Sean's Running Blog

A gorgeous day for a run in Seattle. 52 degrees and clear blue skies. i ran 14 miles along the east side of Lake Sammamish and I did it without a jacket and gloves. It's supposed to be this nice all week.

What a difference a week makes. Last Tuesday my indoor workout was a disaster. This week, things went much better. I met my coach and John Timeus and Uli Steidl for a "Ks" workout: 7x1000m in a fast:slow alternating format with 90 seconds rest. The fast time was 2:57 and the slow time was 3:00.

The four fast ones were all either 2:55 (4:41 pace) or 2:56. The "slow" 3:00 repeats were all in 2:58 or 2:59. So I beat all my times and did it feeling like I had a quite a bit left in the tank. I probably could have done each a couple of seconds faster and done a couple more reps without any trouble.

So last week was simply a stinker workout that everyone has from time to time.

 Ran another 11 tonight. Half way thorough I realized how dehydrated I was from the morning workout. I grabbed some water and that seemed to help.

Another gorgeous day in Seattle. 54 degrees and sunshine for my run along the East Lake Sammamish trail. The first three miles I felt really tired and dehydrated and I was getting farther and farther away from water so I turned back and headed toward Marymoor Park where there are water fountains. I felt OK most of the last several miles but I need to drink more water.

30 degrees and clear skies this morning at around 6am when I began my run. I actually got to finish my morning run in the daylight for the first time in a long time. It was a pretty slow start this morning. First mile took almost 8 minutes anf the next six were in the 7:00-7:05 range. But I'm healthy and feeling pretty strong. I drank a lot of water last night so hopefully I'm getting myself rehydrated.

A chilly 26 degrees this morning but another gorgeous sunrise. Seemed like it took forever to get warmed up and actually getting my legs to move. Shooting for 20-22 tomorrow.

Ate way too much last night but got some good sleep. Another stunning day. 51 degrees at 10:30 when I started my run this morning. That was the good news. The bad news was that the winds were strong...sustained at 20mph with gusts to 35mph. Not exactly ideal for a track workout. I considered going down to the Issaquah or Sammamish tracks but that was 30-40 minutes of driving I didn't want to do. So I just set expectations for a slower than expected workout.

The workout was 4x1M alternating slow/fast -- 4:56/4:53 with 3:30 rest between each interval. With the winds, I kind of figured five seconds slower on each would be acceptable.

But to my surprise, I was able to hit 4:57, 4:54, 4:56, 4:55. I was extremely pleased. My final 200m was in 72 so I ran strong through the end. The wind made things more difficult but it was a huge mental boost to have basically hit my times despite the conditions.

I then headed out for a 13-mile "cooldown." I averaged 6:25s which is quite a bit faster than I would normally do after a hard workout but it felt fine and the bright sunshine made everything a bit easier.

Gearing up to run my first ever indoor 5,000m race at the UW Last Chance Qualifier meet on March 7th. Hopefully there will be several desperate college guys trying to qualify for the NCAA championships. Not only will this be my first indoor 5,000m, but it will be my first 5,000m on a track of any kind. 16+ laps of pure enjoyment. :-)

It's supposed to be much colder and rainy all next week so I had to soak up the sun as much as I could today. First run of 20+ miles in probably 5 or so months. Felt really good. I got to remind myself of how terrible Gu tastes. Ick.