| Location: San Antonio,TX, Member Since: Dec 13, 2009 Gender: Male Goal Type: Other Running Accomplishments: 5K PR - 18:01 - Nov '14
10K PR - 38:37 (workout) - Oct '14
Half-marathon - 1:22:43 - Jan '14
Marathon - 2:58:43 in Boston! - Apr '13
50 mile - 7:49:30 (2nd) - Nov '15 Short-Term Running Goals: - Balance
- Run more trails, volunteer, more social running, run with a team
- Race a lot more. learn.
Race results / possible schedule:
Apr 2 - Hells Hills 25k trail - 4th
Apr 9 - Toughest 'n Texas 20-mile Trail - 2nd
May 7 - Paleface - Trail Marathon - 3rd
May 29 - American Hero road 25k - 2nd
Jun 25 - Pedernales Falls 30k nighttime Trail - 5th (sick)
Jul 16 - Muleshoe Bend 30k nighttime Trail - 3rd
Jul 23-24 - Fossil Valley 9-hour nighttime Trail - 2nd
Aug 6 - Colorado Bend 30k nighttime Trail - 4th
Aug 27 - Reveille Peak 30k nighttime Trail (entered)
Sep 10 - Franklin Mountains 50k (entered - not all-out effort...I hope)
Sep 17 - Lighthouse Hill 20-mile trail (entered)
Sep 24 - J&J 50 mile trail Long-Term Running Goals: Compete in a few more ultras without going off course (again)
Sub-18 in a 5k
One. Good. Marathon. Personal: I started running at age 30, in late 2009. I have 2 daughters (10 and 8 yrs old).
   
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 2448.33 | 493.67 | 2942.00 |
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| 1160s Miles: 359.10 | Fastwich Miles: 462.50 | Saucony A5 Red Miles: 182.90 | Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 400.60 | Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 406.20 | Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 386.80 | Saucony A5 Miles: 378.20 | Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 329.50 | Saucony A6 - Yellow Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4.00 |
| 54F. Got in 4 neighborhood miles in the late afternoon.
I wanted to simply invite my buddy and his kids over last night since his wife is deployed, and somehow that turned into us hosting a block party (mostly my fault). Since we're outside the city limits, we shot off some good fireworks, including one called "The Shizzle." I thought it was 25 separate shots when I bought it, but apparently you just light it and you get them all within about 20 seconds. Comes to more than $2/second. Totally worth it.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| 40F, N 17-27 mph. 7:47 AP. First time I've ever really felt the wind blow a bit here in the morning. I'm still pretty sheltered on the trail I always run on. 700 miles on the fastwitch and no signs of them getting too old - I bet they will last to at least a thousand miles.
Finally got around to planning out from here until Boston. Not the mileage of the previous Boston buildup, but at least the same level of quality, and at a mileage I should be able to handle while still nailing workouts.
Any thoughts?
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.50 | 4.00 | 8.50 |
| 25F. The dreaded bam-5k-predictor workout. 4 x 1 @ 5k, 90 sec rest. I had yet to be able to complete it until today. I did this at the track, so it was 4 x 1600. I averaged 5:51.4. The individual repeats were 5:55.5, 5:51.9, 5:53.4, 5:44.6.
I've had some good track workouts lately but this was probably the pinnacle. I've never felt so relaxed at sub-6 pace. Not saying it was easy, I killed myself on that last repeat, even allowing myself to kick the last 200m, which I usually don't do, for recovery purposes. Anyway, Bam would say this predicts an 18:18 5k, but I think I might even be in slightly better shape than that. Either way, my fitness at the 5k level has never been stronger (thanks Bam). It'll be interesting to see how that translates into a HM in 2 weeks. My LT wave workout next week should give me a better clue.
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 8.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4.00 |
| 67F, 8:20 AP. afternoon miles.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 14.00 | 3.00 | 17.00 |
| 42F, N 20-33 mph. 7:26 AP. Somehow timed my run to coincide with the cold front blowing through, so I had a pretty good wind for this one. Saved the tailwind for the way back and knocked out a few MP miles to finish up the run.
Only other noteworthy thing is hitting my first 60+ mile week since March. Bout time...
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 17.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 28F, N 16 mph. 8:44 AP. Windchill in the teens, but don't worry about us here in south Texas. I know we have some very extreme cold here, but we'll be ok. Upper 60s and low 70s by the end of the week. Thanks in advance for all your concerns about us during this savage winter blast.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 0.00 | 9.00 |
| 19F, 7:28 AP. First time since moving from Oklahoma that I had sweatcicles on my hat. Fun!
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 9.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.50 | 2.50 | 8.00 |
| 38F, light rain. Today was my last 3k session; I did the same 5 x 800m as always, but didn't think it would go any faster than last time. I did manage to shave a bit more than a second off the average repeat though, averaging 2:46.1 today (2:46.5, 47.5, 45.8, 47.7, 42.8).
This has definitely been a very productive little speed cycle for me. Weird that it will culminate with a HM instead of a 5k like it should, but that's just how it worked out. I'm hoping to find a 5k once I recover from Houston. I think I'm ready to at least take a stab at 17:59.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 52F, foggy. 8:20 AP.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.75 | 1.25 | 10.00 |
| 64F, 94%. Workout fail. I was supposed to do my 6-mile HMP wave run today but pulled the plug really quickly on it. Either I was tired, it was too unseasonably warm/humid, or the headwind on one of the straightaways got to me. A combo of all, most likely. It always sucks to pork the last workout before a race but I pulled the plug early enough that I can try again on Sunday, although maybe an abbreviated version since it'll only be a week out from Houston. I still have that awesome 2 x 5k in my memory bank, so I don't think I'm in trouble with HMP, just an off day.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 2.00 | 8.00 |
| 58F, 98%, some fog. 7:20 AP. Lost weekend as far as running goes...excuses are too lame to even type out this time. Let's just call it an early taper for Houston.
I was sluggish today but forced myself to do a little 2-mile tempo on the way back, for running penance. Did that in 12:18 (6:11, 6:07). 6 days to Houston....
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.50 | 0.50 | 8.00 |
| 35F, 7:32 AP. Legs felt good again today, must be back in the 30s. I think I'll just stick with my favorite 8-mile run holding pattern and then taper off slightly during the week, mixing in short reps at HMP. Easy run today except on the way back I was passing this guy and he started putting up some resistance as I got close; I was all like, nuh uh this is MY trail brah and then I punched it for about half a mile and wasted him. That'll teach him to, you know, run fast.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 2.00 | 8.00 |
| 42F, 7:13 AP. I did a little 4 x 1/2 mile on the way back. Each repeat I would imagine I was running a half marathon and didn't look at my watch. Paces ranged from 6:10 - 6:24. PR pace is 6:25 and the goal is to get a PR so I'm thinking start out around 6:20, try to come through the first 10k in ~39:30 and feel it out from there. I really am pretty unsure of how it'll go. My short track stuff has been awesome, faster than ever, but mileage has been low for an extended period and I haven't exactly been crushing long tempos. I'm almost more curious than anything, it's kind of a cool experiment.
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.50 | 0.00 | 6.50 |
| 36F, 8:15 AP. Took 'er a bit easier today. Shouldn't be any excuses in Houston - good weather, flat course...should get a really good idea of what kind of shape I'm in.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 0.00 | 5.00 |
| 49F, 7:52 AP. Kept tasting the 15-20 hot wings I ate for dinner last night.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 5.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 0.00 | 5.00 |
| Picked up my number and chip downtown, then a 5 mile shakeout with Jake K. My garmin wasn't picking up much of a signal but I can only assume it was 4:30 pace or so, right? Anyway, pretty cool to meet up in person... Looking forward to the race, the plan is still 6:20 pace and see what that feels like.
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 5.00 |
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| | Race: |
Houston Half Marathon (13.1 Miles) 01:22:43, Place overall: 57, Place in age division: 7 | | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 13.10 | 13.10 |
| 53F. Really good race. I thought if everything went perfectly, I could break 1:23, so I guess it did.
Miles 1-5: 6:23, 6:13, 6:15, 6:16, 6:20. (Garmin splits today, forgot to turn off auto lap). As you can see, it took a little while for me to find the magical 6:20 pace I was shooting for. I really felt good today. With all my recent track work at faster paces than this, it truly felt pretty easy; I mean, there's 13 miles so it better feel easy. I came through the 5k a little fast, officially in 19:22. By the end of the first 5 miles you could definitely see who there was to run with going the same pace.
Miles 6-10: 6:20, 6:19, 6:19, 6:18, 6:23. These miles were awesome. I found a group of 3 and latched on. They all had Luke's Locker on their clothes, so I guess they were friends. Jake gave me advice yesterday that helped - find a girl to run with because they are great at pacing. There just happened to be one in this little group and they were deadlocked on 6:20...perfect! I came through the 10k in 39:06, a little ahead of the plan. Before mile 8, the two guys in the group peeled off on the full marathon route. I went ahead and introduced myself to Luke's Locker girl, heretofore known as Kylee. We stuck together through this section, right on pace! Came through the 15k in 58:35, another great 5k split (19:29).
Miles 11-13.1: 6:15, 6:29, 6:22, 0:31 for .11 (4:42 pace). Kylee went behind me a few steps somewhere in mile 11; I should have slowed down for her, but I thought I knew better. Sure enough, that little pickup in mile 11 debilitated me in mile 12 and she dropped me there like a bad habit, ended up beating me by 8-10 seconds. Turning the corner for the home stretch, this guy pulls up next to me and we had ourselves an all-out foot race to the end. It was awesome. Usually I just pick up the pace slightly at the end, but we were battling like crazy. Dead even at the line, but he won on the chiptime.
Key takeaways: 1) That 2 x 5k workout continues to be a great HM predictor for me. 2) You can fake your way through a HM on low mileage if you have some good hard efforts in there. 3) Girls are smarter pacers than me. 4) I'm in great shape for Boston, but I've gotta run real mileage now, because you can't fake your way through that race. 5) I love my new age group! 7th of 721.
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 13.10 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 54F, N 16 mph. 8:15 AP. Some good, even, all-over soreness in the legs from the race (on concrete in lightweight flats). I cut this a run a little short because of it; the soreness is well worth it though. Recover this week, train for a marathon next week...
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| 34F, 7:55 AP. Still some residual crud in my legs, but better.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.00 | 10.00 |
| 53F, 7:40 AP. A little better; that race hit me harder than most HMs have. Maybe it took too long to find the chocolate milk tent afterward.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 10.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| 37F, 7:27 AP. Sleet and freezing rain shut down San Antonio this morning, giving me the morning off, and 9+ hours of sleep. I didn't run though. So normally, I would've said oh well, but I gotta start getting in the miles, so I ran around the neighborhood for an hour this evening.
I was playing around with Garmin Training Center, evaluating my race. Says I hit 4:06 pace at the end (for whatever that's worth; instantaneous pace is pretty inaccurate). I'll often crack into the 3:xx range on my strides, but this was at the end of a half. I need to hire a 15-year old kid to accompany me on workouts, I think.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4.00 |
| 57F, 7:59 AP. evening miles today. Long and easy in the morning...
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 17.00 | 0.00 | 17.00 |
| 45F, 7:43 AP. Tired legs still, but the second half was ok I guess. I have the recovery ability of an 80-year-old woman, so I guess I'm right on schedule given that.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 54F, 8:57 AP. Lucky to beat the 9-minute guy today.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 0.00 | 9.00 |
| 31F, N 16 mph, 8:12 AP. Couldn't quite get the 8-minute guy today, but will battle the 5:40 guy tomorrow. Should be interesting (16 x 400).
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 9.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.50 | 10.50 |
| 26F. Weeeell, I came down with a little illness which is why my last few runs felt so terrible. I woke up on this morning feeling crappy and weighing a few pounds lighter. So, naturally, I still went to the track to try a 16 x 400. Wow. I won't bore you with the details but I did not make it far before I resigned myself to sadly jogging many right-hand circles in lane 8. Decided right then to sleep in on Thursday and take the day off. Not a great start to Boston training, but what can ya do...
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 10.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| 53F, 7:39 AP. Felt better today, the day off running helped (and the extra sleep.) Got my 3 lbs back, which I needed. I think I'm in the gunk-ejection stage now, and hopefully can do a little bit of an MP workout on Sunday...not the full 18 w/10, but maybe a few less.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 6.00 | 12.00 |
| 48F, NNE 20-29 mph. 6:53 AP. Managed to run as the cold front was arriving again. No run yesterday, woke up too late and it was impossible to fit in after that. Today I ran a 12 w/ 6 @ MP, which is only 60-65% of what I had originally intended, but ok for today. I ran pretty well, given the last 2 weeks. The first 6 were warmup, but still at a pretty brisk pace, given that they were mostly headwind miles. Then I turned around and the legs were antsy to run. Last 6 miles went at 6:23 AP (6:21, 6:33, 6:27, 6:33, 6:27, 5:56). Clearly not MP in this lifetime, but I had the big tailwind, rested legs, and a shortened workout so why not crank it down a bit more? Anaerobic sprint the last couple tenths of a mile to snag a sub-6 at the end.
This next week might be more hit or miss with running as Danielle has to go out of town and I'll be single dad for a few days. I'll just have to be a bit more creative.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 38F, 8:30 AP.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 3.00 | 1.00 | 4.00 |
| Had the kids by myself, so couldn't run in the AM. This run was on a TM at the gym at work. Limited to 30 min (was all I could afford between work stuff) but I guess it's slightly better than nothing. Last mile was pretty fast, I guess.
Same routine tomorrow, but schedule looks better so maybe an hour on the TM, and will push my workout to Thursday this week when I can run outside.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 4.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| TM at work again. I probably could've squeezed in a couple more, but the urge to get off the TM was too much to overcome.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 2.00 | 12.00 |
| 29F, NNE 15-22 mph. 7:30 AP. The plan was to do 8 x 0.5 mile @ 10k, 60 sec recoveries. I could tell again on the warmup it was going to be bad. I almost didn't attempt the workout but after the turnaround decided to give it a try and made it through half of it. 6-minute pace was a sprint today; complete opposite from Sunday, when I would almost find myself accidentally running that pace at times. Weird, bc I should've been ready to go for this one. Just can't seem to get going on this training cycle.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 8.00 | 20.00 |
| 40F, 7:05 AP. No running the last couple days, because I suck.
Today was going to be just 20 easy, but I was feeling peppy from all my laziness and sloth so when I hit the turnaround, I picked it up to MP. It started feeling bad just before 5 miles in, so I told myself I could stop if I could just make it to 8. And so I pushed, made it, and cooled down the last 2.
10 easy/medium - 7:21 AP
8 @ MP - 6:38 AP
2 cooldown, ~7:30 pace.
Consdiering I've been averaging 40-something miles/week over the last 10 months, with no long runs, and wearing mushy kinvaras, this was ok. With only 8 or 9 good weeks of training until Boston, hopefully I can cram in some more distance work like this. Right now, I'm probably barely in sub-3 shape. Having just run a 1:22, I know I have the speed for sub 2:55, but I haven't been much of a marathoner this past 10 months. Might be too little too late, even if I can get in everything I want. Time will tell.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 20.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 0.00 | 5.00 |
| 58F, wet fog. 9:19 AP. Dropped a sub-9 in the last mile, no big deal.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 0.00 | 12.00 |
| AM: 34F, 8 @ 8:08 AP. Dropped a sub-8 on the last mile, no big deal.
PM: got caught up at work and snuck downstairs for 4 easy on the TM this afternoon. Surprising number of people in there for 2:30pm, so I didn't feel too truant.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| 33F, 7:47 AP. Decided on one more easy day since the 20 w/8 hit me harder than I'd planned. Tomorrow I'll retry the workout fail from a week ago.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.70 | 3.50 | 11.20 |
| 35F. Set out to do 8 x 800m @ 10k, 200m active recoveries. For 10k pace, I targeted 2:58-3:00. Ended up doing 7 of the reps, averaging 2:58.6, (2:57, 3:00, 2:58, 2:57, 2:58, 3:00, 2:59) so right in the sweet spot. Wasn't feeling too great; I could have emptied the tank and done #8, but that's not the point...the effort was good today. The days of being on my A-game for every workout are probably over for the next 8 weeks...time to suffer a bit more!
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| 36F, 7:38 AP. 8 easy in longview, TX (visiting in-laws for the weekend).
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 7.00 | 17.00 |
| 45F, 6:49 AP. Not exactly sure what to call this one; it was supposed to be 17 @ steady state, but I was feeling good and a lot of it was MP effort. I ran from Longview HS to White Oak, and it was a good, hilly route, with a couple of good Heartbreak simulators on the way back. The last half-mile climbs about 100 ft, and I kept it under 7, though I almost puked at the top. Definitely a good training run for a marathon, and as a bonus, I averaged the exact pace I ran @ Boston last year.
