Sean's Running Blog

I had an early flight this morning to NYC for a quick business trip. Monday is my double day which made trying to catch a 6:35am flight that much harder. I decided to get up at 3am and get 10 in at home and shoot for 12-14 more once I arrived in NYC. It's the first time I've run in the dark in quite some time. It was kind of cool though. We are so far north that the sun rises very early in June. It was 3:30 when I noticed the first light on the horizon. By 4:15 I didn't need my headlamp anymore. Crazy how early it gets light here and how long it stays light in the evenings. Of course, the flip side is it's dark as early as 4pm in mid December on the classic rainy evening.

Long but OK flight to NYC. I was upgraded to 1st Class so that gave me a bit more room to stretch and stretch out during the flight. Got to my hotel and got caught up on email before heading out to Central Park. So many fantastic memories of Central Park that will forever be engraved in my brain. It's still weird to run by the boathouse. Every time I run in Central Park, I go the opposite direction which is how we ran it at the Olympic Trials. Many of the mile markers are still visible on the pavement. My favorites are the "1 mile to go" the 800m and the 400m to go. I have to admit that running the course today got me a little extra excited about the upcoming marathon. I'm no more certain 2:19 is within my reach, but I'm a bit more excited. I get to run one more time in Central Park tomorrow morning before I head off for meetings and then back home for a workout on Wednesday.

A beautiful morning in NYC. It was a tad on the muggy side but it was another wonderful stroll through central park. It's such a great getaway from the noise and chaos of the city.

An ugly workout this morning. I got home last night from NYC at 12:30am. Got about 5 hours of sleep before the birds were chirping in my ear. I checked the forecast and we have a heat advisory out today. Temps were to reach the low 90s with some humidity thrown in for good measure. That is flat out scorching for around here, especially in June.

So I decided to beat the heat and do my speed workout this morning at 7:15am after dropping my daughter off at school.

The workout was 3x2M @5:00-5:04 with four minutes rest between intervals. Easy enough, right? Well, not so much. By the end of mile 1 (5:02) I knew I was in big trouble. The temp was already 70 degrees and the heat index was 76 with some wind. Mile 2 was a respectable 5:06 but my legs were 100% lead. You could have unleashed a grizzly bear behind me and I would not have been able to get my legs to move any faster. I did the math and I had spent 13 of the previous 36 hours sitting on an airplane and gotten no better than 5 hours of sleep either night. Not such a great way to optimize for a successful workout. Oh well.  

So I did the second rep and finished in 10:25. Not pretty. I spent the 4 minute jog wondering whether to go on. I tried the third rep twice and both times stopped after an 80 second lap. No sense to risking something just to get a third rep in that would have the effort of a 5:00 but no where near the result.

I used to get all worked up about workouts like this but once or twice a year I bail early on a workout and i'm fine with that.

Oh...it's 89 degrees outside right now. Running in this would have been even worse.  

Another lovely morning. Upper 50s and sunny skies at 5:15am. I was actually planning on running this afternoon but this dumb crow planted his noisy self by our bedroom window and I couldn't go back to sleep. Nice to have the run out of the way though. Everything felt great today. No glute problems and I felt a lot stronger than yesterday.

First signs of a taper. Just 10 miles today. I'm on the way down...slowly. Retired my Infinities with today's run. On to the next pair.

Slowly starting the taper. Workout today wasx 8M @ marathon pace (5:18) followed by 10-15 minute jog and then 10x one minute hard/one minute easy. Miles 1-5 were exactly each 5:18. 6 was 5:19 and 7 and 8 were 5:17. So pacing was really good. I've been battling some morning stuffiness and congestion which reared its head during the workout but I expect to have it all cleared up in the next two weeks.