Monday, February 28, 2011 - AM: I woke up and looked at the weather which told me it was 30F and raining. How this is even physically possible, I’m not sure, but it sounded pretty miserable. I put on my medium tights and wore two tech shirts under my green rain-coat. I wore my neck warmer, big mittens, and wool hat and then pulled the hood up and tightened it around my face. This actually kept me pretty warm and dry for most of the run.
With some new snow from yesterday, I wasn’t sure if the turf field would be cleared, but I decided to check it out. I headed over there and could see from the road it was still covered with snow. So, I did my usual morning run loop, but backwards, heading over to Winthrop street to capen to north and then back through campus with a loop down to Chetwynd.
Because it was still quite cold, it was really icy which made the going very slow. I wasn’t sure of the total distance, but I didn’t want to start the week of with a (-) run, so I ran a bit extra in terms of minutes. After the run, I dried off and rolled out in Lewis before grabbing breakfast in Dewick.
The total run was 36:11 for 4M+.
PM: I jogged over to Gantcher after class for an easy run. Once there, I ended up talking to Dan about my plan for the week and decided to do my hard intervals on Wednesday instead of tomorrow (Tuesday). This meant I could go a bit harder/longer today than I had planned and make tomorrow more of a true “easy-day.” I ended up running with Nick and we headed out to Long Lakes, running the normal route backwards.
We were going pretty slowly at first and kept it very comfortable. The pace quickened a bit after a few miles of warming up, but I doubt we were ever much under 7:00 pace. It was a nice run; the rain had stopped and it wasn’t too cold. We came back through west-med to tack on and then I headed out to the turf field to do drills/strides. Unfortunately, the lax team was out there again and I didn’t want to piss them off, so I just headed back into Gantcher. In Gantch, I did full foot drills (in trainers) and then 6x strides (in trainers) with 100m jog between each. The strides felt okay – a bit slow because I was in my heavy, wet trainers.
I rolled out and sat around a bit and then did the lift (below). The total run was 1:24:38 for 12M.
PM2: In the non-varsity side of the gym, I did the Lift Phase IV. I am feeling strong and I think between my increased caloric consumption and having done these lifts for over a month now I am starting to put on some upper-body muscle. Not sure if this is good or bad, just observing. Anyways, the lift felt fine. 3 sets of [Seated row@50lb x12,10,8; Incline DB press @12.5lb free weights, 10 reps; Horizontal Pushups x12,10,8; Lateral Raises @7lb, 10 reps; Hamstring curls @ 70lb, 8, 6, 6; Bicycle Crunch x12, Dynamic lunges 12,10,8; Overhead DB Press @12.5lb, 12, 10, 8; Crunches x25].
For February:
Total Miles: 380M in 38 runs in 28 days
Average of 13.58M per day, 10M per run
Longest Run: 20M on 2/6,13,20,27
YTD: 852M in 74 runs in 59 days
Notes – This was a lower month than January, which is mainly due to the low weeks I took in preparation for the 5000m race on 2/5 and the subsequent lowering of volume afterwards to let my body recoup a bit. This felt like a bit of a rebuilding month – or recharging my batteries. After two sub-par races, I took a very easy week (87M) and began to focus on bringing my caloric intake and my weight up a bit. I felt a ton better and then had my first solid race of the year on 2/20 at the HMRRC relay, where I PR’d in the leg distance (11.3M) as well as the ER 10M. I also won the leg and the race. The highest 7 day average was 106 on 2/1 and the lowest at 86 on 2/14. The average for the month translates to 95MPW. I have now averaged over 100M for 13 weeks and over 90M for 34 weeks. I have run at least 10M every day for 94 days (since 11/24/2010). Now that I am eating more, I am feeling more energized and more optimistic. Some grass and turf have been cleared which make me feel better about high volume as well. “The Process” is going well.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011 - AM: I was really exhausted last night for some reason and fell asleep at like 9:30pm. I woke up early at 7:20am and headed out for my morning run. I jogged down to the turf field –which had been plowed! Yay! – and did most of my run on the turf. It takes about 6 minutes to jog to the field, so I did about 22 minutes on the field (~11 laps) and then jogged back. It felt nice to be on the turf. I think that doing my morning runs on the grass will actually make a big difference in how I feel. Even if it’s only 10% of the overall volume, it can’t hurt to have that 10% be on soft ground. Also, once it gets warmer, I think I’ll start doing them in socks/bare feet again. That feels nice.
