Tempo

I got in a 4 mile tempo in 21:56. It was completely effort based, I didnt check my watch until after I finished. I started with 5:46 and finished with a 5:08, so I at least gradually squeezed it down.

I am happy with the effort. I would obviously have loved to run it faster but the plan for the week is just to hit peak mileage and put a good effort in at the rockville twilight race on saturday night.

Tomorrow will hopefully serve as a recovery day with two easy runs planned. Thursday medium with two run as well. Friday easy, Saturday race, Sunday long.

Workout/Long Run

I did my first combo workout long run today. I didnt get in as much mileage I had planned but I am happy with how the workout turned out.
After a 2 mile warmup, I did 4x1 mile with one minute recovery. The mile times were: 5:18, 5:23, 5:17, 5:25. The 1st and 3rd miles had a slight downhill for the first half mile, where the 2nd and 4th had a slight uphill the last half mile.
I followed this with 33 minutes easy. I had originally hoped to get in 45 minutes but the heat and my muscles would not allow it.
I changed back into my racing flats and somehow managed to get through 3 miles in 16:18.
Given the workout I can say that I am in better shape than I was last week and thats all that I really hope to accomplish as the weeks go by.

Race Report

I ran the Yorktown Freedom Run 5k this morning and finished up with a 15:23 for 2nd place. Going into the race, I thought I had a pretty good shot at winning. I was still running side by side with the eventual winner going up the final hill with 800 to go and just didnt have it in the end.

The first mile I felt kind of queezy but that slowly went away as the race went on. I felt good but not as relaxed as I should have been. I ended up coming through in 4:52, a few seconds back of the guy who ended up getting 3rd. He ended up pulling away and I had almost given up on catching him. But I decided to really go after it the next mile and ended up running 9:40 for 2 miles. At this point I felt like I was running really quick and I knew unless the guy with me died I was going to have to settle for second. I ended up holding it together until we hit the final hill and that was the end of me.

Overall I am happy that I finally got to go out and hit some sub 5 miles and that was the plan going in. The next goal is to run some sub 5 minute miles for an 8k in a couple weeks.

Tuesday Long Run

I got my long run out of the way early this week. Time wise, it was my longest run ever! Well it was the longest by about 5 seconds. It was still a bit of distance off of my longest run, which was done on much hillier trail.
The run went well considering the heat index was in the mid to high 80s. I started the run a little after the 7, so as I went a long I had less and less sun to deal with. I had been struggling with long runs in the heat so I was only running 15 minutes out and then heading back to the car to get a gel and some water. This turned out to be a great idea as I never hit the wall like I had been doing on pretty much all of my previous long runs.
The first 30 minutes I was running 6:20-6:25, the second 30 was 6:09-6:12, and then I hit a little over 22 minutes in under 5:50 pace. I finished up with a jog until I hit a 100 minutes. I was happy with how the run turned out. The rest of the week is going to stay fairly easy until I hit up a street mile on saturday a.m.

Feeling a little bit better

I managed to get in close to 9 miles today in with 2 runs. I didnt feel spectacular on either of the runs but I at least felt better than yesterdays run.
Ive been looking a lot into nutrition for distance runners and I am starting to think that my recent problem has had to do with not getting enough food. I have been eating a good enough amount of food but apparently i should be getting in 700g of Carbs and 120g of Protein; I cant say for sure that I have been taking in that much.
Looking back whenever I have been running around 70 miles in the past, I always had either the dining hall at school or a dining hall at running camp. Now when I eat breakfast, I will eat cereal and a muffin. Thats not that bad but when I was eating at school I would have cereal, eggs, and other things on top of that.
So the next step for me is to make sure I am crushing at least two meals a day from now on. We will see how this new strategy pans out.

Still Recovering

I hate to say it but I think my body is still trying to catch up after the long run from a week and a half ago. I still managed to get in 90 minutes in today at just under 6:20 pace on the W&OD. Early on in the legs just felt stiff and useless. At one point I just decided to run up-tempo and forget about pace. This was after I did the first 3 miles in just under 21 minutes. I ended up paying for this decision on the way back when my legs started to feel even more stiff and useless than they did early on.
Fortunately I took a gel along with and I took that around 50 minutes. I also stopped at an hour to get some water and I felt somewhat better after that. I know I will be hurting the next couple days because I felt the shredded feeling in my legs when I got back to the car. I am hopefully going to attempt to get close to 70 miles this week.

Unplanned Tempo

AM - Easy 4

PM - I had originally attempted to do a tempo tomorrow afternoon but I ended up doing one tonight. It happened tonight simply because I was pissed at how slow I was going on my medium 9 miler. I came through 4 miles in low 27s, and after that I just gradually picked it up until I hit 4.5 to 5.5 in 5:30. At that point I realized it was too late to shut it down so I just went with it and I ended up doing 4 miles in 21:33.
The positives for the workout was that I ran it 10 seconds faster than 3 weeks ago, and this time I did it in trainers as opposed to racing flats. My goal is to get the 4 mile tempo down under 20 minutes a few months from now...we will see how that goes.


Clinton and Obama...how will they perform when the pressure is on?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0507/4155.html

BonkFest

I ran a rough 15 miles this morning. The first couple miles were a little rough because of stomach pains but I ended up getting through that without much trouble. The next few miles until I turned around at 7.5, I felt great. Then somewhere between 6 and 6.5 to go, I started feeling a little off. From about the 6 to go, I knew there was an inevitable wall coming. At this point, I just started running from one half mile marker to the next without putting out too much effort and at the same time making a concentrated effort to keep the pace decent.
As I concentrated on making it to the next half mile marker, I started to struggle without breaking down. I stopped at every water fountain in hopes that hydrating might help a little (3 water breaks total). Finally the wall arrived with 2 miles to go. At that point, I just ran and didnt think about much else. It got to the point where I couldnt even really feel my legs and they just kind of moved on their own.
I still managed to get in 15 for the day under 6:20 pace, which isnt bad considering how bad I fell apart on the second half of the run.

