Easy 7

I met up with a few people this morning at Great Falls to get an easy run in. I ended up getting hammered on the hills by Chuck Moeser. It was nice to have somebody to run with for once. I used to run with the Wednesday night group from the store, but now I am on my own almost everyday with the new store.
This is going be an entertaining sports weekend with the Patriots trying to go 16-0 and the Redskins trying to secure a playoff spot. Fortunately for the Redskins they are 9 point favorites and they would have some nice momentum heading into Seattle. Unfortunately for the Redskins they have blown quite a few easy games this year.

Early Long Run

I got in an okay 12 miles today. I ended up averaging around 6:30 pace, but it is not about pace right now. I am just trying to put in the miles without killing myself, which is exactly what I am doing.
I did the run on the W&OD starting out at carmax(a fall favorite) and headed out towards ashburn. There werent too many people out today around 5 even with the fairly nice weather for december. I was hoping to run a little faster, but I am happy that I got in 12 miles. I still have a long way to go before I hit the track in the spring.
I am well on my way to hitting 60 miles as I am sitting at 45 with two days left in the week. I can see next weeks focus being on getting a solid 14 mile run in, which could potentially turn ugly if I get a little too pumped up.

Week 5

Im two days in the 5th week and things are going well. Yesterday I did an easy 6.5 from the georgetown store. It was the first day I felt good after the hard 10 miler at the beginning of last week. Today wasnt as good as yesterday early in the run, but I ended up feeling pretty good during the last few miles when I started to pick up the pace a little bit. I put in a little over 10 at Lake Fairfax on a nice day. It was so nice I busted out the stretching mat and the camera and took my time getting out of there.
Today was relaxing with it being Christmas and all. It was the first Christmas that I have not been at home for, but it turned out to be a good day. I watched a little bit of The Wire and will probably watch some more later along with the latest of the Bourne movies.

54

I ran an easy 11 this morning with Rasheed from his place on the trails up towards Rock Creek. That puts me at 54 for the week and I am really happy with that for my fourth week of base. I am honestly still a little beat from Tuesdays 10 miler but thats what I get for doing a little too much too early.
I actually decided to do a random race during base. I am running a road mile on the 31st and am pretty excited because road miles are few and far between. Hopefully I will get back to the schedule and train until the GW Birthday 10k in the middle of February.
Next week will hopefully be 60, which is straight from the schedule. No uptempo runs planned for next week as I do not want to get carried away and start running 5:30s again.

Balance

I once went on a tirade shortly after I was dumped about focusing all my energy into one thing. That thing being running of course. Sometimes in certain situations we say things we dont really mean, and that was one of those times. Dont get me wrong, running is a major part of who I am, but it is not everything that I am. My training philosophy is based around relaxing and letting things flow. I rarely go out during a workout and drive myself into the ground. So for me to say that I want to put everything into running was really just an emotional outburst. I am all about trying to maximize my potential, but this pursuit is not going to define me.
Balance is the key. I would say that I live a somewhat balanced life, I would like to have more fun but that is tough living out as far as I do. I would recommend not getting to obsessed about one thing. I guess that is what this was all coming to. Some people have religion, some drugs, and then for some reason I have running. But I also have other things that can but should not be neglected as they may not be around when I get over this running thing. The moral of this post is to find something or somebody special but dont let this something or somebody dictate who you are.

First Workout

I did not plan to do a workout today, but the run slowly turned into one. Next time Ill say I am going to run 6 minute pace versus uptempo. I hit two miles in 12 flat and knew sub 60 was not going to be a problem. My first mistake was running the next two miles in 11:22 becuase I always like to come back faster than going out. I ended up hitting 28:45 at the turnaround and thought about possibly going under 57 which would have been way too fast for the 4th week of base.

Well I ended up coming back in 27:04 to finish up 10 miles in 55:49...way too fast this early in my buildup. The one positive from today is that I saw what I thought I was happening physically on my easier days. The rest of the week is going to be fairly easy distance days. Actually the next couple of weeks are going to be easy distance weeks.

Lake Fairfax

I headed back out to Lake Fairfax today to do an easy run and some strides. I started from a different spot this time and picked up where I turned around a couple days ago. It was nice easy 56 minute run, a little over 8 miles but I am just rounding it down to 8. After I finished the run, I did about 3 strides on the turf. I was going to do more but I felt like I was done and tomorrow will be a little more uptempo.
The schedule for this week calls for a 10 mile long run and 55 miles total. That will be an interesting mix, but Ill figure out a way to get in.