6:44, 7:06, 7:02, 6:59, 6:51, 6:46, 6:48, 7:02, 6:45, 6:38, 6:37, 6:54, 6:48, 6:35, 6:43, 6:40, 6:55.
Splits jumped around a lot because of the hills, but it's exactly what I needed since I've been running on the flattened creek trail at home.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 17.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.50 | 0.00 | 8.50 |
| 62F, foggy. 5 @ 8:44 AP. Faster than last Monday's recovery...maybe I'll be ready for a workout on Wednesday this week.
Hit the gym TMs at work in the afternoon for 30 min easy. My right calf started feeling sore on this run. Just feels like soreness but weird that it is only on one side. Guess we'll see how it feels in the morning...
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 0.00 | 9.00 |
| 62F, 7:55 AP. I can still feel my calf, but it's better; probably just a little microstrain from Sunday's effort. Acute injuries never worry me too much...can usually run right through them.
Don't know if the legs will quite be ready for LT pace tomorrow, but will probably give it a whirl.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 9.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 6.00 | 12.00 |
| 58F, heavy fog. Decided to go to the track for a 6 x 1600 @ LT, 400m active recoveries. After my warmup, I shucked my shirt and it seemed to help. It went pretty well today; Jake gave me a good reminder yesterday to go by effort. I looked at a couple pace calculators that both put LT at 6:07/1600m, but I eased into it, knowing the legs are adjusting to higher mileage than they're used to.
Average rep was 6:09 (6:14, 6:11, 6:09, 6:07, 6:07, 6:04).
By feeling out the proper pace for the day, I was able to complete the workout without emptying the tank. Definitely a success today.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 63F, 8:46 AP.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| 44F, 7:31 AP. Legs had some life today, so I did some sprints on the way back. Last mile ended up pretty close to GMP. Also, I hooted at an owl on the way back, and he then hooted at me. This is the 3rd time we've hooted back and forth.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 17.00 | 1.00 | 18.00 |
| 62F, 100%, foggy. 7:22 AP. 18 in the early morning at a medium pace, picking it up slowly to finish with a GMP mile. I think I re-aggravated my right calf on Friday doing those sprints, and I could feel it for most of this run but it wasn't too bad. I have no plans to run fast for a few days anyway. Saw an armadillo today, the national small mammal of Texas.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 18.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| I tried to run this morning, but my right calf is jacked up. It's tender and seems swollen too. Probably going to be at least a few days off for this one, if not more.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.40 | 3.00 | 8.40 |
| Tested out the calf today on the treadmills at the gym at work. I am using my get-out-of-jail-free card (heavy doses of vitamin I) but could not feel any discomfort. I kept increasing the pace to test it at different speeds, too. Ended up with about 3 miles at GMP or better by the time the TM shut down at the 1-hour mark. Still going to use a bit of discretion this next week or so, though. Gotta get to the starting line before I can get to the finish line...
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 8.40 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| 30F, 7:38 AP. Ran outside today, calf still feels good. Going to start my ibuprofen-tapering program now.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 0.00 | 12.00 |
| 43F, 7:36 AP. Got in a few extra miles - Danielle is going out of town this weekend and I am single dad again, so maybe some 4-mile TM runs at the most on Saturday and Sunday. Possible fast finish long run on Monday (22 w last 5 @ MP), we'll see...
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 
Bored, so I made a graph. Inverse relationship?
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 3.50 | 0.50 | 4.00 |
| 4 miles on the TMs at work, had to be there early today.
most pitiful marathon training cycle ever... I really have no business running a full marathon next month (on 45-50 mpw) but I will anyway!
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.00 | 3.00 | 10.00 |
| 41F, 7:15 AP. Easy with a 3-mile mini tempo @ GMP (6:40) on the way back. Hoping to get a real MP run in this weekend.
The triage on my plan means focusing on MP and LT this next month, with maybe 1 more speed session in the next couple weeks. I don't think I've put in the mileage to be able to hold my GMP for a full marathon, but hopefully I'll have some good indicator workouts in the next month.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 10.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.70 | 0.00 | 9.70 |
| AM: 43F, 6 @ 8:18 AP.
PM: 30 min on the gym treadmill at work after gorging at a Chinese buffet....bad idea on so many levels.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 1.00 | 12.00 |
| 43F, 7:24 AP. Progressed to a GMP mile on the way back. As I finished up, I enjoyed the last glimmer of light I'll get for awhile on these early morning runs, thanks to DST. Stupid DST.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4.00 |
| 4 neighborhood miles after a nice afternoon nap.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 8.00 | 16.00 |
| 43F, N 12 mph. 6:54 AP. Feeling good today (I'm in a constant tapered state). The plan was an 8+8 to see where I was at. The 8 ez miles outbound were fairly quick and coming back I went way faster than the 6:40 target. The last 8 miles:
8 @ 6:26 AP (6:37, 6:32, 6:30, 6:30, 6:26, 6:21, 6:20, 6:10).
Mostly aerobic the whole time, except toward the end. This tells me I've still kinda hung on to a decent threshold speed/fitness. What I need now is longer runs @ 6:40. On this lower mileage, the gap between what I can do on a training run and what I'll be able to do in a full marathon is going to be a lot wider. So if I can complete some longer tempos @ 6:40, then run ~6:45 for the first 17 at Boston (as opposed to the 6:35 I did last year), I think I'll have enough gas left to tackle Newton hills and finish strong, despite the lack of endurance. Theories are fun.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 52F, 8:36 AP. Dark Monday...
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 0.00 | 9.00 |
| AM: 5 on the TM at work; was going to do 10 outside this morning but my truck (which I only drive about once a month) broke down on the way this morning, so today will have to be a TM double. I've had that truck for 12 years, bought it right after I graduated from college, but the ol' girl is past her prime and seems to cost money every time I decide to drive it...
PM: 4 in the afternoon on the TM at work. Would have been easy to blow off running today, but glad I put in the miles; this make-it-happen attitude came easy last year but not so much this past year.
I told the guys at the mechanic's I was going to donate the truck to charity and there was some interest, so I'll probably sell it to one of them at a deeply discounted rate (does that count as charity?) They are putting their names in a hat in the morning to see who gets to buy it...guess my price was a little too low! Anyway, I'll miss the truck....went to go clean it out today. There was actually an old engagement photo in there from 12+ years ago that I'd kept in there. Danielle and I look like little kids.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 9.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.50 | 3.50 | 12.00 |
| 52F, N 20-30 mph. 7:13 AP. About a 10k warmup and then 7 x (3 min on 1 min off) on the way back. Normally I just do 800/200 at the track but it was a bit too windy. I got mostly tailwind for my repeats though any wind is greatly muted on the wooded trail I use. The "on" portions were 10k pace and the "off" portions were active recoveries. My paces for the "on" portions were 5:59, 6:03, 5:55, 5:52, 6:02, 5:56, 6:00. A little more variation than there would be at the flat track, but a good workout that I can recover from relatively quickly. The focus will now lean more heavily toward MP.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 44F, 8:08 AP. In Houston for a couple days.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.60 | 1.00 | 12.60 |
| 55F, 7:24 AP. Ran from my parents' to Memorial Park for a couple loops, and back. I got passed by a trio running together. I stayed a ways behind them for a mile or so to see how fast they were going....about 6:50. I hatched a plan to stay about 50m back until about half a mile before I had to peel off the trail to head home, at which time I would blow by them for the win. They ended up stopping before my plan could come to fruition though. Man, there is just something in the brain that cannot stand getting passed by other runners...
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.60 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 3.50 | 0.00 | 3.50 |
| 64F. Easy 30-min run before leaving Houston. Hoping for a decent MP run tomorrow, though I'll be staying out a little late tonight.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.60 | 0.00 | 6.60 |
| Total fail, though I was pretty sure it would be. Danielle and I celebrated our anniversary last night...great night, but when you're going to bed and setting your alarm for 3 hours later, there's a good chance things aren't going to work out very well for your run.
Danielle is going out of town for the next week to give her family some much needed help. Running will take a back seat again as I shuffle kids and work, but maybe I can make some stuff happen on the treadmills. Crazier things have happened, I suppose...
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 2.75 | 5.25 | 8.00 |
| On the work TM before lunch, I did a 1.5 w/u followed by 5 x 1 mile, with 1/4 mile recoveries. For the fast miles I did 9.5, 9.6, 9.7, 9.8, and the last repeat was a combination of speeds that resulted in 1.25 miles in 7:09 (5:43 pace). It felt easier than it should have today, which is why I just kept running harder on the last repeat (last half mile @ 11 mph). A combination of rested legs and questionable TM calibration, I'm sure. Still a good strong effort - didn't have the time to go long, so went fast.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 1.50 | 3.50 | 5.00 |
| Had time for a quick 5 on the gym TMs at work. Mostly MP, with another fast finish.
Likely no run tomorrow...
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 5.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| White space on the calendar closed up....nothing.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Looking like 9 full days of no running. I would run today but I'm super-behind at work. Danielle's mom passed away from a long battle with cancer...she will be (and is) missed very much. Running a good Boston marathon took a back seat. I will start up tomorrow, but obviously missed the window to run a decent marathon. Now, at least, I can enjoy the scenery and enjoy the race unlike last year's bonkathon.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 52F, 7:57 AP. A run, after 11 days off. Salvage plan is to build up easy runs this week, get used to running again, fast finish LR on Sunday (a week from now), then MP tempo ten days out. I won't PR, but I will still enjoy the race. Going back to a normal routine on Monday will help a lot.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.50 | 0.50 | 8.00 |
| 62F, 7:38 AP. Felt better than yesterday, still sucking a lot of air but it's probably good for me. Quads were actually a little sore from the 6-miler yesterday...it's been that long I guess. No time to ease into it now though!
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 1.00 | 12.00 |
| 67F, 88%. 7:35 AP. Sticky, shirtless run, but feeling better and better. Last mile 6:36.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 70F, 95%. 8:36 AP. Hot...on it's way up to 91 degrees today and hotter tomorrow.
My wussy legs needed some recovery so that's what I did today.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| 73F, 85%. 7:36 AP. I'd call it mid-June morning temps...crazy. Fortunately it should cool off a bit by this weekend.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 1.00 | 12.00 |
| 68F, N 20-29 mph. 7:24 AP. Ran as the cold front relief was arriving. Tough start, but rode the tailwind back to the car for the last 6, mostly 7:00-7:15 pace, and finished with a 6:24. Felt good - I don't think I'm quite back to normal, but a fast finish LR on Sunday should give me an idea.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4.00 |
| 56F, 8:06 AP. Cool morning, short run. 18 w/ 5 tomorrow.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 9.00 | 18.00 |
| 57F, raining the second half. 6:59 AP. My 18 w/5 turned into an 18 w/9. My last couple of outbound warmup miles were around 7:00 pace, and I knew at that point I was probably going to turn this into a longer tempo, because I was feeling like my old self again.
Last 9 miles - 6:31 AP (6:37, 6:36, 6:35, 6:34, 6:36, 6:29, 6:27, 6:26, 6:22)
Great run. It was quite an effort at the end though - I'm a little worried that I worked too hard for 2 weeks out, especially since my last 3 weekly mileages are 13, 6, and 68 this week, but I think it'll be ok. This does not mean I'm back in 2:55 shape though; the fact that it went from feeling very easy to very hard at the end is evidence of the low mileage base. If I want a good, even Boston Marathon, I have to make sure there is nothing under 6:40 on the watch until after Heartbreak. The good news is that I have not completely given up on the idea of a PR, crazy as it sounds....on 46 miles a week for this cycle. Milk it.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 18.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 46F, 8:44 AP.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| 52F, 7:49 AP. What should I do for my last workout on Thursday? I was going to do 8-9 @ MP, but I accidentally just did that on Sunday. Does it make sense to do it again, or should I run some LT, since I haven't hit that pace in weeks? Maybe a combo?
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| 48F, 7:38 AP. Another filler run, workout tomorrow.
Here's what I think I'll do: a 4-2-2. The 4 will mostly be MP, with a couple half-miles @ LT mixed in. The 2 mile segments will be 1 @ LT, 1 @ MP. That way I'm getting in a little of each, and having to recover from my LT stuff at MP.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 13.25 | 2.75 | 16.00 |
| 57F, 7:28 AP. Workout fail - I'm 99% sure my body is actively fighting off a virus that's been going around. I could tell on the warmup this was going to hurt, but stupidly, I still ran the long outbound warmup and gave it a go. Made it to the second LT segment and had to quit. It was going to be a tough workout but definitely should've been doable if I was feeling ok. The last 5 or so miles back to my car felt like the last 5 in a marathon. I would've given anything to just snap my fingers and be back at the car. Oh well, better this is happening now than next week..
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 16.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Slept in and got a good 8 hours...no run. It was the right decision - I'm definitely under the weather. I'm actually a little relieved because it means yesterday's abomination didn't necessarily happen because I suck at running.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 66F, 90%. 7:58 AP. Didn't feel wonderful, but I was able to break away from a shuffle into to a semi-run in the last couple miles. I think the fact that I was pounding the immune boosters even before I got sick was a big help. On the mend now...
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.50 | 0.00 | 4.50 |
| 69F, 86%. Plodded around the neighborhood, checking out the new developments. Got in a little trail running where they'd cleared the trees for new streets but haven't paved yet. Saw lots of deer and some kind of coyote-looking animal.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 0.00 | 12.00 |
| 72F, 90%. 7:46 AP. I'm not used to the miserable humidity yet, but I slogged through it. The cold front arrived an hour after I finished and now it's 49 degrees. Stupid weather.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 0.00 | 5.00 |
| 43F, 8:26 AP. Weather.gov is my favorite Boston forecast so far - 49 to start, 55 to finish, no wind.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 1.00 | 6.00 |
| 42F, 7:15 AP. Legs had some pop today. I might've timed my 12-week taper just right.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 3.00 | 8.00 |
| 58F, 7:05 AP. Good simulation run, even down the the temperature, probably. On the way back I did a 3-mile MP block (6:43, 6:46, 6:44). By the 3rd mile it was feeling very smooth, efficient and easy. I even wore the shiny red shoes I'll wear for the race. It should go well with my burnt orange shirt and blue shorts. Fashion is very important to me so let me know if anyone needs advice in that area.
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.60 | 0.00 | 4.60 |
| PM - 77F. Nice slow plod around the neighborhood...still felt hard (a D-A.S.S. run, for sure). I usually take the day off 2 days before the race (which is tomorrow). But it usually makes me feel weird/inefficient during my shakeout run the day before the race. So this time I did a PM run before my day off, so it would only be 36 hours between runs instead of 48.
All of this precision is, of course, ridiculous given I took a whopping 264 hours between runs a few weeks ago. But the bonus from this run was getting in a warm one; Boston won't be this hot but there's a good chance it'll climb into the 60s before I hit the finish line, so I'll call this a mini-acclimation run.
I fly into Providence tomorrow to stay with my aunt again....can't wait.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 4.60 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 2.70 | 0.00 | 2.70 |
| Easy in providence. My bib is 3926, good luck all!
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 2.70 |
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| | Race: |
Boston Marathon (26.2 Miles) 03:02:29, Place overall: 2767, Place in age division: 1820 | | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 26.20 | 26.20 |
| 51F start, 61F finish. 6:58 AP. Probably about what I deserved, maybe better than I deserved, given the last 3 months. I can't complain at all, really. Basically the same kind of race as last year (6-min positive split), only slower; that's what being heavier and woefully undertrained does. Happy with the result.
Pre-race - I got an invite from a friend at work to a house in Hopkinton before the race, right on Main St. The couple that lives there used to live in San Antonio. They opened their home to 15-20 runners, and provided all kinds of yummy carbs and gatorade. Soooo much better than the crowds at Athlete's Village, the port-o-potties and the chilly morning! What a treat that was...
Finally I leave the house and get to my corral, and I see Kylee, the person I ran most of the Houston Half with back in January! Small world. She was there with a guy named Tom (also from Houston and seemed wise and knowledgeable) and they were planning to run 6:45-6:50...perfect! The running gods seemed to be smiling on me.
I turned off auto lap, so these are course marker splits.
Miles 1-5 - 6:46, 6:44, 6:39, 6:45, 6:45. Ok, so a touch faster than I wanted but I was happy. These are pretty downhill, anyway.
Miles 6-10 - 6:38, 6:40, 6:41, 6:40, 6:44. Tom was taking us through these miles a little faster than I wanted, and I considered letting them go several times. But I was having fun and that's what it's all about! Even so, Kylee and I started to drift back a little by mile 10.
Miles 11-16 - 6:46, 6:41, 6:51, 6:41, 6:53, 6:32. The last of the flat/downhill miles. We let Tom go and stuck together through this section. Came through the half in 1:28:04, and thought to myself what a perfect split that would be...LAST YEAR. I think I knew what was coming; you have to actually train for a marathon to run your best. But, I was still having fun and still feeling good. I saw my aunt, cousin and dad (who flew up from Houston) at the same spot as last year - the Whole Foods in Wellesley. Dished out the requisite high-fives, and took off again.
