Ended Up OK!

After 4 easy miles on the treadmill on Monday, Tuesday called for a much harder workout. It was my final week for mile repeats. After marathon pace, and 10K pace, this week was supposed to be at 5K pace which is 6:28. I haven't ran this fast since last September when I PR'ed in the 5K distance. For some reason, I just didn't think I had it in me to run that fast. After a .5 warm up, it was time to ramp up to 9.3 mph. The first mile came and went and I felt pretty good. The second was a little harder. I started feeling it with a lap to go. The third was really tough. After 2 laps, I was ready to give up but I stuck it out... tired legs and all. I totalled 5 miles @ around 36:00. I was already dreading the morning work out as stairs was in order.

I woke Wednesday and headed to the Y to meet Scott at 6:00. We set out for the Hilton. It is about a .6 mile warm up. The plan was to go to the top... all 31 floors with a couple of rest stops. After about 5 floors, my legs were burning. I'm guessing it was mostly due to the work out the night before. We made stops at floors 12 and 20. We should be good in a couple of weeks for no stops. We concluded the morning work out with a little over 3.5 miles for a total of 4.25 and 31 floors of steps. My legs are beat!!!

All my worrying was for not as everything ended up OK.

And Then It Was Back To Normal

The week-end started at 5:30 on Saturday with a temp of about 46 degrees. Today's long run called for shorts... at the beginning of February??? I know it sounds crazy but we set a record high of 67 degrees on Saturday. 10 miles was the distance in this 3rd recovery week.

We met at 7:00 at Cafe Moxo, a local downtime eatery, where we were going to run the front part of the Lincoln Memorial Half Marathon and add 3 miles in the middle. The pace started a little slow (8:40) but we picked it from there. We hovered around 8:15-8:10 pace for the next several miles. It was a quicker pace but felt pretty good. We ran into Tom and Mike Burk in the park so mile 7 or 8 was a little slower (8:40) since stopped and gabbed for a minute. The last 2 miles were pretty quick as we ran 8:04 and 8:03. I could definately feel the run later that day.

And then it was back to normal on Sunday. I believe the high was 36 degrees and I decided to stay in for a treadmill run. I set the speed for an 8:58 pace and completed 5 miles in 44:57. This was an active recovery run as I actually thought about taking the day off completely.

I totalled 28 miles for the week with a few stairs included.

Not quite there yet

My speed work last night, 3 X 1 mile @ 10K pace, went pretty well but I can tell that I'm not quite there yet. I felt great 2 week after the marathon but I feel I may have pushed it too much lately because I don't feel like I have my legs back and I have been extremely tired. Maybe I'll take it easy next week... Right!

After a .5 mile warm up, I set the speed to 8.7 (6:53 pace) and set off on my 1st mile. I've come to the realization that the first interval doesn't feel so good and today was no exception. But after the first, I was in a groove. Between the mile intervals, I did .5 rest at 10:00 pace. The work out felt good. My breathing was fine, but my legs didn't have it. It's tough trying to go fast when for a majority of my 18 week marathon training I was running fairly slow. I completed the work out with a mile cool down at 8:30 pace.

Back to Work

I was back to work last night after a day off recovering from my Monday stair workout. My calves were still pretty sore but I knew once I got started, the soreness would subside.

Week 2 of Hal Higdon's recovery plan called for 4 miles but I was going for 5-6. I set the incline to 1, the speed to 7.5 (8:00 pace) and I was off. The first few miles on the mill completely suck. There is nothing on TV except news, until Wheel of Fortune is on at 6:30. At mile 3, I thought I would only go 4, at 4 I thought maybe 5, at 5 I thought... I can do six no problem. Although my legs were tired, I felt pretty good. My breathing was good. I incresed my last lap to 7:40 pace to finish strong.

I finished with 6 miles and a total time of 47:56. Tonight calls for 3 X 1 mile at 10K pace (around 7:00 pace). I'm not sure if my legs will be able to handle the speed so I will need to prepare mentally all day. I just have to tell myself that it will pay off for the half and summer races.

Tough Couple of Days

The past 2 days have been tougher work-outs since the fast long run. Next week, I hope to tone it down a bit for our long run because I want to go a little longer than the prescribed 7. Hopefully we can do somewhere in the neighborhood of 9-10.

My Sunday workout called for a 30 minute tempo run. I went 4 miles in right around 30 minutes. I definately worked up a sweat during this workout on the treadmill.

Today (Monday), I was flying solo. I arrived at the Y at 6:15 AM. The plan was to do short warm up (.5 miles) to the Hilton, do some stairs, and a 2-3 mile cool down. I was definately feeling the affects of yesterday's tempo run. The warm up was REALLY slow and I was already dreading the infamous stairs who were to blame for my pain most of last week. I did singles up to the 16th floor and I was breathing HEAVY. After heading down, I grabbed some water and tried talking myself out of the 8 doubles but I wasn't listening to myself. I hit the stairs for the doubles and as I approached the last couple of flights, I felt like I was walking. This is a work out. It took me most of the way down to catch my breath.

I concluded the work out with 1.5 mile cool down. I couldn't (or didn't want to) do anymore. I feel like this was quality work out even though the running was short.

I have a weird feeling that my mile repeats at 10K pace tomorrow are going to suffer.