The total run was 33:10 for 4M+.
PM1: Yikes! What a long day! I had two back to back mid-terms this morning which had me pretty much spent by lunch time. After lunch, I took an hour to recoup and let my brain rest a bit before heading over to Anderson to work on my EMID homework. I spent an hour or so over there and then headed to Gantcher for practice.
I started out running with Murner, Nick, and Liam while they were warming up for a workout. The pace was quite slow, as would be expected, which was fine with me – I wanted today to be pretty easy before tomorrow’s hard workout. We ran on Glamorville and I left them in Davis; when they headed back towards campus, I turned left onto the bike path and headed out towards alewife.
Somewhere along the path, I got the idea that the Danehy track might be cleared since so many people use it. I decided to run over and check it out. If the track was cleared, it was likely that the field that it surrounded would be clear as well. It turned out I was correct! The track was (almost) clear, with maybe 10-20m of ice remaining on the first turn. Another couple warm days like today and that will be gone. Even better, the turf was almost 100% clear, so I decided to make use of that.
I ran 1M around in my shoes and then a mile in just socks in the opposite direction. At that point, I stopped and did my full foot drills on the turf and then did some long strides along the diagonal of the field. I ran from corner to corner (~120m) and started on the minute (~45 seconds rest). It felt good and it was nice to be doing strides in my bare (well, socked) feet again.
Finally, I put my shoes back on and bid adieu to Danehy and ran out the back of the park and back to campus. I was a bit worried I’d get lost since it’s been probably close to 6 months since I’ve run here, but I managed to find my way back. I got back to Gantcher just in time to watch the 3k-5k guys run an all out 800m – pretty sick! I believe McCauley ran 2:04.x and Luke ran ~2:08 after both going out in ~60.
I was definitely runner a good bit faster once I left Nick et al. Probably ~6:50-7:00 pace or so.
I did some good rolling and then core (below) and then jogged over to Dewick for a quick dinner before Alpinismo!
Total run 1:14:02 for 9M+++ (really more like 10).
PM2: Core in Gantcher – 100s, 50s, 30x side dip, 30x leg lift (w/ trainers on).
Tuesday, March 2, 2011 – AM: I woke up around 8:00am and did core -100s, 50s, 20x side dip, 20x superman, 30x leg lifts, in Lewis.
PM: Wow! Quite a workout this afternoon! I had another pretty long day of classes and work. I was lucky enough to get a very brief rest in before my afternoon class, which was nice but a bit short. After EMID, I walked over to Gantcher for my interval workout with Murner. On paper, this was a pretty intimidating workout: 2 sets of [1600m, 2000m, 800m] with only 75 seconds rest between reps and 3:00 between sets. The pace was 5k for the 16 and the 8 (72-73s) and 10k for the 2000m (75-76s). Luckily, I would be having Murner pace me, which is an invaluable resource. That guy is a machine and there’s no way I would have been able to handle this workout without his help.
Going into it, I realized that I had the potential to set a PR in the 1600m if I ran under 73s per lap. I have run 4:52.x before in workouts (during the 5xmile workout in cross), but never faster than that on a track. So, I was nervous but definitely excited.
I felt a bit tired going as we headed out on our warm up. I ate two choc-espresso beans right before we headed out – that may have helped. We ran glamourville together at a pretty easy pace. It took me 10-15 minutes to shake out my legs and start feeling decent – probably since I didn’t run this morning. Anyways, I was feeling better by the end of the warm up and by the time we got back to Gantcher I was feeling okay. I ate one more bean when we got back and switched into my Peer flats and did foot drills (16s) and then 4x100m strides. The two middle ones I did at 5k pace (~18 sec) to get that rhythm down. The others were good and quick.
We started together with the idea of running ~73s for the first rep which would bring us through in 4:52. Like last week, I let Murner set the pace and just hit my watch every 400m or so, so that I could review the splits after. For the most part, I never looked at my watch until after we were finished with the rep. We were out a good pace and I felt comfortable. I did look down at my watch at 800m, mostly out of curiosity, and was surprised to see 2:24.x. Honestly, I was pretty psyched that 2:24 had felt that comfortable, but it was the first interval. Murner actively slowed us down a bit on the second half, which was good – didn’t want to burn out on the first rep. We still came through in 4:50.0 – a PR for me!