Miles 17-21 - 6:56, 6:59, 6:53, 7:15, 7:35. The hills. I think I made it over the first two feeling ok, which is an improvement over last year, but Heartbreak got me again. I also dropped Kylee on Heartbreak. I slowed down a few times so she'd catch up (thinking she was probably in better shape than me, and was just being smarter) but she disappeared back there and I plodded ahead. Turns out she actually started walking.
Miles 22-26.2 - 7:04, 7:37, 7:33, 7:53, 7:44, 1:33 for .23 (6:46 pace). Right after the 22nd mile, my legs were hit by the Wave of Uselessness. You know what I'm talking about. I knew it was going to be another death march at that point. I kept telling myself even an 8-minute mile is better than walking, and it got me through it. I made sure to keep my head up, look around, and enjoy it this time. Unreal crowds. Managed to conserve some energy in the last couple miles in order to finish strong.
I saw Tom and Kylee shortly after crossing the finish line. He ran a 3:01:xx and she ran a 3:00:02! Apparently she walked for a half mile and then started dropping 6:30s. Tough to miss sub-3 by so little, but wow.
My family had driven to Boston from Wellesley to greet me at the meet-up area - worked out great! They had a little adventure too - apparently got stuck on the wrong side of the course back in Wellesley and had to cross through the runners, like a game of Frogger.
I probably had no business trying to run a full marathon. It's nice to know I can pretty much roll out of bed on any given day and run a 3:02, but I need to get into shape this summer. More racing, more PM treadmill runs at work when there's a break in the schedule, more TM workouts when it's too hot outside. Hit 60 miles a week and stay there until the fall, then run a little more.
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 26.20 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 0.00 | 5.00 |
| 76F, 30%. 8:25 AP. Warm, but uncharacteristicly dry air this morning.
My first run back since Boston - it's been a week, so I figure it's time to go... Good solid plod - I am all in one piece, just had heavy legs.
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 5.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 63F, 7:40 AP. Easy, but I had to throw in a couple faster miles up front, because a guy with a headlamp was catching up. Everyone knows Rule #1 of running is you don't let people with unnecessary headlamps pass you on the trail. Legs were much more responsive today than yesterday, but still a ways to go with recovery.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.50 | 0.50 | 8.00 |
| 56F, 7:31 AP. Feeling better and better. I even did 3 x 1-minute @ 3k-5k, with lots of recovery.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 55F, 8:07 AP. Great running weather the rest of the week, too. And then that's probably it until late October. Gotta savor it!
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| 56F, 7:19 AP. Good cruising pace, then 6 x 1-minute strides on the way back. Paces were a little faster than Wednesday - the last two were probably 1-mile pace.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 2.00 | 0.00 | 2.00 |
| Took the kids out to the trail where I run in the mornings. They biked while we ran (total of 3 miles, but walked some).
My oldest had to do a presentation a few weeks ago about 4 different kinds of animals that live in the area, so she thought it was cool to see them. We spotted plenty of white-tailed deer and a cottontail rabbit, but no armadillos or skunks today. 2 out of 4 ain't bad though!
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 6.00 | 14.00 |
| 60F, 7:03 AP. I wanted to pick up the pace a little at the end, but this was probably a bit much for 2 weeks post-marathon. I could feel the deep fatigue (what I like to call marathon stink) in the last couple miles. I averaged 6:44 for the 7 miles on the way back (7:00, 6:53, 6:46, 6:27, 6:45, 6:39, 6:39). The 6:27 kicked up a little lactic acid so I dialed it back realizing I wasn't quite recovered from Boston, despite how good it felt up until that point. Even so, this is probably the fastest I've bounced back from a full marathon. Not sure the reason; I underperformed the race, but not by too much.
Next week is a transition week. Probably a light CV workout on Tuesday, some strides, and a progressive run somewhere in there. Then it's time to kick in the 5k-10k program. I know that's what I said last summer, but, like, for real this time.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 14.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 61F, 8:35 AP.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.20 | 2.80 | 8.00 |
| 66F, 89%. Hit the track today for the first time in quite awhile. This is my transition week, so I wanted a light workout just to get moving a little. I did 5 x 800, 200m active recoveries. Normally I do 7 or 8 of them at 10k pace, but I cut out a couple reps and slowed the pace a few seconds - 3:04, 3:03, 3:02, 2:59, 3:02. Followed it up with 5 x 100 on the straightaways, jogging the curves in lane 8. Good start. I was able to finish the 800s just as the legs were starting to get that fatigued feeling from marathon remnants. Will probably take it pretty easy the rest of the week, maybe a little progressive run somewhere, then hopefully I'll be ready for real workouts next week.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.00 | 10.00 |
| 72F, 78%. 6 @ 8:20 AP. Lots of people on the trail today. I don't see a soul when it's 45 degrees, but flocks of people once summer starts?
AM2 - 4 on the TM before lunch at work. Slow.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 0.00 | 9.00 |
| 74F, 85%. 7:59 AP. Struggled in the sticky weather, but gotta acclimate sometime. The next few days should help with that, then it looks like we'll get one last short stint of cool mornings next week. Definitely planning to pack a couple workouts in there.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 9.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 1.00 | 13.00 |
| AM: 75F, 90%. Forgot my watch, but basically a repeat of yesterday's 9-mile slog.
PM: Friday afternoons are usually slow, so I was able to get in 4 more on the TM at work, including a mile worth of strides at various inclines. Having those treadmills downstairs is really going to help me maintain the 60 mpw goal this summer.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 0.00 | 12.00 |
| 71F, 88%. 7:30 AP. Picked it up a little on the way back, without cracking into the 6's. It's looking like Wednesday and Friday for my two workouts next week -- both mornings in the 50s! Probably the last time until mid-October that we'll see temps that low, so gotta take advantage.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.10 | 10.10 |
| AM: 74F, 92%. 6 @ 8:48 AP. Gonna try and hit the TMs at work later, if I can.
PM: 4.1 on the TM, included several strides at 5k pace to prep the legs for Wednesday's 5k workout.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 4.10 | 1160s Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| 57F, N 14 mph. 7:50 AP. Some heavy thunderstorms came in last night and cooled everything off nicely. The trail was kind of a muddy mess - I had a pretty sweet slide through the mud while it was still dark; somehow managed to stay on my feet. On the way back it was lighter outside and I saw my skid mark - I'd say almost 3 feet long. Would have been hilarious to see on instant replay.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.35 | 3.75 | 13.10 |
| AM: 51F, N 13 mph. 9.1 @ 7:05 AP. Taking full advantage of the unseasonable cold snap, today was 12 x 0.25 mi @ 5k pace, 60 sec active recoveries. I wanted to do it at the track, for accuracy and consistency, but I knew lane 1 would be full of puddles and I could minimize the wind on the trail, so I just set garmin to quarter-miles and did this on the usual route.
It went well, given it was my first interval work in awhile. I only wanted to average 86, but ended up averaging 83.7 (5:35 pace). Slowest was 85.6, fastest was 81.4.
Pretty easy - quarters at 5k pace isn't supposed to be hard, but I'll be increasing the duration of the reps as I go. Sub-18 this year...I'm like totally serious this time. No fake.
PM: 4 more on the TM in the afternoon at work. I threw in 3 x .25 on/off @ MP. If I don't have some strides or something to look forward to, I find it very hard to stay on the ENTIRE 4 miles.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| AM: 48F (really). 6 @ 8:08 AP. I wish my legs could handle back to back workouts, because it was awesome out there this morning. Tomorrow should be ok though - long tempo...
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 8.00 | 13.00 |
| 57F, 6:54 AP. Still great running weather for mid-May. Yesterday broke the record low for San Antonio by 5 degrees so I guess it would be a little greedy of me to expect that too often.
Today was an 8 mile aerobic tempo. I wanted to run it around MP, but I was feeling good and there really wasn't any reason to hold back with my next workout 4 days away. So I did 5 easy followed by 8 @ 6:30 AP: (6:45, 6:38, 6:36, 6:35, 6:32, 6:27, 6:21, 6:09). Perfect progressive effort. Not just aerobic by the end anymore, the last mile I was pretty close to max effort. But I know I won't be able to throw down these paces this summer so took advantage while I still could.
There's probably no question now that I'm fully recovered from Boston. Again, probably the easiest, fastest recovery I've had from a full marathon. 2 really good workouts this week - I'm hoping I can stay on a roll as it heats up...
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 13.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 3.00 | 14.00 |
| 67F, 85%. 7:12 AP. Kinda quick on the way back. I'm too lazy to look but I think I logged a few MP miles toward the end. Let's call it 3...
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 14.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 1.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 66F, 84%. 7 @ 8:05 AP. Another good thing about getting some daylight for my morning runs is that I can run in the grass and dirt alongside the paved trail without worrying (as much) about tripping. Finished with a couple strides...3k pace tomorrow at the track!
PM: Yesss - 4 more on the TM, with some extended strides @ 3k pace. I didn't think this one would happen but the workshop I was in was wrapping up about an hour early -- the exact amount of time I needed. Then people kept talking, putting in their two cents here and there. I was trying to will them to be quiet so I could leave, and eventually they stopped and the meeting broke. I'm glad they couldn't see my thought bubbles: "Shut up! Keep your opinions to yourself, I gotta go!"
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.75 | 3.25 | 11.00 |
| AM: 67F, 84%, SSW 12 mph. Today was 5 x 800 @ 3k pace, 2 min rest. It's always a question mark for me when deciding how fast to start out. Here's what I considered:
2:43 - McMillan 3k pace (based on HM time). No way I'm there.
2:46 - the fastest I've ever done this workout - it was cooler, less windy, and I was in peak shape. Nah.
2:52 - 5k pace - this would be too slow; 5k is a different workout.
I decided to aim between the last two and it was the correct target for today. I averaged 2:48.6: (2:48.4, 2:48.2, 2:48.1, 2:49.0, 2:49.5). So maybe after 4+ years, I'm finally starting to understand all the considerations that go into a properly paced interval workout. That will be the key this summer. Normally I have a really high percentage of Workout Fails the hotter it gets. Today was relatively cool, so in future workouts I just gotta remember to add it all up like I did today and it should come out right.
PM: 4 on the TM, included 6 x 45s hill sprints (4-5% @ 10 mph). About 3/4 mile in total.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 71F, 78%. 6 @ 8:29 AP. Legs wanted to go slower today.
PM: 4 ez on the TM, but sprinkled in 4 x 0.25 on/off @ HMP. Like I said, gotta have something to keep me interested on that thing. Who knows, maybe I get some tiny benefits from keeping the legs moving a little on these PM runs.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 0.00 | 12.00 |
| 72F, 84%. 7:43 AP. Kept it easy today and pushed my HMP workout to Saturday. We'll be in Longview for my niece's HS graduation, and the temp and DP are both about 5 degrees lower there. So, yeah, rescheduled everything for the sake of 5 degrees. That's how I roll.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 72F, 91%. 8:14 AP. A little rain, felt good.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 6.00 | 11.00 |
| 69F, 92%. A little steamier than predicted, but I drove up to the track in Longview for 4 x 2400m @ HMP, 400m active recoveries. Same field they had the HS graduation on last night, and for repeats 1 and 4 there was a tractor and trailer (cleanup crew) covering the first 4 lanes so I got a little bonus mileage on those, running wide on one of the straightaways. Average repeat was 9:27 (about 6:20 pace, which is very close to HMP). Individual reps were 9:29, 9:34, 9:29, 9:17.
Pretty good given the humidity, and direct sun for a lot of it. This is probably the first workout I'll be moving to the treadmill when it gets hotter. Legs just lose all their oomph...
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4.00 |
| 67F, 98%. No watch...definitely slow.
We timed our trip well. On the way back to SA, we get a text from my sister-in-law who lives in Austin, that she's going into labor. Austin happens to be on the way home. So me and the kids are in the waiting room now. Good way to break up the trip - drive a little, pit stop for a childbirth, drive the rest of the way.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.10 | 0.00 | 11.10 |
| 66F, 95%. 7:51 AP. Raining, felt nice and cool. If only it could rain every morning this summer - I'd be evah so happy.
PM - 4 in the neighborhood, right after a big dinner. I could feel my gut swinging back and forth. 8:13 pace.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 11.10 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 3.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 68F, 100%, fog/light rain. 7 miles total. Headed down to the track to splash around at 1-mile pace today. 8 x 400 @ 1-mile, 90 sec rest. The rain had me feeling good again and I averaged 75.8, which is about a half-second faster than I've ever done this workout. Individual reps were 77.8, 75.4, 78.0, 76.8, 76.6, 76.3, 75.0, 70.3. I may have even (unintentionally) sandbagged a little as it was pretty easy to drop the pace at the end. For me, the key with this workout is getting your legs used to a very unfamiliar pace by running a little harder than you think you should.
About 2 weeks out now from my first-ever track race - the 1600!
PM: 4 on the TM, including 7 x 45s hill sprints, ranging from 4 - 5.5%, and 10-11 mph.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 70F, 92%. 8:36 AP. Rickety old legs for this one. Need to bounce back for some 10k stuff, preferably tomorrow.
PM: 4 on the TM, with 6 x 1 min @ 10k. Trying to get the legs primed for a tough one tomorrow. No workout fail, no workout fail, no workout fail...
In other running news, I signed up for the Houston full. It's nestled nicely, 6 weeks after the San Antonio full, and 6 weeks before the Cowtown ultra. What could go wrong?
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 6.00 | 12.00 |
| 66F, 86%. Last workout of the 3-week minicycle was 10k pace. For my 10k workouts, I'm using a McMillan progression until I can do a 3 x 2-mile. This workout was the first step, a 6 x 1600m, 600 active recovery. Usually when I do a 6 x 1, it's at LT with 400m recovery; McMillan says to take 3-4 minutes recovery so I chose 600m which ended up being just over 3 minutes. Even with that much recovery, which seems like a lot (don't recall ever taking this much), I knew my predicted 10k pace (5:58) would be a little too much to ask so I thought I'd start around 15k and work my way down to a 10k rep. Amazingly it went exactly as I planned...scary.
Avg rep was 6:02.8. Splits were 6:05.8, 6:04.6, 6:03.9, 6:02.8, 6:01.3, 5:58.5.
The last 2 were tough. On the last one I was right at 3:00 at the 800, and already really hurting. But I pushed up the effort. The taller weeds in the football field turned into giant caterpillars that started singing White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. Is that "deep threshold," Jason? Maybe I get it now. Anyway, made it under 6.
Very successful 3 weeks - I went 6 for 6 on my workouts (almost unheard of, for me). I'll take several easy days now and start over again next week.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.25 | 1.25 | 10.50 |
| AM: 68F, 86%. 6 @ 8:44 AP.
PM: 4.5 on the TM in 35 min. More strides than usual, didn't want to stop this time.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 4.50 | 1160s Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| No run today - with a 12-miler tomorrow, I'll still hit 66 this week, which is enough. Instead, enjoy this graph:
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.50 | 1.50 | 12.00 |
| 71F, 89%. 7:25 AP. Ended up with 1 @ MP plus a faster half-mile or so on the way back. Sticky out there. Had a family of gnats glued to my torso when I was done - this is the official signal that summer has begun.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 73F, 85%. 6 @ 8:34 AP.
PM: 4 on the TM, with 6 x 1-min strides @ 5k.
5k pace workout tomorrow. DP will be right around 70, but I'm going to give all these workouts a shot outside first, at least once, before making the call to move them to the TM. I'm pretty intent on staying away from "workout fails" this summer so if I think I'll do better indoors, as much as I hate it, I'm going to suck it up and hit the gym.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 10.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 4.00 | 13.00 |
| AM: 75F, 82%. 8.5 miles total. Today was a workout day, 6 x 800, 400m recoveries. On my warmup, which is just through nice, normal suburban neighborhoods, a lady slows down in her car next to me and yells, "Wooooo, shirtless!!" Then as she was driving off, a large dragonfly whacked me in the face. I'm still trying to process what this all means.
On to the workout... I wanted to hit goal 5k pace, which was 2:52. I averaged 2:53.3. Pretty close, considering the dew point was about 69 (1 degree shy of The Death Zone) it was actually a really good workout. Splits were 2:54.7, 53.3, 54.4, 54.5, 53.5, 49.2.
The collection of gnats on my stomach was 20% larger than yesterday's.
PM: 4.5 on the TM. Same routine: 2 miles slow, then start playing with the buttons. Today it was a couple quarter miles @ MP, then 4 x 45 sec @ 1-mile GP.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 13.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 73F, 86%. 6 @ 8:44 AP. Cranky, bitter legs.
