in behind them and tried to keep my distance so I didn't start out to fast. Apparently it didn't work because I was aiming for 70's and a 4:40 time.

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• Lap 2 ~73 - I could feel that I was working hard already from lap 1 but I knew I still had a lot left in me. One of the 4:30'ers had started falling back towards me but after I saw the splits on my watch I stepped it down a notch because I knew it was about to get tough and I needed all the extra energy I could get.
  

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• Lap 3 ~73 - On the backstretch of lap 2 I had caught up with the slowing 4:30 runner and tucked in behind him to avoid running straight into the wind. The wind was actually fairly bad that day and I know I could've ran 3-5 seconds faster without it blowing in my face. Now was when the mind started questioning why I was still running. My form tightened up and my arms were no longer swinging effortlessly at my side. I tried to relax but it's a lot easier said then done when you're going all out. With about 600 to go I made my move and passed up the 4:30 groupie. I was now mentally preparing myself for the effort it would take on Lap 4 to stay ahead.
  

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• Lap 4 ~71 By now my lungs were burning and my form must have looked pretty bad to anybody watching. The 4:30 runner passed me on the first turn and I kept on pushing as much as I thought was reasonably possible, but he kept extending his lead throughout the lap. My pacer who had hopped in at the 800 was yelling at me to get on his shoulder but I was pushing as much as I thought I could. When I finally rounded the bend of the last 200 I went all out but was regretful that although my lungs were burning like mad and my heart was ricocheting around in my chest, my legs didn't feel like they had been pushed as hard as they could've gone. I finally passed the line in a time of 4:50.
  

That probably doesn't add up to 4:50 but oh well. My goal since winter had been for my first meet to be in 4:40, and that is still 3 weeks away. I know the wind was slowing me, and I'm still in the middle of my interval phase so I think I'm on good pace to reach that goal. That was a PR for me, but my previous PR was from the end of my freshman cross country season. I had an injured hip and lots of sicknesses during track last year. I think how I felt showed how much better I might do in a two mile race. It's kind of unlikely I'll be racing the mile often in track because we have a lot of good milers at our school but I've put in a lot more miles then them this offseason.

Anyway, we finished with a 20 minute cooldown and I had a chocolate shake afterwords. Sweet stuff, and I'm looking forward to seeing how far I can push myself this track season.

 If you want a detailed report from the front of the pack check out Tyler's blog. Not sure when he's gonna write his up.

Ouch, my calves hurt. Today's run felt pretty good besides the tired legs though. 

1.5 mile warmup, then 12x400 with recovery jogging inbetween intervals. After that a one mile cooldown. Legs are feeling a bit better today. Anyone know how fast you should do your recovery jogs? I basically do them as slow as I can but that seems ridiculously slow at times. 

Another set of 12x400 today. Same routine except this time I did them at the park. Turns out that there's this certain loop that is exactly 800 m so it worked out pretty nicely. 

Um, switch this one with "Wednesday's" workout. It always seems to throw me off when I miss a day on the blog. 

Ran to 7-11 for a slurpee. YUM :-)

Went to the mountains today for a high altitude training run of 16 miles.

Strangely enough that run never happened ;-) But I went sledding and it isn't easy walking up that hill!

8 miles at an easy 6:50. Yay.

Oh hey, new shoes. New spikes too. I didn't wear either of them for this run though. Still breaking in the shoes. I wasn't sure if my new spikes could top my old one's in badass-ness, but I was WRONG. My old ones were pure white with neon green lacings but my new ones are bright yellow and have some crazy dragon artwork on the sole and heel. I can't wait to pass kids up on the track with these things.