The 90 seconds jog felt good, even a bit long at first after all the 75 seconds from the last couple weeks. I was ready to go for the 2000m. We were aiming for 76s, so again looking at the splits in retrospect, we were out a bit fast. We managed to relax into the pace by the end, though. More importantly, the effort felt right. That 2k felt more like a cruise interval than a hard rep. The 90 seconds jog again felt fine and I was ready to go for the next rep. There was a bit of confusion as I thought that we were running a 1000m and we were actually running an 800m. So, as we came through the 800m split and Dan stopped, I kept going, thinking he had miscounted laps. After another 50m or so, he figured out that I was actually the one confused and then we stopped. Anyways, Dan had gone out really hard – like 33 or so – and I had hung back a couple of seconds, so the pacing was a bit funky. Still, felt all right.
Between sets, I used the 3:00 rest to switch into my Tumbes spikes. I like splitting the work-out in two like this and doing half in spikes. I think it lets me get used to the bio-mechanics of running in spikes without having a whole workouts worth of volume beating up my legs. It’s a good balance. It also makes me feel a bit faster on the second half of the workout when I’m a bit more fatigued, which is helpful.
As we got ready to go, I asked Murner if we could run 4:48 (72s) for this mile. He said he wasn’t sure he could hit that right now, but we’d try. I was honestly just hoping to run under 4:50 and set another PR – as silly as that may be – while keeping the effort solid but not hammering.
Brosh had started taking our splits, so I had no choice but to hear our splits for the most part as we ran the second half of the workout. He was calling out our lap splits, which were all in the 36 range; it wasn’t until he shouted out “That’s a 2:23” at the half-way point, that I realized we were actually under 36 pace. We grinded through the second half and actually didn’t even slow down that much (2:23.0, 2:24.4), to come in at 4:47.4 – another PR! I was amazed at how good I had felt and that I was able to run a 4:47 after already running almost 3M of work.
At this point, the 90 seconds jog began to feel pretty short. As we started up the second 2000m, I could feel the lactic acid start to build up in my legs a lot earlier. We were running quite evenly around 37high range, coming through the mile in 4:59.x. I had to push pretty hard to keep the pace the last 3 or 4 laps, but we managed to hold it together and come through in 6:15.0.
Finally, one more 800m to finish things off. I was really not sure that I would be able to run faster than the 75s I had been running for the 2k, but – mostly thanks to Murner pulling me along – I was able to continue to hit 36s with the last lap in 35.5 for a 2:24.0.
All in all, this was a pretty intense workout. It definitely tells me that I am 1000% more fit than I was a month ago. I feel so much stronger and faster even than I did during cross. This was definitely the strongest I have felt running since cross.
After a few minutes to change shoes, have a cliff bar, and catch my breath, Murner and I headed out and ran C-Loop to cool down (very slowly). Afterwards, it was some rolling and static stretching and then to Dewick. Now, it’s lots of ice and then time for second dinner.
Total for the day was 12M++
Splits:
28 minute warm up
1600m: 4:50.0 (72.1, 72.0, 72.6, 73.3)
90 seconds jog
2000m: 6:17.8 (75.1, 75.1, 37.7, 37.9, 75.9, 76.2)
90 seconds jog
800m: 2:25.7 (73.6, 72.1)
3:00 jog
1600m: 4:47.4 (71.2, 71.8, 72.7, 71.7)
90 seconds jog
2000m: 6:15.0 (75.1, 75.3, 37.4, 37.4, 74.6, 75.3)
90 seconds jog
800m: 2:24.0 (72.1, 36.4, 35.5)
26 minute cool down
Thursday, March 03, 2011 – AM: I slept like a log last night. I passed out around 10pm and slept soundly until I woke up a bit before 8am. I woke up and looked at the temperature – 13F with a windchill of -3F yikes! I wore medium tights, under armor top, a tech shirt, wind breaker, warm mittens, neckwarmer and two hats. I headed out and jogged over to the turf field. It didn’t feel too bad at first, but once I got onto the field and the wind really started whipping, it was pretty brutal. My right pinky toe area was pretty tender when I woke up, so I started off going counter clock wise, since left turns don’t bother it. After 6 laps, I switched directions and was pleased to find that the toe wasn’t bothering me. I then ran clockwise for the rest of the run until I couldn’t take the cold wind anymore and headed into Gantcher to lift (below). After the lift, I jogged back to Lewis to change before breakfast.
The total run was 33:11 for 4M+.