PM: 4 on the TM. Cranky, bitter legs.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 8.00 | 13.00 |
| 75F, 83%. 7:15 AP. 8-mile aerobic tempo today. I did this same route @ 6:30/mile 3 weeks ago (when it was 57 degrees) so I thought 6:50 would be reasonable today, but I was going to be happy to keep the splits under 7:00. So, 5 mile warmup, then 8 @ 6:49 AP (6:56, 6:44, 6:48, 6:52, 6:46, 6:55, 6:49, 6:44).
It was definitely easier to run 6:30 in cool conditions than it was to run 6:50 today. But I'm going to keep this one outside rather than move it to the TM; I don't have a marathon for 6 months so no need to lock in a certain pace, just looking for a good, hard aerobic effort. This is the kind of run that should make me tougher in summer races as well. Glad to be done with it though; I can be happy right now because now is the longest possible time before I have to do it again.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 74F, 86%. 6 @ 8:30 AP.
PM: 4+ on the treadmill, about a mile worth of hills in 35-45 second increments. All at 4%, started at 10mph, worked up to 12mph.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 0.00 | 5.00 |
|  5 @ 8:00 AP, then headed to the SARR monthly fun run (free!) with the kids. For the hundred yard dash, they grouped them by age and my oldest won her heat. So what if there were only 2 kids in it...(and the other kid was wearing jeans).... Then I paced her in the half mile race, probably went too slow for her but she ran it all in 5:09.
Now we're headed to Abilene to visit some old military friends. Might get in a run Sunday morning around my old stomping grounds...
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 5.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.00 | 0.00 | 7.00 |
| 66F, 88%, rain. 7:45 AP. I wanted to run my old dirt roads since we were back in Abilene, but they would've been muddy today so I stayed close to the hotel (lightning nearby as well). Legs were pretty flat until about 5 miles into the run. I'm finishing off my highest mileage week in over a year though.
Track meet tomorrow night. Kind of a weird dilemma though - I need a nice long warmup (today helped prove that) but the heat index is going to be in the upper 90s and I don't know how much sense it makes to run around for 30+ minutes out there, jacking up my core temp. Maybe a couple segments of warmup, broken up by sitting in the car, blasting the a/c? I'll have to think about that one...
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 7.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.50 | 0.50 | 8.00 |
| AM: 76F, 85%. 6 @ 8:00 AP. Couple of ~30 sec strides @ goal mile pace.
PM: we had a line of thunderstorms come through at lunch and somehow that cancelled the 6pm meet. At 6pm there was severe sunshine. The school was worried about the infield being too sloppy. When the guy in charge told me that, I jokingly said "ah, who cares about the field events!" He was kinda old and I don't know if he knew I was kidding, so it was awkward for a few seconds. Anyway, I was ready to run and so warmed up a mile then did a 400 at my planned race pace (77s). It actually felt pretty bad. Then a couple 200s that felt hard. Meh, maybe the cancellation was a good idea after all. Try again next week...
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 6.00 | Saucony A5 Red Miles: 2.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.50 | 3.50 | 11.00 |
| AM: 68F, 87%. 7 mi total. I woke up and saw the arctic-like conditions, and got excited. Not one to look a gifthorse in the mouth (and still rested from the cancelled track meet), I moved tomorrow's 3k workout to today. Correct move. I went back to the last time I did this workout and figured I should improve since the conditions were about the same. Warmup felt great, which is unusual. The first rep (usually the slowest) was already under my average for last time, and it felt like a joke, which is crazy. 5 x 800 @ 3k, 2 min rest.
I averaged 2:42.7. Splits were 2:46.6, 2:43.9, 2:43.5, 2:43.0, 2:36.6.
After the second one, I was pretty sure I'd PR the workout (old avg PR was 2:46). The next number on my mind was my actual McMillan 3k pace -- 2:43. I knew I had to really go on the last rep to get it, but I managed a fast one which was enough to bring the average down.
Very encouraging. I suspected my fitness level was good, but it's always so hard to tell in the summer months, since you can't push as hard. Fortunately we had this random icy-cold morning. This will help motivate me -- the work I'm doing is indeed helping, even if I don't hit these paces again for awhile.
PM: 4 on the TM. Ate a huge lunch, so I was happy just doing 4 x 1/4 mile on/off (9.5/7.0) to lock in some muscle memory for Thursday's HMP workout.
I looked up the nutritional info for my Carl's Jr lunch: 2230 calories, including 121g of fat. The fat is especially cool - equivalent to over a quarter pound of pure lard. Yeah, Americaaaa!
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 67F, 82%. 6 @ 8:46 AP. Another great morning to run. Legs were kind of dead, but I thought about trying to pack in another workout. Would've been a bad idea.
PM: 4 on the TM, same routine as yesterday.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.65 | 4.85 | 15.50 |
| AM: 77F, 85%. 11 @ 7:32 AP. Today was LT day. I'd planned 4-5 miles continuous at a reduced pace due to the heat/humidity, but could still only manage a 5k in 20:04. A 20-min tempo is ok, I guess, though it's hard to get too excited about a 5k that's slower than HM pace. So, I'll give myself a half-Workout Fail. This was workout #10 of my 5k block of training and the other 9 were successful, so I've still got a good percentage rolling. Anyway, this confirms what I said 3 weeks ago about the LT workout being the first to move to the TM. So let it be written.
PM: TM run (4.5 mi). I was irritated about my morning run, had my best flats in the bag, and caffeine coursing through my veins...deadly combo - so the normal stride routine was out. After a 2-mile w/u, I did 1 mile @ 10mph, .5 @ 7.5, .5 @ 11.0, .25 @ 7.5, .25 @ 12.0. Not a real workout but I feel better now.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 66F, 93%. Whaa? If I'd known it was going to be cold, I would've saved my tempo for today. Weatherman Fail. 6 miles, recovery pace (forgot to look).
PM: 4 on the TM, with my hill sprint routine. 5% this time. I think outside I'd probably run faster and shorter hill sprints but this probably works just fine.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 0.00 | 12.00 |
| 74F, 90%. 7:29 AP. Ran right through some race they were having on the Leon Creek trail today. Not sure what it was, but it must have involved several out and backs. Seemed like most participants were walking. Very few returned my cheery "good morning" greetings, so I started ignoring them all.
Got enough miles for the week that I'll probably take tomorrow off - legs have been feeling old and creaky the last 2-3 days. Then hopefully the 1600 on Monday evening.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Race: |
SA Track Meet (1 Miles) 00:05:18, Place overall: 1, Place in age division: 1 | | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.50 | 1.00 | 9.50 |
| AM: 76F, 83%. 6 @ 8:04 AP. Did a couple 30-sec strides @ mile pace without looking at my watch and they were around 5:15. Did not feel as crisp as last week.
I signed up for a HM this weekend. Kinda surprising they would even have one in south Texas at this time of year, but I need to do some racing, even if it's at a heat slog pace.
PM: 93F, "fees like" 96F, SSE 16-25 mph. I ran the 1600m tonight. My warmup was a little pitiful, only made it 2 miles and did 3 or 4 strides. I did the first stride into the wind and it was depressing enough that I did the rest with the tailwind. Then sat in my car for 10 minutes blasting the a/c in an attempt to cool down.
They called up everyone in the event. I looked around and it was me, an old guy, and 7 or 8 kids. Not like HS kids....like maybe 10-year-olds. Ah, what did I sign up for? Anyway it would definitely turn out to be a solo time trial. My splits were 76, 81 (2:37), 83 (4:00), 78 (5:18). True, it was hot and windy, but I left a lot of effort on the table as well. It's hard to go into beast mode when you're feeling ridiculous as you're lapping adorable little kids. Anyway, I don't think I'll do any more of these meets. I just kinda felt stupid out there. The price was right though - $1.50!
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 6.00 | Saucony A5 Red Miles: 3.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 1.00 | 12.00 |
| AM: 77F, 80%. 8 @ 7:53 AP. Standard slog - felt cruddy for 7.5 miles and ok for 0.5. Mostly thought about my history of racing little kids like this time when I crushed the little girl, and of course the sprint to the finish against the 15-year-old. Dang kids.
PM: 4 on the TM, including 4 x 0.25 mi on/off (10.0/7.0) to prime the pump for a 10k workout tomorrow. I'll give it a whirl on the track, and probably set the bar pretty low for myself. That way it's easier to succeed, see?
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.50 | 1.50 | 6.00 |
| 77F, 85%. Workout Fail. I was going to do a 2 mi + 4 x 1 @ 10k at the track, and even added the 20 sec/mile Death Zone premium (DP was 72), but could only make it through the first 6 laps before I fell off pace. This downward spiral sure escalated quickly! 9 good workouts in a row, only to be followed by 2 Workout Fails and a Race Fail in the past week. I guess I've been going at it pretty hard for almost 6 weeks now. I'll take it super easy the next couple days to try and reset. Then "race" a half on Saturday - it'll be too hot to RACE so I'll "race." Goal will be marathon PR divided by 2.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 77F, 81%. No watch, but probably not a world record. Legs feel like they might be trying to come back to me. Should be good after tomorrow, then I'll be ready for Saturday's slogathon race.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.00 | 1.00 | 5.00 |
| 75F, 84%. 7:24 AP. Tested out a few paces for tomorrow's race. Even at 80 degrees, I think 6:50 is reasonable for a HM. Guess we'll see. Several gnats in the eyeball this morning. Now one eye is red and puffy, and I have an early meeting/presentation to run. Perfect.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 5.00 |
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| | Race: |
Carrabba's Half Marathon (13.1 Miles) 01:33:08, Place overall: 5, Place in age division: 2 | | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 1.00 | 13.10 | 14.10 |
| 80F, 82%. Hwell, I severely underestimated how slow I'd go in the heat. They started the race at 8am, which meant a 9:30 finish and the heat index in the mid-80s. My first 4 miles were sub-7 and that was it. Last couple were in the 7:30-7:40 range. I think I'm ready for summer to be over now. Hopefully I got some benefit from the torture (other than my sweet pilsner glass for AG award). Danielle and the kids came out and I think the kids had fun though. They had lots of questions about why I didn't have a shirt on.
I'll see how next week goes...might start using the TM a lot more for workouts. Just don't want a repeat of last summer and I can feel the heat-induced apathy trying to sneak in already.
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 14.10 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 76F, 86%. 6 @ 8:33 AP. Starting to see the same people on my recovery route every morning. There's Happy UTSA Couple on bikes, Girl That Looks at Me With Contempt For No Reason, The Lorax on a Bike (he always waves), and Unhappy Asian Guy Walking (my goal is to get him to acknowledge my presence one day).
PM: 4 on the TM, with 7 x 45s on / 75s off. On's @ 5k pace. Felt good to get the legs cranking past slog pace.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 4.00 | 1160s Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.25 | 1.25 | 12.50 |
| AM: 77F, 82%. 8 @ 7:47 AP. Felt less sloggy today.
PM: Copied yesterday's TM run, with the 5k strides, but added a quarter mile @ 1-mile GP, plus a short cooldown.
Track workout tomorrow. #imsureitsgoingtogojustgreat
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.90 | 4.10 | 12.00 |
| AM: 77F, 85%. 8 mi. total. Today was the next step in my 5k series of workouts after the last 6 x 800 session. Today it was 5 x 1000, 400m active recovery. Target was 3:45, which is more like 10k pace, but 5k effort in The Death Zone. I averaged 3:44.4. Reps were 3:41, 3:46, 3:46, 3:47, 3:42.
I felt completely done after the 3rd rep, like I would normally feel after the last rep in a hard set. So I walked the first 100m of the recovery lap before the 4th and 5th reps, and was able to barely hang in there. At least I finished what I set out to do (for once), even if I took some extra recovery/cheating. Small victory today. After I got back in the car, a nice cooling rain began to fall - cruel tease from the running gods.
PM: 4 on the TM with some more aggressive strides than usual.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 0.00 | 9.00 |
| AM: 70F, 97%. 5 @ 8:44 AP. Throttled the legs pretty good yesterday.
PM: 4 slow TM miles, nothing fancy today.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 4.00 | 13.00 |
| AM: 74F, 89%. 7.5 mi total. I'd originally penciled in a 13 w/8 tempo for today, but Saturday's slogathon pretty much covered that. So I opted for a much shorter workout; one that Bam suggested awhile back to spur on some improvements: 8 x 200m @ 800m pace, 90 sec off. A 1-mile workout instead of 8 miles...much better.
Anyway, I targeted 35s and averaged 33.0 (32.5, 35.1, 33.4, 33.7, 33.5, 33.1, 33.2, 29.4). Obviously sprinted the last one; felt good though. Basically a session of hard 30-second strides; not really a workout, but not something I ever really do a lot either, so I think it'll be helpful.
PM: 5.5 on the TM. Feeling a little caffeinated and frisky for my TM run - 2 w/u, 1 mi @ 9.7, .25 mi easy, then 2 miles in ~12:00 (combination of increasing speeds).
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 13.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 0.00 | 12.00 |
| 77F, 85%. 7:35 AP. A good 90 minutes of poor man's altitude training. Good week too, close to 70 miles. So far I've been keeping my summer promise to myself - to keep the average week above 60. The 2 toughest months are coming up but I think I'm more motivated this summer.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 77F, 83%. 6 @ 8:05 AP, included some pickups. My weight vs mileage chart is looking better lately. My goal is to keep miles per week above the red dotted line and avg weight below the blue dotted line.
It was tough to see the relationship since I stopped running for a couple weeks in March, and ran Boston in April which kinda botched the trendlines. So below is a simple linear regression - you can better see the inverse relationship between mileage and weight:
PM: 4 on the TM with 3k-paced strides.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 4.00 | 1160s Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 3.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 75F, 89%. 7 mi total. Good ol' 5 x 800m @ 3k, 2 min rest today. I did well, averaging 2:46.6 (2:46.1, 46.8, 47.2, 46.5, 46.2). No heroic finish today, just a good consistent effort. Last time I did this, the temp and DP were 7-8 degrees lower and I averaged 2:42.7. Obviously the heat doesn't screw with you quite as much on shorter intervals, but I'd still say today's effort was equal in quality since this was officially in The Death Zone.
PM: 4 on the TM with a hill sprint session. I did 4 x 30s @ 6%/10.5 mph and 3 x 30s @ 10%/9.5 mph. Kind of comical, especially on the last 3. First, I had to increase the incline 20 seconds early so it would reach the right angle by the time I was ready. Then the speed took another 10 seconds or so. Then I'd go at it for about 20 seconds with the speed and incline up. Then came the hard part - holding down the buttons and getting back down to 0%/7.0. That took another 20 seconds. Sure makes the time fly by though!
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 75F, 85%. 6 @ 8:21 AP.
AM2: 4 on the TM, with 4 x 1/4 mile pickups @ HMP.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 1.00 | 12.00 |
| AM: 73F, 84%. 8 @ 7:56 AP. Good running day, we climbed out of TDZ! DP was only 68 which felt great. Weirdly, they were having a race on Leon Creek again. At 6:30am on a Thursday. Saw about 10 people with bibs running it. I even got some cheers as I ran by the aid stations. Reminded me of the time I ran through the MCM satellite at good ol' Camp Victory.
For my run today, I just drafted behind the 8-minute guy most of the way, and then dropped him at the end. I know, kind of a dick move, but he's been lording his speed over me all summer.
PM: 4 TM miles, same as yesterday. HMP workout tomorrow - should be a non-death-zone day again (fingers crossed) so I'll take a shot at it outside on the track.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 6.00 | 11.00 |
| 72F, 81%. All week, I had my eye on the weather forecasts for this morning. A low DP (66 or so) and very low temps for July. So I did an LT workout at the track, 4 x 2400, 1 lap active recovery. I hit the lap button every 800 for pace feedback.
9:21 (3:05, 3:09, 3:07)
9:27 (3:09, 3:09, 3:09)
9:22 (3:07, 3:07, 3:08)
9:12 (3:05, 3:06, 3:01)
Works out to about 6:15/mile when you average it all up. Much better than I expected. I did this workout about 6 weeks ago and went 6:20/mile under similar conditions, maybe even easier conditions. At my peak HM shape, before my PR back in January, I would've been pleased with this pace had it been 45 degrees outside. So to be able to pull this off in the 70s is a pretty good sign that I'm more fit than a 1:22 (under ideal conditions). Don't want to get too far ahead of myself but I think I might have a legit shot at sub-80 this fall if I can keep up the consistent training this time.
Happy 4th, all!
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Cleaning up firework debris with a hangover....a semi-annual tradition.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.50 | 0.00 | 9.50 |
| 73F, 89%. Forgot to look at the AP but it was definitely over 8. Headed to Padre Island for a few days for some beach fun!
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 9.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 80F, 85%. 8:17 AP. Nice sunrise run on Padre Island. This would be a tough place to be a runner - I wonder if this is what it's like to be Tom K...
