Sean's Running Blog

A slow 8.25 miles this morning. Planning on doing about the same tonight.

Another 8.25 this evening in a balmy 50 degrees and no rain...finally. I brought my iPod along for only the second time ever. It was kind of nice to have some company.

Went the Dempsey Indoor at the UW for a workout with some of the other guys on the team. It's the first time I have worked out there in over a year. It was very nice to be in a wind-free, relatively warm buliding to do a workout. Even better was the fact I got to run with someone, something I rarely am able to do but will be doing with greater frequency. Brett Winegar and I were paired together to do 6x800 with 2:30 rest in between. The target times alternated between 2:21 and 2:18. I'm never very good and the fast-slow repeats as I can't much tell the difference between 2:21 and 2:18 over 800m. My times were 2:20, 2:18, 2:18, 2:17, 2:19, 2:21. I doubt I would have hit these times on my own.

After 5 reps I was ready to call it a night. I was tired and the original workout called for 5-6 800m reps. I wanted to opt for the 5. But my coach encouraged me to do one more and given I was running with Brett, whom I compete against on a regular basis in local races, I didn't want to leave any impression that I was quitting. This was another benefit of running with someone else: Accountability.

Easy ten miles along the shore of Lake Sammamish. Cool cloudy day made it feel colder than the 41 degrees showing on a sign I saw. Did a bunch of stretching and some strenghtening exercises as well.

A very foggy and cold run this morning. It was boring too. Just had a hard time getting excited about running this morning. What I would do for a daytime run in the sunshine...

Another morning of very dense fog except this morning it was only 29-30 degrees so the roads were slick in spots which made the leftover gravel on the side of the road from the big snowstorm very helpful.

I really solid workout this morning. In keeping with my goal of doing more workouts with other people I was able to cajole John Timeus to come up from Kent and run the workout with me this morning. Even one person makes a workd of difference.

The workout was a 9-mile run with the first 6 miles at 5:25, the next two at 5:15 and the final one "all out" hoping for a 5:08.

We finally had some sun but the temp was 29 degrees to start so I decided to wear double gloves, a long sleeve shirt with a fleece pullover and running pants. Not exactly conducive to a fast workout. But I was warm!

I shed the fleece just after mile 1 and had no warmth problems the entire way. I even shed the outer glove layer at mile seven.

We ran the fix six miles on my RR Days 10k course which, except for a bridge crossing, is very flat. There is a turnaround just before mile 4 which accounts for the slowest of the six miles but it's a good course to workout on with very little traffic. First six splits were: 5:28, 5:22, 5:18, 5:28, 5:19, 5:19.

I was feeling pretty strong at this point despite having taken the lead position the whole way. There was no real wind to speak of other than what I was creating myself but it is nice when you can trade off the lead.

We reached the 6-mile mark and ran at basically the same speed back to the start line of the 5k/10k and hit it hard again for the final three miles. The final three splits were 5:17, 5:12, 5:14. I was very happy with the the 5:17 and 5:12 but knew going into the final mile that 5:08 was going to be very improbable. That said, I was perfectly fine with the 5:14 to finish up a strong workout in less then ideal weather and clothing conditions.

I was also very grateful to John for making the 30-minute trip up to run with me.