AM2: In Gantcher, I did the Lift Phase III. I prefer doing these lifts in the morning as it’s much less crowded in the gym than it is at 4-5pm. I felt good on the lift and did slightly lower weights on the arms. I tried to focus on balance/stability with the RDL and the lunge walk, which I think is actually helping. Anyways, the lift was: 3 sets of [30-37x dips, 10x seated row @40lb, 10x push up, 5-7x pull ups, 8x RDL, 15-20x side crunch, 15-20x shooters, 15-20x suitcases, 20x lunge walk (front, each side, back), 8x quad extension @70lb).
PM: I had a pretty low key day, with only one class in the morning and time for a nice rest/nap in the afternoon. I got some good shut-eye and headed over to Gantcher around 2:40pm, hoping to get out right at 3:00pm so that I could get to class on time. I had in mind doing something similar to last Wednesday’s longer-moderate run that I did with Dan on the Charles. Because yesterday’s workout was a good bit harder than last Tuesday’s, though, I wasn’t sure I’d be up for the whole distance or for quite as quick a pace. I decided to head out to the Charles and play it by ear. I didn’t really have any way of gauging the pace and I figured I’d be able to tell pretty early if the distance was going to be a problem. I was pretty much going on feel.
Most of the team was gearing up for ECACs or taking a relatively easy day, so I headed out a bit after 3:00pm by myself. I felt surprisingly decent from the start. I tried to keep it smooth and not press the pace at all, but just let it come naturally and progress faster and faster. The first couple miles were probably somewhere in the 6:30-45 range, judging by feel. This was fine, though, and I never felt like I needed that first 7:00+ mile to get into it.
Once I got to the Charles, I was feeling pretty good and was happy to again find the snow along the paths almost entirely gone. This meant that I was able to spend a good percentage of the run on dirt (or often mud) and grass. It was very soft because it was all pretty wet, so I think this actually slowed me down a good bit here and there, but it felt so nice that I couldn’t argue.
My only point of reference was the port-a-potty at the Science Museum bridge, which I had passed in about 48 minutes last week. When I passed by today, I was at 49high, a bit less than 2 minutes behind. By all reasons, I should have been slower today – I had done a much harder workout just 24 hours before – but I get competitive, even with myself, and so I ratcheted up the intensity just a notch or so as I crossed the river and headed back on Mem Drive.
I actually felt much better on the second half of the run this week, probably because I had pre-fueled a bit better since I was expecting this long of a run. I was able to maintain a pretty good clip for this whole section along the river, despite having my rhythm broken up by having to stop at a bunch of bridge stop-lights. I hit my watch when I turned back towards Harvard, so that I could figure out some of the pacing after the run. I was running at a pretty good clip at that point, but definitely not hammering. I would call it somewhere between up-tempo and moderate: steady.
The last few miles, I felt like I had another gear, but I actively forced myself to take it easy and not hammer. I said to myself, “You’ve got a hard tempo to run in 36 hours, and that’s supposed to be the focus, not this run.” Still, I managed to run the last 3.3M back from the river at 5:44 pace. This brought me in at 1:32:52 for 15M, 6:11 pace, which was actually a bit faster than we ran last week. This was pretty surprising given that I was 2 minutes behind on the way out. Still, I was pretty psyched with the time and pleased with the effort. It felt like a very solid run, but nowhere near the intensity of a real workout.
After the run, I rolled out quickly and then headed to Dewick for dinner before heading to Alpinismo. I was pretty wiped out in class, so I stopped in Dewick afterwards and got a big bowl of fruit and a Sundae. Yum! I’m feeling a lot better now and am doing some icing. I’ll take tomorrow very easy and then try and get a good hard tempo effort in on Saturday before long run on Sunday. I’ll probably make Sunday’s long run more of an easy-moderate since today was a bit faster than I had expected.
7.8M: 50:0x, (6:25 pace)
11.6M: 1:19:23 (29:23 for 4.8M, 6:07 pace)
15M: 1:32:52 (19:29 for 3.4M, 5:44 pace)
Friday, March 5, 2011 - AM: I slept really well again last night and woke up naturally around 7:45am. I did Core – 100s, 50s, 30x side dip, 30x bird dog, 50x leg lift – in Lewis before grabbing a quick breakfast and then heading over to Anderson to take my ES2 exam.