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 3.50 | 0.00 | 3.50 |
| 82F, 85%. Just a 30 min run before everyone got up. Got a little too much sun yesterday; I should've reapplied the sunscreen a bit more! Danielle had some kind of allergic reaction to sunscreen. We used to love the beach when I was stationed in Pensacola...10 years ago. Now I guess we're old and having all kinds of issues. The good news is the kids are having the time of their life.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 3.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.20 | 0.00 | 4.20 |
| 80F, 90%. 8:34 AP. About 2/3 of this was on the beach, where vehicular traffic had packed the sand down a bit. Once I got to the part of the beach that said "4x4 recommended," I turned around. I guess I'm a 2-wheel drive runner.
Driving back home today. I'm impressed with myself for running all 3 mornings on our mini-vacation, even if they were dinky little runs. Exceeded my expectations by 300%.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 4.20 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 1.00 | 12.00 |
| AM: 73F, 85%. 8 @ 7:41 AP. Back to the grind in the frigid San Antonio air. Passed a guy on the trail who appeared to be wearing jorts, a hydration belt and tube socks. I had "YMCA" in my head for the rest of the run.
PM: 4 TM miles, 7 x 45s strides from 3k pace down to 1-mile pace.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 4.00 | 12.00 |
| AM: 73F, 85%. 7 mi total. Ahhhh, workout fail today. This was attempt #2 at a 2 + 4x1 @ 10k. The last attempt was also a fail and I swore I'd move the workout to the nice climate controlled gym, but with the DP only at 68 this morning, I went to the track. After the 3rd lap, I was already falling off pace so switched it to 6 x 1. After a 6:12, the next rep was 6:18 and took an incredible amount of effort. I actually did several cartoon-like double takes as I'd check my splits every lap..."wait, whaAAT?" Wow, I ran so much better just 1 week ago; conditions were a little tougher today but still reasonable. Anyway, pulled the plug, broke into a walk, then did my standard jog of shame: sad, right-hand circles in lane 8. Might do a mini-workout on the TM this afternoon.
PM: mini-workout on the TM, 5 mi total. 2 mi w/u, then 4 x (.25 @ LT, .25 @ 5k-3k, .25 ez). I used 9.7 for LT, 10.5/10.6/10.7/10.8 for the 5k-3k, and 7.0 for ez. If you understood all that, you are a running nerd.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.50 | 0.00 | 4.50 |
| 74F, 84%. 9:03 AP. Behind the 9-minute guy today - he has a pony tail now.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 0.00 | 12.00 |
| 73F, 89%. 7:19 AP. I'd forgotten that I'd turned off auto lap on garmin and when I started to pick up the pace at the turnaround, I could not seem to drop my pace. I was almost sprinting and the watch was still showing 7:35 or so. I was convinced, for an embarrassingly long period of time, that there was some kind of mechanical issue with my stride until I finally realized it was showing AP for the whole run, not for the current mile, as I usually have it set. Stupid human moment...
Off to Sea World / Aquatica (again) with the kids for the next 10 hours or so. God help me.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 1.00 | 9.00 |
| AM: 75F, 78%. 5 @ 8:36 AP.
PM: 4 TM miles, including 6 x 1 min on/off @ 5k. Legs feel cruddy, so I'm taking an extra easy day instead of a workout tomorrow. I guess being out in the heat for 11 hours at a theme park doesn't aid in recovery.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 9.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.25 | 0.75 | 12.00 |
| AM: 75F, 79%. 8 @ 7:50 AP. People on the trail seemed friendlier today. The Lorax waved AND dinged his bell for me.
PM: 4 on the TM w/some shorter 5k strides. My first full-up treadmill workout is tomorrow morning. Dreading it, but gotta do it or I'll probably be posting another workout fail.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.50 | 4.50 | 12.00 |
| AM: Cool and dry inside the gym. 8 mi total. On the TM today, I did 5 x 0.75 mi @ 5k, with 0.25 mi recoveries. 3 mile w/u, then I started the reps, going a little faster each time (10.0, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, then 10.5 w/ last quarter @ 11.0). So, a 4:30 (6:00 pace) for the first rep, down to a 4:13 (5:38 pace) for the last rep (AP for all reps was 5:49). I did the recoveries at 6.7 mph, about 9-min pace.
I was working pretty hard, don't get me wrong, but I just didn't get that wasted, lung-burned feeling like you do after a brutal track session. I guess it is like having a 10 mph tailwind the whole time though. Kind of unsatisfying...it's just not quite the same. But pulling the plug on the second rep outside on the track would've been much more unsatisfying, so I'll take this any day.
PM: 4 on the TM with some short, hard uphill efforts.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.25 | 0.75 | 10.00 |
| AM: 77F, 83%. 6 @ 8:40 AP.
PM: 4 slow TM miles with some lazy pickups to MP. My legs are a little tired, which is good. The TM workout yesterday did something.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 1.00 | 9.00 |
| AM: 72F, 97%. 5 @ 8:40 AP. Muddy trail after some rain. Scared off all the cyclists, which was nice.
PM: managed to squeeze in 4 during lunch.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 9.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.40 | 8.00 | 13.40 |
| 67F, 93%. 7:15 AP. In Longview, TX for this one, visiting family. Really lucked out and got a very atypical mid-July morning (due to some rain), even for Longview which is a lot farther north than SA. Perfect opportunity for 8 @ AT. I did ok, I guess, averaging 6:46 (6:53, 6:47, 6:45, 6:54, 6:50, 6:41, 6:39, 6:39). I think with temps in the 60s, I expected a jet engine to sprout from my butt, but that didn't happen -- it was actually pretty tough to move the needle much today. I did unwittingly pick a hilly course and ended up clomping through a lot of tall grass on a shoulder-less Farm To Market road that somehow had an incredible amount of traffic for the 6 o'clock hour on Saturday morning in the middle of nowhere... Anyway, I'll take it. I needed to check the box on a solid long tempo, as it had been awhile.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 68F, 95%. 7:50 AP. Last run in magically-cool NE TX, headed back home today. Nice run from the trailhead down to Pleasure Palace and back. No CSI team there this time.
Recovery runs are always a little faster in the Type A's.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 1.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 77F, 88%. 7 @ 7:47 AP. Back to the grind.
PM: 4 on the TM, with some 3k strides. Felt good today, powered by Carl's Jr.
Hit 71 miles last week, highest since March....of 2013.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.50 | 3.50 | 11.00 |
| AM: 76F, 87%. 7 mi. total. Today was ol' reliable 5 x 800m @ 3k, 2 min rest. For some reason, it's the only workout I've been consistent with all summer - maybe it's just not that hard to do. Anyway, another success today, averaging 2:45.2 (2:46.4, 2:46.1, 2:44.8, 2:46.8, 2:42.0). The nice thing is I've built a little history now, for comparison's sake.
| 5/20 |
67F |
84% |
2:48.6 |
| 6/10 |
68F |
87% |
2:42.7 |
| 7/1 |
75F |
89% |
2:46.6 |
| 7/22 |
76F |
87% |
2:45.2 |
I almost think today might have been the highest quality of the four, given the temp. Either way, it was definitely in the sweet spot.
PM: 4 on the TM, with a pu pu platter of different pickups (sorry, I had Chinese buffet for lunch). Incidentally, if your buffet behavior is anything like mine, it takes more than 3 hours of buffet recovery time before you should attempt a run...ugh.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 73F, 90%. 6 @ 8:43 AP. Ran the other way on the trail today. Gotta keep the terrorists guessing.
PM: 4 TM miles, with a mile's worth of LT pickups.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 4.00 | 1160s Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 1.00 | 12.00 |
| AM: 78F, 73%. 7:50 AP. Snub day today. I was probably at an 80% snub rate when I gave up and stopped saying "good morning" to people. Girl That Looks At Me With Contempt For No Reason was back after a hiatus, and had two friends with her today, who also snubbed me. Finally the Lorax came riding by and gave me a ding and a wave.
I also have a new nemesis, Shirtless College Kid. We always pass each other going opposite directions, and after snubbing me, he waits a second, turns around, and mows me down. Of course this is always in mile 1 or 2 so I'm powerless to respond. One of these days I'm going to be warmed up and feeling competitive and there will be a showdown. With my luck he's probably on the XC team at UTSA or something and will defeat me easily, at which point I'll be forced to commit seppuku out of shame, but I've had a good run.
PM: 4 more, same drill as yesterday. Workout tomorrow.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 6.00 | 11.00 |
| LT day, but too warm for that kind of workout, so I took my medicine and went to the treadmills. 3 miles w/u, then a 6 x 1 w/quarter-mile recoveries. My plan was to start at HMP (9.5 mph) and work it down to 10 mph for the last one, but the legs felt a little heavy today so I scaled back the paces a bit once I got to the 4th rep, to make sure I could finish it. Splits ended up being 6:19, 6:15, 6:11, 6:11, 6:19, 6:04. Avg rep was 6:13. Recoveries were all 2:14 (6.7 mph). I've had better days, for sure, but I was pretty beat after finishing so I think this did the trick. Cooled down until I hit 11 total.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 1.00 | 12.00 |
| 75F, 88%. 7:30 AP. I almost got hit by a guy on a bike wearing a pirate eye patch who was swerving along the trail. You can't make this stuff up. Good 90-minute run followed by 90 minutes of yardwork.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.50 | 10.50 |
| AM: 75F, 85%. 6.5 @ 8:44 AP. Might not have time for the PM 4-miler today, so I added a half mile to this run. That oughta do the trick.
AM2: fit it in, yesssss! 4 mi
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 10.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.50 | 1.00 | 7.50 |
| AM: 73F, 74%. 7.5 @ 7:22 AP. Really cool and dry today, felt great. I was going to do 400s today, but my left butt muscles are sore, from bowling. Yeah, you heard me.
PM: 0 miles @ 4:00 pace.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 7.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.25 | 2.75 | 11.00 |
| AM: 72F, 76%. Continuation of the cool, dry air. My butt is still sore, but I decided to give the 400s a go, as I'd missed the last couple go-rounds of this workout for various reasons, and this is a fun workout. So 8 x 400 @ mile pace, 90 sec rest. I knew my workout PR from May was 75.8 and probably raced it a bit today, usually not a good thing. Today I averaged 75.1, but with a lot more effort. Splits were 75.5, 73.9, 74.3, 75.6, 74.9, 76.6, 74.5, 75.1. I bit off slightly more than I could chew in the 2nd and 3rd reps and had to make a heroic effort at the end to maintain 75s, but it worked out. Usually on these, I can run the first 200 without hurting and then have to really focus the second 200. By the 6th rep, I was hurting after 100m. Good results though.
AM2: seized the opportunity for a double this morning after striking out yesterday. 4 mi w/ a few pickups to 10k pace.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 1.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 78F, 81%. 6.4 @ 9:13 AP. I went exploring a little today, on the mountain bike trails along the greenway. Some of it was perfect hard-packed dirt, and some of it was a lot more than I bargained for, but still a nice change from the same ol' same ol'.
PM: 4.6 on the TM with different strides. Found an awesome hole-in-the-wall Mexican food place for lunch - $4.99 and it was awesome. After living here a year, I've found the trick is to stick your head inside and make sure there are no white people inside. It's a bonus if no one is speaking English. Anyway, I bring this up because the charro beans were amazing, but quite the troublemakers once I hit the TM, and there was nothing I could do to protect the people next to me once I started speeding up for strides. Sorry people!
heres my monthly chart - holding steady!
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.50 | 4.00 | 12.50 |
| AM: 78F, 63%. Super dry air! 9 mi total. I went to the track for a CV workout today: 8 x 800, 200 active recovery. Didn't have any expectations for pace, just tried to feel it out since conditions were weird for me (warm, a little breezy, and my sweat actually cooled me off for once). I averaged 3:01.6 (3:03, 3:02, 3:04, 3:03, 3:03, 3:02, 3:01, 2:55). Very solid pacing throughout. Recoveries are supposed to only be 60 sec, though toward the end they were closer to 70. I'll give myself a pass on that one though. Definitely a workout success today.
PM: 30 min easy on the TM.
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| Fastwich Miles: 3.50 | Saucony A5 Miles: 9.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 2.00 | 12.00 |
| 69F, 78%. 7:19 AP. Approaching record lows in San Antonio - this is awesome! Don't want to jinx us, but I gotta say it seems like it's been a pretty mild summer overall. I kept a good aerobic effort and ran the last 6 progressively, ending up with a couple miles around MP.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.75 | 1.25 | 12.00 |
| AM: 75F, 68%. 7.3 @ 8:34 AP. Felt really nice out again. I went to the non-competitive side of the greenway again and discovered some more nice back trails. I'm really enjoying them for these recovery runs. I got lost a couple times, but one wrong turn fortuitously took me to a trailhead I hadn't seen before, and it had a portopotty. So I ducked in, grabbed a handful of TP and headed back out. We trail runners don't poop in a box.
AM2: 4.7 on the TM, 7 x 1-min strides, mostly @ 5k. I have an actual 5k this weekend. I wasn't paying attention and figured it was a Saturday morning race when I signed up, but it's actually Friday evening. Heat index is forecasted to be 96 for the 7pm start. My race selection lately has been pretty stupid.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 8.00 | 13.00 |
| 74F, 78%. 13 @ 7:09 AP. Another dry/mild morning helped me out today - 5 w/up, then right into 8 mi aerobic tempo. I averaged 6:39 for the 8 miles (6:54, 6:41, 6:39, 6:39, 6:29, 6:41, 6:39, 6:28). After a cruddy-feeling warmup, I was surprised the legs were nice and springy when the tempo started. After the first 4, I threw in a half mile @ LT, which took the spring right back out of my step...never felt like I cleared out the lactic acid and it made the rest of the run tough, but it was probably good for me. Felt really good about this one.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 13.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.20 | 1.00 | 9.20 |
| AM: 75F, 78%. 5.2 @ 8:49 AP. More trails, but I hit some tougher ones today. Turned around once I couldn't really run upright (ducking limbs and whatnot) and got whipped enough by branches and thorns. Win some, lose some...
AM2: 4 on the TM, + more 5k pickups.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 4.00 | 1160s Miles: 5.20 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.30 | 0.50 | 9.80 |
| AM: 78F, 82%. 6 @ 8:11 AP. Easy until tomorrow evening's race, not that rested legs will help when it's a hundred degrees. Here's my prediction for splits: 5:50, 6:10, 8:30*
*includes 1 minute of crying in the bushes.
PM: 30 min on the TM w/ 5k strides
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 9.80 |
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| | Race: |
Battle of Salado Creek 5k (3.31 Miles) 00:20:46, Place overall: 4, Place in age division: 1 | | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.20 | 3.30 | 10.50 |
| AM: 77F, 82%. 5 @ 8:11 AP. Looks like a heat index of 102 @ 7pm, should be a fun race.
PM: 100F, 5.5 mi total. 5k race. I'm an idiot. I signed up for this race thinking it was Saturday morning....that was mistake #1. With the late knowledge that it was Friday evening, @ 100 degrees, I figured ok, let's make this a tactical race and try to place well. I did that beautifully until mistake #2...
The race started and I worked my way up to 5th place by mile 1, a 6:04. I got really hot after a quarter mile, sooner than I thought... Slowly through mile 2, I worked my way past a couple dudes and caught up to the 2nd place guy. I sat behind this guy for awhile, trying to get a sense of what he had left. Mile 2 was a 6:23, we were all getting crushed by ridiculous temperatures, obviously. I felt like I had a little in the tank as I sat behind the 2nd place guy, biding my time for an attack. He slowed a little going up a hill with a half mile to go and I made my move, shooting past. I kept the gas pedal down even though my legs felt done after a few seconds of surging. It worked though, I had the guy beat; he didn't even try to come with me. Mile 3 was a 6:11, thanks to my surge. Then I made mistake #2 and missed the turnoff from the main trail. It was a really stupid mistake as the race was pretty much over; the turn was around 3 miles into the race and you'd have to be an idiot to miss it. I ran for awhile and the realization hit me like a ton of bricks. I looked at my watch and it already said 3.1, but it was like a ghost town, no one was around. Wow. Turned around and had no legs left. I saw who I believe was the 4th place guy coming the opposite direction. He saw me coming from the wrong direction and put on a nice surge to stay ahead.
So I think I was 5th, but I was too pissed at myself to stay around for the awards because I'm a sore loser. In the end I ran 3.31 miles, an extra 0.2. It's not like there was a lot on the line, so whatever. Good heat training though!
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 5.00 | Saucony A5 Red Miles: 5.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 1.00 | 12.00 |
| 76F, 87%. 7:28 AP. Standard Sunday run, with a progression to MP effort at the very end. In a couple weeks I'll start my HM block of training - a few extra miles/week, longer "long runs" and a slightly different mix of workouts.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 78F, 82%. 6 @ 8:46 AP. Followed up the feel-good Sunday run with the standard feel-bad Monday run.
PM: 4 on the TM with several strides @ 3k pace. I had to do my recoveries faster than usual bc the guy next to me was going 8:00 pace.