Miles for the week: 66

The Week Plan (5/21-5/27)

Ive decided that Im going to take things no more than a week at a time because I have no long my groin will hold. With that being said, here is the plan for next week:

Mon: 5-7 miles easy
Tues: 5-6 x 1 mile w/ 1 min recovery(a.m.)/ 5 miles easy(p.m.)
Wed: 7 miles easy (a.m.)/ 5 miles easy (p.m.)
Thurs: 8-10 miles easy
Friday: 8-10 miles medium
Saturday: 5 miles easy
Sunday: 13-15 miles easy/medium

Weekly Mileage: 66-75

The goal for the week is to get in some good base and keep building up to 85 miles. I also want to get a little bit of tempo work in, hence the 5-6 x mile with 1 minute recovery( jack daniels workout). The goal is for it to be a medium effort, starting in the mid-5:20s and picking up the pace throughout.

If anybody wants to get in on any of the runs, let me know.

Custis 10...5/17

Ive been thinking about the fact that I didnt have a 10 mile run yet for the area. I mean I could run out and back on the W&OD but that wouldnt be anything special. I guess running out back on the custis trail is somehow much more exciting.
Todays run involved running to the end of the custis trail and then running for about a minute on the W&OD (its nice the two trails connect). I ended up going out on the 4 miles of trail in 26 flat and coming back in just under 24, with the total 10 just under 62 minutes. I was really happy with the run because running 6:15s on custis is similar to getting under 6 on a flatter trail.

The previous day I ran about 8, so the last two days have gone fairly well. I did get a little groin pain in the last few miles of todays run, but it was nothing that really slowed me down. Who knows what the run for tomorrow will end up being. I do know that it will be flatter and it will be in the district.

Custis! 5/10

I hadnt been on the custis trail in quite some time and i was glad to get back to get my good friend. Who would have thought that one of my favorite trails in the d.c. area would be a paved trail that runs along a highway? One of the main reason I like it is because it is rolling and there are some decent hills along the way. Also, even though it parallels the interstate it still feels like you are away from things in the crowded metropolis.

The run...I ended up just running to beginning of the trail from the running store. I am assuming I ran a little under 9.5 total and the pace was probably sub 7, which is actually pretty good for that trail. I was a little tired from yesterdays double, but I just kind of ran and tried to run a little quicker than a recovery jog. It was a good medium effort day and I will make sure to take the next couple days fairly easy, considering im working 10 hours a day.

Weekly Mileage: 31

Tempo 5/9

I decided that I would get in a 4 mile tempo this morning and it went fairly well. I ended up hitting 21:41 for the four miles with splits of 5:26, 5:28, 5:25, 5:22. I ran it completely based on how I felt without looking at my watch until I finished. I stayed fairly strong the entire time and didnt really feel to beat until the last half mile. The last half mile was kind of rough because it was straight shot so you could see the entire straight, and it was also a gradual incline which added to the difficulty.

In the grand scheme of things, I still have 17 weeks until the half marathon and since it takes me awhile to get rolling, today was not really any indication of whats to come. I plan to do this workout every few weeks as a benchmark workout, with the goal of getting down closer and closer to 20 minutes for the 4.

With warmup and cooldown, I got in a total of 8 for the morning. Im hoping to get in a second run later on and possibly a nap before that. Im fairly excited at the moment because I busted out the crock pot to throw together a little chili. This is my first time making chili, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Tempo 5/3

I had no workouts planned for the week, but I ended up getting a tempo in today. This was a textbook effort based tempo rather than a tempo based on trying to hit a certain time which was really nice. I felt like I was flying without putting any real effort in at all.

The best part about the workout is that I have no idea how fast or how far I made it; I just stopped when I got the urge to stop. So Im anticipating that there will be no more workout until next week when I will try and throw down a 20 minute tempo at a quick pace...and this unfortunately will not be quite as effort based as todays was.

The only bad thing about today was that groin hurt on my cooldown, but at least I got in another run before my groin completely falls apart. I think I ended up hitting over 9 miles for the day in little over 58 minutes.

Breaking In... 4/28

I just did an easy 6 in my new racing flats...the Nike Pegasus Racers. I like these shoes because they are basically a lightweight trainer and that is what I need for long tempos and workouts where I am going to be at a hard effort for up to 15 miles. Im not sure if I would race the half in these but depending on how they workout for the faster stuff they might get the nod.
Well tomorrow is the Pikes Peek 10k and I think the plan is going to just go after it from the start. Im 19 weeks away from the half so Im not expecting to be in great shape but at the same time if I want to run sub 5 min pace for 13 miles then I should be able to get the first few miles in 5 min pace.

A Day of Rest 4/25

So I took the day off as of 5:28 p.m. I'm kind of glad I didn't decide to head out when I first got up because my foot start hurting and it got more painful as the day went on.
Its almost a good thing that I took the day off because I am way ahead of schedule. I have recently come to the conclusion that my focus for now is the Rock and Roll Half Marathon on Labor Day weekend.
The plan is to train for a top 10 finish or run 64 minutes; which is not actually all that far fetched. In Jack Daniels book my current 1500 pr is equivalent to a low 65 minute half, and I do not take my pr as correct indication of my highest fitness level. I also know that a half marathon is a completely different race from the 1500, but I have become much better as the years go by at handling the longer stuff.
I guess my outlook is based on the idea that you never know unless you give it a shot.