Sean's Running Blog

Beautiful and perfectly cool morning for a run. Ran 11 miles...longest in a few weeks. From what i can tell, I'm all healed up but my speed workout on Wednesday will be the true test. I will proabably keep it simple by doing a fartlek but who knows.

Another beautiful and comfortably warm day. I ran along the Sammamish River trail and everything seems to be clicking again. I'll know more after my tmepo run tomorrow. Jumped back into the Brooks shoes today after putting 100 or so miles on the Nike Vomeros I am testing. Good to be back in my shoes.

Well, today was my first speed workout since my injury and only my second or third since Grandmas in June. I feel like I 've let the summer get away from me.

My coach suggested a tempo run of 8M with the first 6M at 5:30 and the last two at 5:05-5:10. To be perfectly honest, I was nervous the whole morning about being able to even hit the 5:30s let alone the 5:10s. But after enough procrastinating, I headed out to the Sammamish River Trail to do the workout. Fortunately, it was overcast and very cool.

Averaged 5:23 on each of the first six miles but knew very quickly there would be no 5:10s in my future today. So I quit the workout after the first six miles actually pleased -- albeit tired -- that I was able to do that and that I had zero residual effects from the injury. I won't consider myself out of the woods in that regard until after Saturday's workout which is an interval workout with shorter, faster repeats.

I ran this morning with Drake DaPont, a 2008 graduate, and 1600m record holder at Mt. Si High School. He redshirted last year at WSU but will be running this year for the team. They have an outstanding team this year. It was good to run with him. I know his mom pretty well as she is the coach of the distance runners on the HS track team and she's been a big help in recruiting volunteers for my local races.

It was kind of funny...we both did hard workouts yesterday and were hoping to just run an easy 7:00 pace. At mile 4 or so he suggested we were doing 6:00 pace. I said no way but looked at my watch and sure enough, we were running 6:05s. OOOPS. We just got busy gabbing and lost track of the pace. Need to slow it down tomorrow.

Another cool overcast morning...something I've learned to appreciate since the heat wave snapped. Ran again with Drake daPont. Good kid and a bright running future.

We ran most of the run on the Snoqualmie Valley Trail so I got some good soft surface running in ahead of the interval workout tomorrow morning.

A perfect morning for a workout. Cool and overcast. Did a 3.5 mile warmup with the running club and then jumped into a 3x(400m/400m/800m) interval workout. 30 seconds rest after the 400s and 60 seconds after the 800. Time goals were 68 for the 400s and 2:25 or so for the 800. The first two went fine. I was within a second on either side for each split. I started to have a few stomach issues as I began the third rep and my left groin started to feel pretty tight so after the first 400 of the third rep I called it good mostly as a precaution.

That said, I probably would not have been able to hit the third rep in the goal times. For whatever reason, I'm not bouncing back as quickly as I had hoped and I'm more out of shape than I thought. Those times should not be that hard to hit. Maybe the big bump in mileage is to blame or maybe I'm just not that fast.

There is a big 10,000 race on the track on Wednesday that a bunch of guys are trying to break 31:00 at. I was going to give it a go before I got hurt. After these last two workouts, it's crystal clear I am not in sub 31 shape and probably not sub 32 shape either.

There is also a 10k in Woodinville on Saturday morning next week that I may jump into. It's lower profile and might be a good check-in for where I am fitness wise.