I must say, the last few days have really showed what a competitive jerk I can be....huh.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.50 | 2.50 | 11.00 |
| AM: 76F, 77%. 7 mi total. Track day - 5 x 800 @ 3k pace, 2 min rest. Not so good today, but I stuck with it. Average rep was 2:47.7, a bit slower than usual. Splits were all over the place too - 2:47.9, 2:48.6, 2:45.5, 2:50.3, 2:46.1. I almost quit in each of the last 3 reps...on my good days the track feels like a springboard; today it felt like quicksand. Combination of the legs feeling cruddy and lack of focus/effort, but went through the motions anyway, and it still turned out ok.
PM - somehow made it happen today...4 more
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.60 | 0.00 | 9.60 |
| AM: 72F, 82%. 6 @ 8:17 AP. Finally got some rain yesterday, and it cooled everything off. Felt very good outside and I think tomorrow will be the same, so my Friday treadmill workout just turned into a Thursday track workout.
PM - did my minimum - 30 min plod on the TM. Hoping the legs will be ready for another workout tomorrow with only 1 easy day between this time. Weather looks too good not to try.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 6.00 | 15.00 |
| AM: 70F, 65%. 11 mi total. Basically fall weather, so unusual and awesome. So I pushed up LT day to today, and did my old favorite, 4 x 2400m, w/400m active recoveries. Today was a good one, averaged 9:11/rep (~6:09/mile). I hit the lap button at the 1600m point during each rep; splits were:
9:21 (6:14, 3:07)
9:16 (6:10, 3:06)
9:12 (6:08, 3:04)
8:55 (5:57, 2:58)
Recovery laps were all in the 2:10-2:15 range.
Here's my workout history on this one:
| 5/24 |
69F |
92% |
9:27 |
| 7/4 |
72F |
81% |
9:20 |
| 8/14 |
70F |
65% |
9:11 |
Good, solid improvement, though today was probably the superior weather day of the 3, thanks to a sub-60 dewpoint. I'd LIKE to think I could go maybe 5 sec/mile faster with cold temps -- that would indicate I'm really threatening a sub-1:20 half, with just a little more work still yet to do. Not sure though; didn't feel slowed down at all by weather today. Either way, I'm in a really good spot, considering I haven't started my HM block of training yet.
PM: 4 mi shakeout on the mill.
|
| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 15.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 74F, 81%. 6 @ 8:38 AP.
PM: 4 on the TM. Legs were still pooped from yesterday so I made them do some pretty vicious TM strides.
|
| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 10.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 0.00 | 11.00 |
| 79F, 78%. 7:53 AP. Usually run 12, but there was a big hill @ 5.5 miles that I wasn't in the mood for.
|
| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 11.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 1.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 80F, 74%. 7 @ 8:18 AP.
PM: 4 more w/strides (TM).
| |
| |
|
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.25 | 2.75 | 12.00 |
| AM: 76F, 75%. 7 mi total. Track day - the high school teams are starting their practices. The football team and the runners were out there, though only a few kids were using the track and we stayed clear of each other pretty easily. The others were using some other field, thankfully.
Today I ended up doing 7 x 400 @ 1-mile pace, 90 sec rest. It was supposed to be 8, but I was pooped after 6. I averaged 75.4 (75.4, 76.9, 72.7, 73.5, 74.9, 74,7, 79.4). Interesting that the first one was right on pace and then I proceeded to have all kinds of weird repeats after that. I think #3 and #4 killed the rest of the set for me. My legs were useless gummy worms for #7 so I stopped. Here's my history for this one this summer:
| 5/27 |
68F |
100% |
75.8 |
| 7/30 |
72F |
76% |
75.1 |
| 8/19 |
76F |
75% |
75.4 |
I think at this point I'm starting to get diminishing returns from the faster speedwork, which is ok; the timing is good because next week I start my HM block. I'll be doing the 3k and 1-mile paced stuff half as often, and HMP/LT stuff twice as often. Mission accomplished on the 5k/10k block, I think. Still looking for a couple short races to run, but I can tell this block has been effective.
PM: 5, count 'em, 5 on the TM. Had a little extra time so I threw in a fast mile after my usual 4, with the middle 1/2 mile @ 10 mph.
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 0.00 | 9.00 |
| AM: 79F, 82%. 6 @ 8:44 AP. Somewhere around halfway, I got a weird urge to curl up in the grass along the path and go to sleep. Fought it off.
PM: oh yeah, I did 3 TM miles, but I'm not sure why - the large quantity of Tex-Mex in my gut was begging me not to jostle it around, my legs are kinda tired and I didn't really have time (had to hop off a mile early). But my spreadsheet said I was supposed to do an easy double, so...
|
| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 9.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 1.00 | 13.00 |
| AM: 80F, 76%. 9 @ 8:06 AP. Supposed to do a workout tomorrow but it's too hot to try it outside. Not gonna feel like doing it on the TM either, so might finish this cycle with a longer heat slog out on the trail, with the excuse that it'll help me get ready and be rested for my HM cycle. But I also don't want to wake up too early or get to work too late. Solve for x.
PM: 4 TM miles with some 5k strides.
|
| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 13.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 0.00 | 11.00 |
| 79F, 79%. 8:09 AP. Decided on the 90-minute slog instead of a workout. It was probably the right call - took me until mile 8 before I logged my first sub-8 mile. Day off tomorrow. Pretty junky week, but the mileage will be decent with a 12'er on Sunday.
Just been noticing my shoe mileages; it's been a long time since I've bought any shoes. None this year, actually. Probably time to start hunting around for deals, although they all seem in pretty good shape for now.
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 0.00 | 12.00 |
| 79F, 79%. 7:44 AP. Felt ok, given the warmth this morning and the 4 IPAs last night. Hung out with the 8-minute guy for awhile, then dropped him... punk.
Next Sunday....13 miles! Really going out on a limb with my training.
|
| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 12.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 79F, 79%. 6 @ 8:28 AP.
PM: 4 on the TM, with some pitiful 1 min on/offs @ HMP. Due for a workout, but have been running kinda cruddy the last week to 10 days. Will probably do something conservative, bide my time until cooler weather and keep the mileage up.
|
| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 10.00 |
| |
|
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 6.00 | 14.00 |
| AM1: 78F, 68%. 10 mi total. A tad warm, but DP was very reasonable, about 67. I knew I wouldn't be setting any world records today though; just haven't been feeling it lately. However, it was time for a workout, so I went to the track for a 5 x 1600, 1 lap active rec. No expectations of pace, just get in the effort. I averaged 6:16 (6:16, 6:16, 6:13, 6:22 whoops, 6:14). Recovery laps were a bit quicker than usual, around 2:00 avg. Physiologically, it did the trick, got the lactic acid bubbling. Normally I'd consider a cutback week after a bunch of dumpy-feeling runs, but this little skid has coincided with a heat wave so I'm not completely sure it's my fault. In fact let's blame it on the heat for now. Yes, everything is just fine.
AM2: back at it, 4 hrs later. 4 on the mill with strides.
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 76F, 78%. 6 @ 8:38 AP. Almost couldn't pass two elderly ladies power walking up a hill.
PM: 4 TM miles.
|
| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 10.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 1.00 | 12.00 |
| AM: 76F, 69%. 8 @ 7:45 AP. Happiness is a clean, fresh buttsweat towel waiting for you in your car when you get done running.
PM: 4 TM miles with 5 or 6 x 1-minute efforts @ 5k pace.
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.10 | 4.20 | 12.30 |
| AM: went with the TM for this workout. 4 x (4 x 90s on / 60s off). On's were 10.2/10.4/10.6/10.8 mph for the 4 sets (last individual rep @ 11.0) and off's were @ 6.7. So kinda like 16 x 400 @ 5k pace, but I took 2 minutes easy between each set of 4. Worked out to about 4.2 miles of "on's" at a 5:42 avg. Not that hard, but gave the legs some good turnover. All in all, 8.3 miles in 58:xx min. Hopefully I don't have too many more TM workouts to suffer through. In the forecast, I see some lows of 74 in about a week which would be nice.
PM: TM warrior today....4 more.
|
| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 8.30 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 13.00 | 0.00 | 13.00 |
| 78F, 87%. 8:05 AP. Drove into Houston yesterday, so this was from my parent's house, around the bayou trail and a loop of Memorial park. They've done a lot of good work on the Bayou trail though the underpasses still reek of urine.
Anyway, a hot, sticky run - almost felt like I bonked at the end. I was hoping it would rain, and then it did...about 5 minutes before I got home. Houston...a pee-soaked sauna.
|
| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 13.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.00 | 0.00 | 7.00 |
| 76F, 98%. 8:04 AP. Last sweat slog in Houston, headed back to SA in a couple hours. I only brought 1 pair of running shoes and they were still soaked from yesterday. Eewwwww.
|
| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 7.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 1.00 | 12.00 |
| AM: 78F, 80%. 8 @ 8:27 AP. Will probably attempt some AT tomorrow. Probably. Maybe.
PM: 4 on the TM w 5k strides
|
| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 14.50 | 0.50 | 15.00 |
| AM: 79F, 85%. 11 @ 7:58 AP. No decent running days this week, but I tried to do my 13 w/8 @ AT anyway. It turned into 11 w/2. The 2 tempo miles were about 7:20 each. Once I got a side cramp, after not being able to even approach 7:00 pace, I just said screw it and slogged back. If I didn't have to be at work, I probably would've walked the last 4 miles to my car.
PM: 4 TM
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.50 | 0.50 | 10.00 |
| AM: 75F, 98%. 6 @ 8:37 AP. Dutifully slogging away. I'm dependent on caffeine pills to get through every run now. Can't quit, even after watching this important Saved by the Bell clip.
PM: 4 TM with vicious strides
|
| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 4.00 | 1160s Miles: 6.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| AM: 76F, 94%. 8 @ 7:45 AP. Pouring rain for the first 3-4 miles! It was great. I had the trail to myself too; I saw one other runner but he was sheltering under a little pavilion. A city of sugar cookies, can't get wet!
PM: nope, ran out of time.
| |
| |
|
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4.00 |
| 76F, 96%. 8:23 AP. A rare Saturday run to make up for the miss yesterday.
|
| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 4.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 6.00 | 14.00 |
| 75F, 89%. 2 goals today - get in a 14-miler and get in ~6 miles of HMP effort. Still clinging to summer here in Texas, although this was actually the mildest morning in awhile (DP of 72). I elected to do some shorter cruise intervals as that's about all I was confident enough to pull off in The Death Zone. 8 x 1200, 400m active rec. I averaged 4:38 (4:41, 4:40, 4:41, 4:39, 4:39, 4:38, 4:37, 4:27). That's about 6:13/mile pace avg. I switched directions and did right-hand circles for the last 3 reps. Pretty conservative workout for HMP, which let me keep plenty in the tank. This was more of just a stand-your-ground day; cooler weather will bring tougher workouts. Feeling very smart about this one.
|
| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 14.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 72F, 91%. 8:51 AP. Felt great outside, but I had one of those weak, low-blood-sugar feeling runs. It hit about mile 4 and my pace went to about 10:00. Man I hate that feeling. Makes sense though, I pretty much just ate meat yesterday after burning a lot of carbs in my workout. Chinese buffet in my very near future. Or possibly Indian. I'm hungry already.
PM: went with Indian buffet, as Chinese likes to sit in my gut for longer. 4 TM miles
|
| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 4.00 | 1160s Miles: 6.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.50 | 0.50 | 12.00 |
| AM: 74F, 88%. 8 @ 7:45 AP. Felt very good in the last few miles. It's been awhile since I had that kind of spring in my step for just a filler run like this. What does it mean....?
PM: 4 TM miles w/ 3k-paced strides to prime the pump for tomorrow.
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 3.50 | 11.50 |
| AM: 77F, 81%. 7 mi. Last session of 5 x 800m @ 3k pace, 2 min rest for a couple months. Solid result today, averaged 2:44.1 (2:44.8, 2:46.0, 2:43.8, 2:45.3, 2:40.9). Workout history:
| 5/20 |
67F |
84% |
2:48.6 |
| 6/10 |
68F |
87% |
2:42.7 |
| 7/1 |
75F |
89% |
2:46.6 |
| 7/22 |
76F |
87% |
2:45.2 |
| 8/12 |
76F |
77% |
2:47.7 |
| 9/10 |
77F |
81% |
2:44.1 |
PM: 4.5 on the TM, with a fast mile toward the end, mid-6's or so. I only had the A5s in the bag and they get insulted if you use them for just a recovery/shakeout run.
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.50 | 10.50 |
| AM: 78F, 81%. 6.5 @ 8:09 AP. The UTSA team is ruining the uncompetitive side of the trail for me. Had to run the last mile in 6:50 to avoid getting caught by the girls. Might have to take my recovery runs the other direction again where I only have my fellow hobby joggers to deal with.
PM: 4 TM; vicious stride day
|
| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 10.50 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 0.00 | 8.00 |
| AM: 76F, 84%. 8 @ 8:29 AP. Feeling really fatigued today. Combination of a busy work week, some sleep debt and a crappy diet, I think. On the plus side, that Canadian cold front (what little is left of it) is finally arriving down here tonight and should get us some lows in the upper 60s this weekend.
PM - nope. what kind of people are these that keep scheduling meetings on Friday afternoon? 4 tomorrow maybe
|
| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 8.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 4.00 | 15.00 |
| 65F, 85%. Took advantage of the cold front today. 8 mile warmup, then hit the track for some CV work: 8 x 800, 200m active rec. Average rep was 2:54.0 (2:57, 2:56, 2:58, 2:57, 2:55, 2:50, 2:52, 2:47). Average recovery was ~65 sec. Then a 2 mi cooldown to hit 15.
Pretty good! Held back a lot in the first 4 reps; I've never run this workout this fast, and I've done it a lot. I'm glad I decided not to sit around and get fat again this summer. Should be a very fun season.
|
| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 15.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 0.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 69F, 88%. 6.5 @ 8:32 AP.
PM: 4.5 on the TM
|
| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 11.00 |
| |
|
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 1.00 | 13.00 |
| AM: 75F, 85%. 8 @ 8:08 AP. Legs felt tired/cruddy until the last couple miles, which is also when there was finally a little daylight. I'm already ready for DST (Daylight Stealing Time) to be over. See what I did there? I changed "savings" to "stealing," because it "steals" daylight from my morning runs. That's the joke. Daylight STEALING Time. Get it?
PM: 5 TM miles, with 6 x 1 min @ 5k strides. I think I'll bail on my HMGP workout tomorrow with the DP back up to august levels. Will be replaced with a longer slog and I'll slot the HM workout in next week which is looking better/cooler, I guess. This will still give me 3 goal-pace workouts before the half.
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 15.50 | 0.00 | 15.50 |
| AM: 77F, 91%. 12 @ 7:54 AP. When I stepped out of my font door it felt like a warm fart cloud outside. So I'm glad I decided not to attempt a workout. Instead, I drove to the trail, slogged around for 95 minutes, and when I came back I had a parking ticket on my windshield. Whaaaa? Apparently you can't park at any parks/city trailheads before sunrise. I've parked there a hundred times, and I don't think I've ever arrived AFTER sunrise. So, a $35 training run. Fortunately there's a Walmart parking lot a quarter mile away. If I had more spare time in my life, I'd devote it to getting that city ordinance revoked. But since I don't, I'll just write a smart ass comment on the memo line of the check when I mail it in.
** Never mind, I'm fighting it. I researched the ordinance. Curfew hours are 11pm to 5am and my ticket was written @ 6:55. The ordinance allows individual parks to set more restrictive operating hours, and this one does, but they may not change hours of curfew violations. My ticket quotes "park curfew" hours violation. I go to court in 2 weeks.
PM: snuck in 30 min / 3.5 TM miles at the end of the day.
|
| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 15.50 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.50 | 0.50 | 10.00 |
| AM: 76F, 93%. 6 @ 8:38 AP. Apologies to the family of gnats that I massacred by running through your cloud. I tried to brush you all off together so you could decompose as a family.
PM: 4 TM miles with wussy strides. I need to attempt some kind of workout in the soup tomorrow, no matter how pathetic.
|
| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 4.00 | 1160s Miles: 6.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 3.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 75F, 91%. Decided I might be able to handle some 600s, but my legs were tired, it was miserable outside and I couldn't. I ran a 2:10, 2:15, then quit on the third rep, almost involuntarily. Usually I weigh the pros and cons for awhile before pulling the plug but this was instantaneous...weird.
So this week was pitiful for workouts, but with a 16-miler on Sunday, it'll be my highest mileage week in about 18 months. Next week our weather will move from "really crappy" for running to "kinda crappy," so I'm pretty excited; should be able to do some stamina work. Here's the scale:
65 and humid -- meh
70 and humid -- kinda crappy
75 and humid -- really crappy
80 and humid -- just shoot me now and get it over with
I can't wait until it's "meh" outside...hopefully the week after next.
