Sean's Running Blog

Woke up to an inch of snow and heavy snow showers for most of the run. It was beautiful. Hoping to get at least 8 more miles in this evening and maybe even 10.

Almost 10 more this evening. I'm hating my Trance 8s now. They seem so much heavier and more rigid than my Infinity's. I will give them another few days to break in but may switch back tot he Inifinitys.

Tomorrow I turn 36. I felt every bit that old and more tonight at the UW Dempsey Indoor track. After several consecutive awesome workouts, tonight was a real stinker.

The workout was 4x1000m @2:50 (4:33 pace) with 90 seconds rest. Aftet the fourth 1000m, I was to jog 8 minutes before doing 2x600 @1:39 (4:25 pace) with 90 seconds rest and then 2x400m in 65 (4:21 pace) with 90 seconds rest. Let's just say things didn't go so well.

John Timeus and I warmed up together for about 5.5 miles, most of it outside. After stretching and changing into racing flats, we began the workout. I led the first one with the intention of trading off the lead each rep. After the first 200m we were 1 second slow. Not a huge deal except I ended up dropping another second every 200m after that for a finishing time of 2:55. Ugh. And to think I had three more of those. Second one was also in 2:55 and i was stinkin up the joint while John (albeit 11 years my junior) was right on. Getting gapped by five seconds never looked so bad. Third one was getting worse as I was really tired: 2:58. The fourth and final one came in at 2:57 and I was ready to pack it up and go except that would have been the only thing more embarrassing than botching my expected times.

After an 8-minute jog filled with "what the heck happened" we rolled into our 600m repeats. The shorter the distance the worse I am, but 2 laps (it's a 307m track) seemed doable even at sprint speeds (for me).

First one was in 1:42. Ugh. What a day. Second one: 1:43. I was ready to call a cab.

The good news was that I was only 2x400m plus a cool down away from going home and to bed. Oh...the thought of my pillow was searing my brain.

The two 400s came in at 66 and 67...the only two times remotely close to what I was supposed to hit. Keep in mind I have never broken 1:00 in the 400m. So 66 and 67, under the circumstances, were just fine by me. So was the nice 2M cooldown outside to my car.

Feeling old tonight.

Today was one of the hardest mornings in recent memory to get out of bed and go for a run. Normally on Wednesdays I run in the daytime hours to give myself some extra time to recover from my Tuesday evening workouts. But my schedule today is crazy so to get my run in I needed to start at 4:45. The first several miles felt slow and straight uphill which is to be expected. I really didn't enjoy my run until about mile 10.

I had a lot of time to think about last night's workout and after doing some math, I realized the times my coach set out for me were extremely aggressive. Doing repeats of 1000s and 600s at 4:30 pace or better is probably at the very edge, if not beyond the edge of my capability. I have never run the mile, but I think under the most optimal conditions, 4:30 would be a real stretch. I'm also back to running high mileage so I'm probably a bit tired. It probably also didn't help that the very tasty Qdoba burrito from lunch was still churning in my belly. Perhaps these are excuses but I was trying to cut myself a bit of slack after a very frustrating performance last night.

This morning I also unretired my Infinity's for one more morning. I am really hating my Trance 8s and my the new pair of Infinity's I have were upstairs and I was too lazy to get them so I just used my recently retired ones.

A glorious 14 miles along the East Lake Sammamish Trail. I wore my new pair of Infiniti's and I will never go back to the Trance. Felt really strong.

A chilly but beautiful morning run through the more rural parts of Snoqualmie and North Bend.

This morning the family and I went down to the Husky Classic, one of the largest and most contested indoor track meets in the country. Rohatinsky looked like an old man in the mile. The winning time in the 3000m was a ridiculous 7:47, a record in that facility.

By the time we got back home and I was able to start my run it was 2:30. I hadn't eaten anything but a bagel all day because I thought I was going to do my workout at the UW.

After a short 2-mile warmup, I jumped into the 3x2000m interval workout. 4 minutes was the rest period. The time to hit was 6:08 (4:56 pace). The first one was 6:07 and I felt fine. 2000m meters is a weird distance.

The second and third reps were in 6:05. On the third rep I apparently fell asleep on the second lap and spent the remaining three laps making up for it. Oh well. I thought about doing an extra repeat but opted instead to pick up the pace a bit for the cool down miles...hanging around 6:20s or so.

Despite a disappointing Tuesday workout, it was all in all a good week. Highest mileage in many, many months and feeling great.