Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

36F.  I ran on the longview high school track today which is probably at least as nice as the average college stadium.  Roughly 5 mile warmup, then 9 x 800m @ 10k pace, 200m active recoveries.  This is the 3 min on / 1 min off workout I go to when I need a workout but might not be at my best (see crappy last week of running).  It went well today, and I was able to meet/exceed 10k pace without working too hard.

Avg repeat was 3:00. (3:02, 3:03, 3:02, 3:00, 3:00, 2:59, 3:00, 2:59, 2:54)

Had to drop that last one in there to bring the average down.  I still like this workout; 800s at 10k pace are very reasonable, but the short rest keeps you moving (avg recovery was ~66 sec).

36F, 8:20 AP

36F, 7:02 AP.  Today was 8 ez, followed by 8 @ MP.  I was looking to go under 6:40 avg to start on my sub 2:55 goal at Boston.  I did the 8-mile warmup keeping an honest effort (7:20s and 7:30s), then turned around and did the mp miles:

AP - 6:33  (6:38, 6:35, 6:37, 6:35, 6:34, 6:30, 6:36, 6:22)

Good run.  Considering that my focus has been short, fast stuff, and I only had 1 easy day between workouts instead of my usual 2 or 3, this was definitely a good result.  After Houston, I will obviously start focusing a lot more on the long tempo.

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.

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? 

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.

67F, 8:20 AP.  afternoon miles.