PM: mini-workout on the TM. Kinda complicated to detail, I was pushing buttons every 30 sec or so! Short story -- 2 fast miles around 5k average, 5 mi total.
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Stomach bug going around the house. Now I feel it coming back again, like a rollin' thunder chasing the wind.
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Today is stomach bug recovery day (yesterday really sucked). Rehydrate, eat, lay around and hopefully run tomorrow.
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 69F, 83%. 6 @ 7:49 AP. Felt amazing outside. My innards are still doing a few cartwheels but I'd say I'm 95% or so. Hoping for a workout on Wednesday or Thursday.
PM: 4 TM, w/ vicious strides. Legs and stomach were a little shaky afterward...in hindsight it might've been a little too soon for VS day.
|
| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 10.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 13.00 | 0.00 | 13.00 |
| AM: 74F, 74%. 9 @ 7:55 AP. Still feel a little off but I need to go ahead with a HMP workout tomorrow, since I have to do a LR w/AT on Saturday...should be fine; temps will be relatively nice tomorrow.
PM: 4 slow TM miles. Hit 1000 miles on the fastwitch; I'm thinking that'll be the next training shoe I buy - they have held up better than the kinvaras...I bet I get another 500+ out of them.
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.50 | 5.00 | 14.50 |
| AM: 65F, 68%. 11 mi. Today was goal HMP day. I wanted to do a lot more with today, given the cool weather, but my legs have been really heavy since my illness this weekend; I shouldn't have tried to jump right back into my schedule, probably. Anyway, I wasn't holding out much hope, especially after the warmup, but rolled into some mile repeats at goal pace on the track. I ended up doing 5 x 1600, 1 lap recovery. Through the miracle of mathematics, I found out that an 80-minute HM works out to about 91 sec/lap, so I aimed at 6:04 for these. Averaged 6:02 (6:06, 6:03, 6:02, 6:00, 5:59).
I was headed for a much faster 5th rep, but kind of bonked the last lap and ran it in 94. It was then that I decided a 6th rep would do more harm than good, so pulled the plug after 5. Aerobically, these felt great. My legs were just heavy and dead from the very first rep. I think it's a pretty good sign that I was able to still churn out 90-91 sec laps. I believe I'm close to having one of those breakthrough workouts when everything comes together. Right now I probably just need to let the ol' body rest up a bit more than I'd planned this week.
PM: 30 min slow on the TM. Legs liked the plodding...more of that to come the next couple days.
|
| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 14.50 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.50 | 0.00 | 9.50 |
| AM: 65F, 70%. 6 @ 8:54 AP.
PM: 30 min TM plod.
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.50 | 0.00 | 9.50 |
| AM: 68F, 84%. 6 @ 8:19 AP.
PM: 30 min TM plod
|
| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 9.50 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 8.00 | 17.00 |
| 69F, 95%. 17 @ 7:16 AP. LR today - I did 17 w/ 8 miles aerobic tempo. First, a 9-mile warmup @ ~7:45/mile, then right into 8 tempo miles @ 6:43 AP (6:47, 6:41, 6:47, 6:44, 6:43, 6:42, 6:44, 6:35). Another effort-based run with the high dewpoint but pretty good, all things considered. I'll be able to attack GMP when it cools off. God, I sound like a broken record.
Our chocolate milk was expired, but I'd picked up a "mega protein" bar (30g of protein!) that was supposed to be PB&J flavored. It tasted like solidified barf.
|
| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 17.00 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4.00 |
| 82F. 4 evening miles in the neighborhood, right after sunset.
| |
| |
|
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.50 | 0.50 | 12.00 |
| AM: 69F, 78%. 8 miles. Forgot my Garmin at home, but I have a finely-tuned Internal GPS that was able to pinpoint my pace somewhere between 7:00 and 9:30/mile.
PM: 4 on the TM with some short strides @ mile pace. Tomorrow: 400s!
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.25 | 3.25 | 10.50 |
| AM: 66F, 86%. Track day - 8 x 400 @ mile pace, 90 sec rest. I only made it through 5 reps before the XC team (maybe 40-50 kids!) came pouring on to the track. I ran 74.3, 74.7, 75.7, 75.7, 75.0, then had to stop there. I can deal with a few, and have in the past, but you gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. Speaking of which, I'm off to court, probably for several hours, to fight my $35 parking ticket. Stupid idea...
*****DISMISSED*****
So, parking ticket court was pretty painless. I walked right into a room and up to a judge and explained my case. He kind of dismissively said, "no, this park has different hours." I was ready for that line of argument and pointed out a few spots in the code. He read through it for about a minute, then kinda sighed and said, "ok, I'll do it this time, but not again." That was good enough for me. It could have gone either way, and the ordinance just leaves a lot of holes and room for interpretation. Unfortunately I should probably still avoid parking there, but I got my small victory today. This almost merits a race report!
PM: 5 with a mini-workout on the TM. 4 x (.25 @ 10mph, .25 @ 11mph, .25 @ 7mph). On the last time around I did the middle quarter @ 12mph instead of 11. So I got one of my 3 missed reps back from this morning.
|
| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 5.00 | Saucony A5 Miles: 5.50 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.50 | 0.00 | 10.50 |
| AM: 75F, 86%. 6.5 mi. Forgot Garmin again but it was a plod. Same tomorrow as the FC weather is back. A cold front will arrive by this weekend though, so it'll be the perfect opportunity for a Big Workout. Might even see 59 degrees.
Here's the chart o' the month. Pretty much shows why I'm light years ahead of last year after the 2013 Summer of Joe (at least I hope). I have 4 races over a 6-week period so it's time to put up or shut up!
PM: 4 slow TM miles.
|
| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 10.50 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.50 | 1.00 | 11.50 |
| AM: 78F, 83%. 7 mi. Remembered my garmin but forgot to stop it until after I'd been driving for 3 miles in my car. Even with the bonus car miles, it was only about 7-min pace overall...safe to say it was a slow run. Of all the days to forget my buttsweat towel, it would have to be a hot one...and that's why I carry Febreeze in my car.
PM: 4.5 TM with 6 x 1 min @ 5k. Legs have been telling me they're tired the past couple days. I don't agree that they should be tired right now, but it's hard to win an argument with an appendage so I might cut tomorrow's volume a bit. Trying to lull them into a false sense of security before I destroy them with a brutal BW on Saturday.
| |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.50 | 0.00 | 6.50 |
| 71F, 56%. 6.5 @ 8:19 AP. Cool, dry air blowing in today. I wish I could've stayed out and run all morning. Will probably skip the PM run today and be ready for a good workout tomorrow.
|
| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 6.50 |
| |
| |
| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.80 | 6.20 | 18.00 |
| 61F, 60%. 18 miles today with a 10k wave tempo. First I wanted to get some miles on the legs, so I ran through the surrounding neighborhoods - about 8.5 mi. @ 7:35/mile. Then hit the track, reset the watch and rolled into the tempo. My goal was to alternate 3:00/3:15 every 800, until I had 6 miles. My obsessive need to stay a couple seconds ahead of the desired split meant I'd go a hair faster.
Bold splits are 1600s, with (800s) - 6:14 (3:00, 3:14), 6:10 (2:58, 3:12), 6:09 (2:57, 3:12), 6:10 (2:57, 3:13), 6:10 (2:57, 3:13), 6:12 (2:59, 3:13), then a 92 final lap.
I didn't want to do the last lap, and hadn't really planned on it, but it was hard to pass up an easy 10k PR, so I motored through it for a 38:37 10k (6:13/mile).
whoops, it's sideways. Anyway, good effort and lots of benefits for both the half and the full. Last HMP workout will be in ~10 days, and I'll be doing my 2 x 5k predictor. If I can get those around 19-flat, I might have a shot at sub-80. Unfortunately, I think the predictor works great for Houston, but I've selected a race in the Texas "hill country," so it might be asking too much, given the course. Still worth a try, you never know...
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 18.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.50 | 1.50 | 12.00 |
| AM: 75F, 86%. 8 @ 7:56 AP. Looks like more summer weather this week. I was just reading through the St George reports. Looks like pretty much everyone ran a big PR unless their PR was already at St George. Maybe I'll run the last marathon of my life there, but not until then.
PM: 4 on the TM, with 1.5 mi @ 9 mph. Why? Because some guy I didn't know hopped on the TM next to me and started running 8 mph. "Immature" doesn't even begin to describe me...
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.30 | 4.20 | 12.50 |
| AM: 5k tuning workout on the TM. 3 x (4 x 2 min on / 1 min off). The "on's" for the 3 sets were 10.4, 10.5 and the last set was a combo that averaged to ~10.7. "Off's" were @ 6.7, and I took 2 min "off" between each set of 4, instead of 1 min. Worked out to a solid 4.2 miles of work @ ~5:41 pace avg. Looks like a hot, sticky race this weekend, showing a 72 DP in the forecast right now, but I'll still take a crack at sub-18.
PM: 4.3 TM miles. Legs were actually pretty tired! That "tuneup" from this morning feels like it was a full blown workout. I guess I just assumed I could do whatever I wanted on the TM, penalty-free, but maybe not. Time for a few days of ploddin'.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 0.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 76F, 86%. 7 @ 8:13 AP. Too cloudy to see the eclipse.
PM: 4 mile TM plod
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.50 | 0.50 | 11.00 |
| AM: 77F, 84%. 7 @ 8:22 AP. Fall arrives Monday evening. I ran the last mile in ~7:00 and it was kinda hard. Tough to see myself running 5:45/mile on Saturday if conditions are similar...
PM: 4 slow on the TM with a few strides @ 5k.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.50 | 0.00 | 6.50 |
| 76F, 84%. 8:12 AP. Reckon I'll skip the PM run so I'm ready for yonder hootenanny. I think I just like to say (and type) "hootenanny."
hootenanny.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 6.50 |
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| | Race: |
Hootenanny 5k (4.34 Miles) 00:26:53 | | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.46 | 4.34 | 8.80 |
| 69F, 90%, raining. Hootenanny 5k this morning. I met up with Preston (I Just Run) and their foreign exchange student, Polina. We hung out for a bit, then I did a ~20 min warmup run w/ strides.
I started out ok and hit a 5:47 for mile 1, which I think was a bit downhill. I ran with the other second place guy for a half mile or so and we talked about how we were glad there was someone ahead, since it was dark and hard to see the signs. Mile 2 was uphill (6:06), and I passed the first place guy here...now I was the one that needed to pay attention to where I was going. We hit the school right at the mile 2 marker, and I saw my lead had grown. I was feeling pretty decent to start mile 3, and came to a 'T' in the road but there was no sign. I guessed and turned right. Started slowing down once I realized I'd done it again and had gone the wrong way. I saw the 2 guys behind me had followed; they were a good 50m+ behind. I randomly cruised through the neighborhood and wound up back at the school again, having already run more than a 5k. From there, I followed the crowd and saw the turn I missed. Just kinda cruised in from there. Mile 3 was 6:18, mile 4 was 6:40 (to add injury to insult, I rolled my ankle in mile 4 and now it's puffy and hurts a bit), and then another 2 minutes to the finish for 4.34 miles. I don't know what eventually happened to the other 2 guys...
From there, I decided I'd try to run with Preston for his last couple miles of the 10k around the lake, since I'd basically just had a 2-mile cooldown along the 5k course. So that was fun, at least. Then a long, hydroplaney drive back to SA.
I still would definitely not have broken 18. I actually felt good too, but the pace was not there. Hopefully I can still run on my puffy ankle tomorrow...
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 8.80 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 15.20 | 0.00 | 15.20 |
| 62F, 91%. 7:46 AP. Legs were a little tired but the run felt great, nice and cool outside. One of those where it's just fun to be outside running. I was surprised to be able to run at all, as bad as my ankle looked yesterday. 800 mg of "Vitamin I" before I went to bed last night, and again this morning, and I was cured.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 70F, 90%. 6 @ 8:51 AP. yyyep.
PM: 4 mile TM plod
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 52F! 6 @ 8:20 AP. Cold front day! Didn't even need my buttsweat towel! I still need today to recover from this weekend's runs, but tomorrow will still be nice and I'll do my big 2 x 5k. Kinda want it to go well - the 5k has me a bit rattled (the 2 miles where I wasn't lost). Mile 2 was a 6:06, which is the pace I want for 13.1...not good. I looked, and it was a bit more than 40' net uphill, but still...c'mon man!
PM: 4 mile TM plod
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 10.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.80 | 6.20 | 15.00 |
| AM: 52F. 11 mi total. Today was my big 2 x 5k @ HMP, 1 lap recovery between the 5k’s. The goal was to just run 92/lap for the first 5k, then max effort, run my eyeballs out for the last 5k. It went as planned – 19:08, 18:51. Splits below are 1600s, plus the last 200.
19:08 – 6:08, 6:08, 6:07, 45
Lazy lap ~2:25
18:51 – 6:01, 6:05, 6:05, 40
The 5k’s together average right at 1:20 pace for a half, just under 6:07/mile. If I were running Houston, with cold weather, I’d say I have an excellent shot at 1:19:xx. Need to be a little more careful with this race though – should have some hills and most likely warmer weather than today. Before Houston Half I ran this workout in 19:40, 19:28 (6:18 AP), then proceeded to run the race at a 6:19 AP. So the good news is I'm way faster now (11 sec/mile). The bad news is it'll be tough to convert that into a sub-80. We shall see!
Just lost a month of entries..? Hope that doesn't mean I just imagined running the last month. I kinda remember running but if it's not on the blog, did it ever happen?
PM: 4 mile TM plod
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.50 | 0.00 | 10.50 |
| AM: 58F. 6.5 @ 8:43 AP.
PM: 4 mile TM plod
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 10.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 2.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 59F. 8 @ 7:23 AP. Couple miles in the 6:40s on the way back, no reason, just enjoying the cool weather.
PM: 25 min on the TM between meetings...cut it close but I made it...still sweating but on time
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 13.00 | 0.00 | 13.00 |
| 71F, 88%. 7:50 AP. They harvested a big cotton field on my route between today and last weekend. Whatever machinery they use must take the whole shrub, because all that was left were little sticks poking up from the ground. Just thought everyone would want to know that.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 1.00 | 12.00 |
| AM: 68F, 87%. 8 @ 7:38 AP. After a day off and 7+ hrs of sleep I felt well-rested this morning, fairly rare feeling, and the result was a sub-8:30 for mile 1, and my legs DIDN'T want to buckle going up 10-ft hills. What a luxury!
PM: 4 TM miles, including 4 x 1/4 mile on/off @ 10.0/7.0, out of boredom and Rested Legs Syndrome (RLS).
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 2.00 | 12.00 |
| AM: 62F, 87%. 8 @ 7:17 AP. Did a little bit @ HMP on the way back -- a couple half miles, and a "blind" mile (not checking pace) that I ran at a much harder effort than HM, thereby completely defeating the purpose of a blind mile, and it was still only a 6:02. I think I've concluded that a PR of any size this weekend would be a win.
PM: 4 mile TM plod
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 6 @ 8:29 in the AM. Impossible to fit in the PM.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 65F, 91%. 6 @ 7:47 AP. Large contingent of shirtless runners this morning. Felt at home on the trail. No PM run planned, not going to try to make up yesterday's missed run.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 0.00 | 5.00 |
| 60F, 5 @ 7:35 AP. Legs feel good, training was great, I'm in good shape. Ready to take what the course/conditions will give and run a good race. Goal is a PR.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 5.00 |
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| | Race: |
Chosen Half (13.44 Miles) 01:30:16 | | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 1.50 | 13.50 | 15.00 |
| yeah, I don't know.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| AM: 63F, 95%. 6 @ 8:26 AP. I'm pretending the race Saturday never happened. My performance kind of defies explanation...it wasn't 120 degrees outside, I wasn't recovering from the Ebola virus, etc. My fastest single mile the entire race was still slower than my average PR pace, and there were some downhill miles. Yet I'm in better shape now?
These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along.
PM: didn't have time
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 0.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 65F, 91%. 7 @ 8:14 AP.
PM: 4 TM miles
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 66F, 80%. 10 @ 7:45 AP, with 6 x (1 min on/off). 5:40s-5:50s for the on's, felt rough - still not quite physically recovered from the big Terrible Unbelieveable Race Day.
PM: not enough time
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 10.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.00 | 0.00 | 7.00 |
| AM: 65F, 83%. 7 @ 8:22 AP.
PM: nope
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 7.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 63F, 96%. 6 @ 8:09 AP. Still tired...one of those weeks.
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| | Race: |
Work 5k (3.1 Miles) 00:18:26, Place overall: 1, Place in age division: 1 | | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.80 | 3.20 | 10.00 |
| 49F. Cool weather is here which makes all the difference for me. This 5k was always going to be a tactical race, as I mostly just wanted to win, but I also eked out a PR, beating out a pretty old one (but I was a young 32 when I ran it).
