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.

Back

I took last week fairly easy after a not so good workout. My back decided to cramp up after the workout, so I have been trying to let it heal before I get back after it. I got in a medium 10 after workout today with Ben. It will be interesting to see how my back responds to today run. If all goes well I will jump back into things on tuesday with a tempo.

Weekend

I had a somewhat long weekend that did not include a long run. I still managed to finish with 66 miles for the week, which is more than enough for me. Saturday morning my memory failed me which tends to happen a lot. I ran a few miles before the big group run from the store and then I did the group run from the store which would have been fine, probably a little long actually. During the group run I told somebody I would add on with them afterwards, completely forgetting that I had run before. So I ended up getting 12 miles in, which was way too much.
Sunday I got in an hour even though I had intended to do a long run. Part of that was from the run the day before and part because I got a bit Hibachi/horrorshow the previous night.
The upcoming week will include some mile repeats and a 4 mile race.

20x400

I had a fun workout this morning at George Masons Track. I had originally planned on doing 16 400s but I convinced myself to go for 20 since I am getting ready for a 10k. I finished the workout with an average 68.0 which I am extremely pleased with. I feel like I am starting to get things moving beyond the typical tempos which I have been going well.

The 1st set went fairly well. The plan was to run them in 70 with 100m jog recovery and I ended up running:

69.4,68.8,69.5,68.9

400 jog between sets except for when I put spikes on and socks.

The next set I decided to go for 68 and this is when it started to get tough. At this point I decided running 68s in flats was becoming tough. I made it through this set hitting the following times:

67.0,68.5,68.5,68.7

After switching into spikes I knew I would still have to stick to 68s:

68.1, 68.3, 69.0, 67.7

There was no question that I was going to stick with 68s but I was starting to ponder if I would be able to drop to 66 for the last set:

67.7, 67.8, 67.9, 69.1

At this point I was hurting but not dead so I convinced myself to make a run at 66s. I ended up hitting a 69 on the second after deciding not check splits and I wasnt sure if I should even do 20 or if I would blow up. I decided to finish:

65.5, 69.5, 66.9, 64.9

Specific + G-DUB + Excited

Ive know this for a long time but this is the time to start being a little more specific in my training. I realized I havent really even been doing strides. Starting this week I am going to focus on strides and intervals in the 70-72 range to get my body used to running at race pace.

Yesterday started off as a normal run but I ended up getting run down by what ended up being some guys from the GW team. I ended up running with them for the majority of my run and it made it a lot easier on me mentally considering how I had raced the day before. The run also solved a mystery that I though I would never figure out. Back in August I was run down on one of my easy days and it turned out to be one of the guys I ran with.

And I am excited because the Trials are approaching and videos are appearing:
http://www.nyrr.org/races/pro/mens_trials/glory/index.asp