Long Weekend

This weekend consisted of a lot of work, a little sleep, a lot of fun, a little bit of sadness, a lot of opening up to a stranger, and a moderate workout.

The workout took place in purcell park down at jmu. I did 4 x 1 loop(approx. 1.5 miles) with 2 minutes recovery. The loop has a couple of hills, one of which is a real rhythm killer. I ended up hitting 8:22, 8:12, 8:02, 7:47. I was happy with the effort but I was hoping to run a little faster. I know that I am still a little beat up from thursdays workout, so I wasnt too worried about pace today.

The End

Today marked the end of all the end of the hard workouts for the year. I will be simply maintaining from here on out. I decided to make today a tough one since it was going to be the final hard effort. The problem with making today really tough was that I faced the possibility of hurting my confidence if the workout didnt go well.
Fortunately the workout went really well. I ended up doing 3 miles in 14:50 with close to 6 minutes rest because it took me longer than expected to get my spikes on. I followed that up with 2 miles in 9:56 and another mile in 4:39 after 5 mintues rest.
The times werent what I expected, but you can tell from the picture(which you can click and make larger) that it was windy today. I would say you could take at least a second off of each lap to equate for the wind and that would put me right at goal 10k race pace. I am also happy with how the workout went because the effort was almost perfect. I would say every interval felt about the way it should have and by the final one my legs were straight smashed.
I am also in a good mood because my body is in a nice zone right now where everyday feels good. I was lacking that feeling all year and its nice to get it right at the end of the year. From here on out I am just going to be doing controlled workouts and getting pumped to attempt a PR on Nov 11.

Almost There

The "fall season" is coming to an end and I am trying to convince myself to keep going because I have more improvement just around the corner. The two main reasons I am stopping at Veterans Day on November 11th are: Lots of littls aches and pains and my schedule for next year will work better if I stop on the 11th.
As the season comes to end I am slowly wrapping up different aspects of training. For example, I put in my last long run yesterday. It was a solid 16 miles out at Great Falls. I would say the pace was around 6 minute pace and I felt in control for the entire run. Its amazing how little things like that work to build confidence.
Tomorrows workout will also mark an end to the real hard work for the year. Everything after tomorrow will just be maintaining whatever fitnessed I have amassed over the past few months. What is left is a last second decision to do an oldie but a goodie.... 3 mile, 2 mile, 1 mile with 5 minutes recovery. This one goes back to my first year of college. The first two repeats are at 10k pace and the last one is fast.
I will report back tomorrow whether its a success or unlikely failure.

Race Report - 24:43

I ran an 8k race this morning in Fairfax that went really well. I went in hoping to get top 3 and earn a little prize money. I ended up getting 4th but I ran a smart and tough race, so I consider today a success. Unfortunately I do not have any splits because I was expecting timers to be on the course, but that was not the case. I was kind of happy I didnt know any splits, that way I just raced and didnt even think about time.

I ended up running 24:43 and I was hoping to run faster but I realized that isnt everything considering how the course was. The course was much tougher than I expected. There were no flat sections, you were either running on a long downhill or a long uphill. The funny thing is that I was fine on the uphills but I struggled on the downhills and ended up getting dropped on a long downhill because I couldnt turn over fast enough.

Looking forward...the goal is still the same. I am still hoping to pr or at least be in the shape to pr for 10k when Veterans Day rolls around. Realistically I am on pace to be about 20 seconds off of my pr but it is possible that I have another big jump around the corner.

Next week will include 3x2 mile at threshold as well as the big one... 2 mile - 1 mile - 1 mile fap.

Long Run

I ran around 14.6 miles today for my long run. I wanted to go 17, but I like to stick to my own advice whenever I get the chance. That advice being that its okay to take a step back sometimes to go forwards. On the way out I started to feel like a struggle would occur if I kept going so I turned around just before 46 minutes and kept it controlled on the way back. I still managed to run a little over 6 min pace for a run that was definitely not flat.

The next step is to take it easy for a couple of days and then race an 8k on Sunday. I ran a 4 mile a tempo over a month ago in 20:10 and Im pretty certain on the worst of days I could add another mile onto that. So we will see what happens....

Great Workout (16x400)

I finally made a noticeable jump in my training. I felt that it was on the way, but I wasnt sure of it until my workout today. All of my previous interval workouts felt much different than I was used to them feeling when I was back in college. Today was the first day I felt in control of the workout.

The workout was similar to my 20x400 workout but I shortened it to 16 this time. I averaged 65.9 versus the 68.0 when I did 20. The big difference was effort level, I would say todays workout was an 8 out of 10 and the previous workout was a 10 out of 10. I once again did sets of 4 with 100 jogs between reps and 400 between sets. The sets were pretty much right on at 68, 66, 66, 64.

I am obviously really happy with how the workout went. I felt about the same on the last set of this workout as I did on the middle set of the previous workout. Today is going to be a nice springboard into my final phase before I start to the cut the mileage and get ready for the Veterans Day 10k.

Down Week

I am taking this fairly easy to let my body recovery after a pretty tough week last week. I had an attempted workout Tuesday that turned out to be a failure but I am not too worried considering I am just trying to recover for a 5k on Saturday and the two following weeks. The next two weeks will both include a tough threshold workout as well as a some very hard interval session while keeping the miles up near 70.

68...

...miles for the week

16

I had to move my week around a bit because I had to make a trip home on Saturday night and then be back in town for work Sunday at noon. I ended up moving my Friday workout up a day and my Sunday long run to today.

I successfully got my long run in this morning starting from the store. I ended up getting a solid 16 miles in. I ran the first 5-6 miles with the group at about 8 min pace up to Rock Creek Park. I started to pick it up down the hill to probably around 5:50 pace(which always is rough when you have to make a major pace change). I got back to the store in a little under 70 minutes(10 miles) and drank a little bit of water. I finished up with 6 miles on the canal in 5:45 pace, with the last two miles being a little rough.

8x800

Todays workout was a rough one. The plan was to get in 8x800 at 2:20 pace. I wanted to start at 2:24 and finish at 2:16. I ended up starting at 2:19 and finishing at 2:18. I was expecting the workout to be a lot easier than it was but I guess I cant complain since I hit the average I wanted to hit and I put in the effort that I wanted to put in.

My splits were: 219/222/220/221/220/221/220/218 for an avg of 2:20

I took 300 rest for the first few and then I took a little over 3 minutes after the 4th to switch into spikes earlier than I had planned to. The last few I just took 1:45-1:50 recovery(which was about how long it took me during my 300 jog).

I still need to get an easy run later on and tomorrow will be an extremely easy recovery day. Saturday will hopefully be a long run and Sunday will be like a typical Monday with strides.

30 min tempo

I had a pretty good workout today considering I took last week as an unplanned down week. I did a 30 min tempo over the same route that I did this workout a month ago. I did not take splits this time but I did check every mile to see where I was. I ended up making it about 10 seconds farther than I did a month ago. I would say I averaged 5:20 pace for the entire workout.
Overall I am happy with the effort which brought my daily total to 14 miles. I didnt want to go to hard because I am going to be doing 800s on Thursday. We will see if I went too hard or not in a couple days.