I decided I'd run conservatively and not make any moves until the end. Mile 1 was a 5:53, and I was in 2nd. Crept up to the first place guy and just ran alongside for most of the second mile, resisting the urge to speed up. Everytime we'd go uphill, he'd slow down - I think I'm figuring out that's a pretty good tell that you have someone beat. At about 1.75, he started dropping back. I ran mile 2 in 5:47. The last mile is tough, with the last half uphill, but fortunately I had a lot in the tank (as was the plan). My lead grew nicely, and I ran it in 5:50. Then 55s for the stub, measured at 0.17 (5:32 pace). Same course as last year, so a good comparison. Not certified, but any true 5k course is probably going to measure a little long anyway. Worked out to 5:49/mile on Garmin, which is close to sub-18 effort.
| Last year |
This year |
| 5:58 |
5:53 |
| 6:05 |
5:47 |
| 6:04 |
5:50 |
| 1:05 |
:55 |
Solid result, maybe not quite where I'd like to be, but it was nice to get some reassurance after last week that nothing is horribly wrong with me. Hopefully sub-18 at Preston's race in a couple weeks. I'll take it out harder and go for a good time, versus the tactical race I ran today.
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 10.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.00 | 13.50 | 17.50 |
| 52F. 2 w/u, then 13.5 @ 6:53 AP. Followed that up with 2 cooldown miles. Ran with the guy from the race yesterday - he is trying to qualify for Boston at CIM. I don't think he'll have a problem, as you only need ~7:03/mile. This was good enough for me to count as MP as well, so I can adjust my schedule next week and do something else.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 65F, 79%. 6 @ 8:19 AP. Legs felt nice and crushed from this weekend. Good.
PM: managed to fit in my TM plod today....4 mi
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 0.00 | 12.00 |
| AM: 67F, 90%. 8 @ 8:04 AP. The sunlight at the end of my run makes me feel like I'm late for work. I'd like to get in a MLR tomorrow but it'll be more of a swim if we get as much rain as they're predicting. My beloved creek trail will be underwater.
PM. 4 TM
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 12.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 14.00 | 0.00 | 14.00 |
| AM: 57F, raining. 14 @ 7:39 AP. Against my better judgement, I headed to the creek trail. Usually when we get this much rain, it all goes to Leon Creek. After clomping through some shin-deep stretches of water, I found a good 1.25-mile stretch on some high ground that only had a few ankle-deep puddles. I had to turn around when I got to a lower-lying thigh-deep section, which was flowing pretty hard against me, toward the creek. Amazing how 1-2 inches of rain turns a normally-dry creek into whitewater rapids. Anyway, just ran back and forth on the higher ground until I got sick of it.
PM: Spurs game!
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Stomach bug.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4.00 |
| PM: 63F. 4 miles in the neighborhood after sunset. Didn't feel terrible, which is amazing considering the hell I was in yesterday. These stomach bugs really hit hard, but leave quickly.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 4.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.00 | 1.00 | 8.00 |
| 54F. 8 @ 7:25 AP. Slept in a bit, and really felt good today, back to normal. Even thought about keeping the LT / Big Workout on the schedule for tomorrow, but that's probably a little silly. I've tried to come back from illness too fast before and it's never pretty. Maybe 90 min easy tomorrow, recover a day or two, and LT on Tuesday or Wednesday. I had a useless speed workout planned for next week that can easily be dumped. If I get nothing but LT and MP between now and Dec 7, I'll be just fine.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 3.00 | 12.00 |
| 48F, 12 @ 7:17 AP. Last 3 averaged around 6:40, didn't seem to take much additional effort. Perfect morning for running.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.50 | 0.50 | 12.00 |
| AM: 45F. 6 @ 7:59 AP.
PM: 4 TM miles with strides. Workout tomorrow....
PM2 - Ran 2 miles with the dog after dinner. I thought he'd be too excitable/stupid to run with me but he did ok, only tried to trip me a couple times. For his reward I let him walk the last quarter mile home and pee on stuff.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 10.00 | 1160s Miles: 2.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.50 | 4.00 | 13.50 |
| AM: 57F, 97%. 9.5 miles total. Aborted 6 x 1 at the track. I thought I was running early enough to beat the cold front, and the air was perfectly stagnant during my warmup. Interestingly I felt the front arrive exactly between the 3rd and 4th rep; in the last mile I couldn't run the northbound 200 in less than 50s, as the wind really kicked up, almost instantaneously. So my 4 reps were 6:06, 6:06, 6:03, 6:20, then pulled the plug. I was debating doing so anyway since I felt really flat...and also pretty unmotivated. This was just fine for a post-illness / pre-5k-PR-attempt. Wasn't looking to crush it anyway...
PM: 4 mi TM plod
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 4.00 | Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 9.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.50 | 0.00 | 8.50 |
| AM: 38F, NNE 14 mph. 6 @ 8:22 AP. The cold front froze most of the rest of the country, but here it basically just meant I had to dig around and find my gloves...a minor inconvenience I'll happily accept!
PM: 48F. couldn't find the time to sneak away from work for my TM run today, but I did take the mutt out for 2.5 miles at night. I brought garmin this time, 8:34 AP. He still tried to trip me a couple times - always in the first mile, when he still has the energy to literally run circles around me.
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| Fastwich Miles: 6.00 | 1160s Miles: 2.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.50 | 0.50 | 11.00 |
| AM: 33F, N 15 mph. 7 @ 8:10 AP. Keeping it easy, as I plan to destroy my legs on Saturday and Sunday.
PM: 4 TM w strides
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 34F. 6 @ 7:42 AP. Included 1 x 1 minute @ 5k pace. 5k training complete.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Race: |
Grace 5k (3.107 Miles) 00:18:01, Place overall: 1, Place in age division: 1 | | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 3.87 | 3.13 | 7.00 |
| 41F. Ran Preston's (I Just Run) race today. He did a great job as a race director - a perfect race, in my opinion. He even had a guy on a bike riding alongside me, telling me where to go; I think he must've told the guy I was directionally challenged. It was good to see him and David (derhammer) - 3 Texas FRB'ers in 1 place?? Gotta be a record.
After passing a guy around the half-mile point, the race became a time trial effort. Had David not been coming off of injury, we probably could've pushed each other to sub-18's. So I blame missing 17:xx entirely on him, I think that's fair.
Splits were 5:46, 5:49, 5:46, 0:40 for the stub. I started the kick way too late, that's where I missed it. I probably could've kept going after the finish line for awhile...lesson learned. Other than that, I ran a great race - paced very well, etc.
All done with 5k's for awhile now though -- got 2 marathons and a 50k coming up, all in a 12-week span. Sub-18 will have to happen next year......
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 7.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 19.10 | 5.40 | 24.50 |
| AM: 46F. 22 @ 7:27 AP. Today was my fast-finish LR, planned on 22 with the last 6 tempo. Ran the first 15 with my buddy from the 5k a couple weeks ago, then we separated and I kept going.
The last 6 were 6:30, 6:28, 6:20, 6:25, 6:22, then in the last mile I caught up to a different co-worker's 10-year-old son who was running a race - I'd forgotten the Battle of Leon Creek was today, but was having fun being in their race for free. Anyway, I hung with the kid until I got to my car, and it made for a nice cooldown. .6 miles is more than the 0.0 mile cooldown I had planned. That kid is going to be a great runner - sub-8 pace in a 20k?! He's about half the size of everyone else!
Felt really good on the tempo portion, things are coming together very well right now.
PM: 43F, N 23-34 mph. 2.5 @ 8:52 AP. Took the dog out to the dead end and back as the next cold front was blowing in. The wind was Oklahoma-ish. The run/plod felt good on the legs, regenerative even.
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| Saucony A5 Miles: 22.00 | 1160s Miles: 2.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 31F. 6 @ 8:30 AP. Comfort plodding for a couple days, then will do a dead-leg CV workout on Wednesday; that's becoming a marathon training staple for me.
PM: 4 mile TM plod
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 11.00 | 0.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 31F. 7 @ 8:11 AP. Cold weather gives me a small bladder, can't even get through a few recovery miles. Am I alone here?
PM: 4 mile TM plod
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.50 | 3.50 | 13.00 |
| 40F, 10 miles total. Dead-legged CV workout today. I was pretty sure my legs would still be pretty impaired from this weekend, and I was right. That's why I put this workout where I did; it's almost always a safe one - 7 x 800m @ 10k pace, 200m active rec. The first couple felt awful, but the legs did their job - averaged 2:59/rep on the 800s with ~65 sec recoveries. Splits were 2:59, 3:00, 2:59, 3:00, 2:58, 2:58, 2:58. They actually got easier and easier. Seems like a sign that I'm in decent marathon shape - still getting the job done when the legs are their weariest.
2 more workouts and I'll get 3 easy days before each of them. I'll start my rest for the next one by not running this afternoon!
PM: 3 @ 8:43 AP with the dog in the neighborhood.
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| Saucony A5 Miles: 10.00 | 1160s Miles: 3.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.50 | 0.00 | 9.50 |
| AM: 51F. 6 @ 8:18 AP.
PM: 30 minute TM plod
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 9.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 1.00 | 11.00 |
| AM: 63F, 100%, fog. 6.5 @ 8:21 AP. Soggy sloggy.
PM: 4.5 TM miles with 6 x 1 minute @ 5k pace. I've been slacking on strides since my legs seem to always be tired and cranky. Tomorrow will basically be a day off, maybe 3-4 miles in the neighborhood, tops. Then workout Sunday.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 49F. 6 @ 7:51 AP. Didn't run at all this weekend...life happens. Too late in the game to try and make up mileage/workouts so I'll just pick up where I left off and try to have a good thanksgiving workout. We'll be in Longview so maybe a hilly 4-3-2-1 or an MP wave tempo. I could use the hills, probably.
PM : 4 ez with the mutt after dinner
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 6.00 | 1160s Miles: 4.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 2.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 38F. 10 @ 7:21 AP. Couple @ MP
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.50 | 0.00 | 4.50 |
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 4.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.50 | 10.00 | 15.50 |
| 39F. 15.5 @ 6:51 AP. 4 mile warm up. Went with a hilly 4-3-2-1 for the last-chance workout. Kept it at MP or better and tried to pick up the effort as I went. Obviously not all miles are created equally - the splits jump around - but there was a good progressive effort throughout.
4 @ 6:33 AP - 6:30, 6:36, 6:34, 6:33
3 @ 6:22 AP - 6:18, 6:23, 6:26
2 @ 6:20 AP - 6:12, 6:28
1 @ 6:07
I had a nice half mile easy between each block, so a pretty good reset, allowing me to attack them harder than MP. Kept the rest honest though, 7:40s-7:50s. Good hard effort.
Then a 100m cooldown in the parking lot.
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| Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 15.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.50 | 0.00 | 8.50 |
| AM: 58F. 6 @ 7:42 AP. Last day in Longview - Pleasure Palace route. It was for sale.
PM: 77F. Back in SA, 2.5 untimed with the mutt after eating half a pizza.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 6.00 | 1160s Miles: 2.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 12.00 | 1.00 | 13.00 |
| 64F, 91%. 7:33 AP. I ran the last mile at MP and it felt like death. When you're used to good weather, 60's & humid feels terrible and suffocating.
Ok, let's check the forecast for my race . . . 60s & humid.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 0.00 | 5.00 |
| Forgot to post but I did 5 slow this morning. Haven't really had time to even think about the race, but it still looks like low 60s for most of it, and close to 100% humidity. I'm on the fence about whether to switch to the half. Seems stupid to destroy my legs for yet another 3 hour finish when I have Houston 6 weeks later. Will keep an eye on the forecast and decide later...
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 0.50 | 9.50 |
| AM: 41F. 6 @ 7:51 AP
PM: 3.5 w strides
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 9.50 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 2.00 | 8.00 |
| 48F, foggy. 8 @ 7:28 AP. 2 mile block @ 6:36, 6:33. Felt ok. I felt better during my thanksgiving workout, but with only 7 or 8 miles planned over the next 3 days, I'm sure I can recapture that tapered feeling. Still leaning toward doing this as a training run but I want to be rested in case I wake up and it's 50 degrees outside on Sunday morning.
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 8.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 0.00 | 5.00 |
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| | Race: |
San Antonio rock n roll (13 Miles) 01:45:00 | | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 13.00 | 0.00 | 13.00 |
| popped an Achilles in mile 2. I tried to work it out the rest of the race, thinking I could still get a decent training run, but had to do the walk of shame back to the starting line. 3-4 miles limping along. Bad bad day for Slowjoe.
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 13.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.50 | 0.00 | 4.50 |
| I ran a little this morning. Achilles should be ok, though the pain migrated up toward the calf a little. Still kind of an overall unbalanced feeling, like one leg is doing more work than the other. All easy runs this week, then maybe I'll be fixed.
It did feel good to be running again though. Calm, quiet foggy morning. But I still didn't feel like going any farther than this.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 50F, 6 @ 7:33 AP.
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 5.00 | 3.00 | 8.00 |
| 8 @ 7:25 AP. Last 3 @ MP effort (7:10). As Jake would say: baseline established. Just gotta turn 3 @ 7:10 into 26.2 @ 6:40. in 4 weeks.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 6 @ 8:25. Way behind on my favorite FRBs, hope to catch up soon. "The man" is taking all my time.
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.00 | 10.00 |
| 52F. 10 @ 7:29 AP.
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 10.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 10.00 | 0.00 | 10.00 |
| 52F. 10 @ 7:18 AP in Houston. Lots of runners out this morning - most were bundled up in jackets due to extreme cold.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 10.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 13.00 | 0.00 | 13.00 |
| 60F, 100%. 13 @ 7:23 AP. Houston part II. Last aerobic get-back-in-shape run. Achilles is fine. Not nearly as worried about my weird unbalanced leg thing anymore. I think I just really jacked myself up by not DNF'ing earlier. Anyway, couple easy days and then my 2-week marathon training block can begin.
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| Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 13.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 6 @ 8:14
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 8.00 | 3.00 | 11.00 |
| 38F. 11 @ 7:14 AP. On the way back I did a mini-CV: 6 x (3 min on, 1 min off). I averaged 5:55.5 pace for the on's. Pretty cool huh? It was not an easy effort, but I thought the paces would be significantly worse since I haven't done anything difficult in almost a month, and mileage is WAY down - if I can just get back to my peak shape from a month ago, I'd be really happy. Not there yet, obviously. Nor do I deserve to be. But the door hasn't closed on a PR, or even sub-2:55 if I can avoid sabotaging myself over the holidays. Need a good, long MP run this weekend.
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| Saucony A6 - Yellow Miles: 11.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 6 @ 7:55 AP. Took a break from assisting with Cinderella's lego castle construction to get in 6 Christmas miles. Me and Mrs. Claus had a bit too much to drink last night (every family has its own Christmas traditions) so it felt good to sweat it out a bit on the roads.
Merry Christmas all!
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 7.00 | 0.00 | 7.00 |
| 7 @ 7:58 AP
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 6.00 | 0.00 | 6.00 |
| 6 @ 7:55 AP. 10 + 10 tomorrow. Low expectations but you never know...
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| Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 13.50 | 6.50 | 20.00 |
| 37F, rainy. Kind of a rough one this morning. I should've eased myself in to a tough run like this. Plan was 10 ez, then 10 @ MP. I started out running it as if I had not missed a beat, then predictably bonked in the 7th MP mile. The first 10 I ran at a 7:19 AP, which would be easy for November SlowJoe but not Current SlowJoe.
Then the MP miles were 6:40, 6:34, 6:36, 6:24, 6:40, 6:41, .5 @ 6:48, quit.
Again, a month ago I could've finished this out but not now; I pulled the plug when I couldn't hold 6:40. I should've just run 6:50 the whole time to make sure I got in the volume. Why would I think I could just pick up where I left off..? Then I had a fuel bonk on the cooldown, as a last kick in the butt.
I don't know if 3 weeks is enough time to get November SlowJoe back but I'll go through the motions to see. If I have to I'll be super conservative in the race.
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| Saucony A5 Red Miles: 20.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 4.00 | 0.00 | 4.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 3.00 | 0.00 | 3.00 |
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| Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 3.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 9.00 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| AM: 6 TM miles, last @ MP
PM: 4 with the dog @ 7:36 AP; his fastest run yet.
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| Fastwich Miles: 4.00 | Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 6.00 |
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| | Slow miles | Fast miles | Total Distance | | 2448.33 | 493.67 | 2942.00 |
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| 1160s Miles: 359.10 | Fastwich Miles: 462.50 | Saucony A5 Red Miles: 182.90 | Kinvara 2 - Gray/red Miles: 400.60 | Kinvara 1 - Blk/orange Miles: 406.20 | Saucony A5 - Blue Miles: 386.80 | Saucony A5 Miles: 378.20 | Kinvara 3 - Gray/red Miles: 329.50 | Saucony A6 - Yellow Miles: 11.00 |
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