AM2: After the placement test, I headed over to alumni field to do an easy run around the turf. I wanted to do a nice, easy run and since there were no practices going on, I figured I might as well get it all on the nice soft turf. I ran around the perimeter which I had measure to be about 360m. I took a lap split every once in a while to get an idea of what my pace was and I was consistently around 1:34, right around or under 7:00 pace. I actually felt pretty decent, but never pushed it at all. I just listened to This American Life and kept on running in circles.
I turned around after about 35 minutes and ran the rest of the run the other direction. After about 65 minutes, I stopped, took off my shoes, and did full foot drills in my socks. I was feeling pretty good and warmed up at that point and felt good and springy in both the drills and afterwards doing strides. I did 8x strides, starting on the minute. The first 4x, I did along the side of the field (~100m). The last 4x, I did along the diagonals which were about 120-130m. I felt really solid on the strides today. I don’t know if it was just that I was running barefoot, but I just felt really quick.
After the strides, I put my shoes back on and jogged back to Dewick for a nice post-run lunch.
The total run was 78:04 for 11M+.
PM: I was going to cross train this afternoon, but Mr. C was late picking me up, so I decided to scratch it. At that point it was getting pretty close to my workout tomorrow morning and I figured I’d air on the side of caution. We had a nice celebratory dinner at Papa Razzi (it’s Mr. C’s birthday on Tuesday) and then I came back and took a hot bath. I’ll try to get to bed early as we’re planning on an early tempo run tomorrow morning.
Saturday, March 5, 2011 - AM: I woke up naturally this morning at about 7:45am. I slept quite well last night, again, which was really nice. I was surprisingly hungry when I got up, despite having a pretty big dinner and post-dinner snack last night, so I had a pretty big pre-workout breakfast of two pieces of super toast (on a half of a bagel that had been sliced in two) and a pear and a few sips of gatorade.
I had finally found what I decided would be a good route for us last night. We would be starting at Williams St and Old Marlboro, just past Harrington. From there, we would run back towards Harrington and then around Emerson, up the big hill, through NAC, and then finish with the last 3M or so going through the rolling sanctuary. This would be just over 10km (6.25M) and on paper looked like a fair course, with the big hill after Emerson, but rolling otherwise.
We (Mr. C on bike and I on foot) left the house around 8:45am and it was already in the upper 30s. We ran 3M very easy to Williams st and then stopped to change shoes and do some drills and strides. My right pinky toe area was bugging me a bit again as I did a couple strides, but I re-laced my shoes and it seemed to feel a lot better.
We headed off together in single file, with me in the lead, for the first section on Old Marlboro for what is the busiest part of the course. There were a surprising number of cars out for 9am on Saturday morning, but oh well. I felt pretty good and I thought I was going at a pretty decent clip. I had given Mr. C my Garmin so that he could try to pace us a bit. It was set to lap every half mile, so he would call out the split each time. I was a bit surprised to hear that we had only run 2:45 for the half mile. It had felt a bit quicker than that.
From there, the pace quickened substantially for the next mile and a half or so. The course was pretty flat here and it remained so until we reached the only substantial climb of the course at the end of the second mile. This is a pretty tough climb which rises about 100 feet in less than a half mile. There is a bit of a flat downhill and then another, slightly shorter, climb which comes out right before the 5km mark.
I knew where the 5km mark was on the course, so I was able to compare that to what the garmin said – my garmin is one of the older models and can be notoriously inaccurate. We came through that first 5km in 16:43, which was just a bit off of what the garmin had read. This was mostly due a slow third mile (5:31) with the big hill.
After passing 5km, I upped the intensity a bit, since that was a bit slower than I had hoped for and ran the next mile the fastest of the day in 5:12. This was also the flattest/most down hill mile of the course, so it makes sense it was a bit fast. Around 3.5M, we passed through the only stoplight, luckily with no stopping, and proceeded onto the last 3M or so which are all on the winding, rolling section of road dubbed “the sanctuary.”
On long runs, the sanctuary comes between about miles 5-8. I’m not usually moving that fast that early, and I haven’t been running for that long, so it definitely felt different to be running through there after having run close to 4M at 5:20 pace already. I would categorize it as rolling terrain. On paper, it doesn’t look too bad, but there are a lot of pretty long gradual ups and little bumps here and there. Also, since we’ve already descended in the mile before, this section nets up.
Anyways, I was working pretty hard and only managed to run 5:25 and 5:20 for miles 5 and 6. I felt like I was moving well and running at a pretty good intensity, I just think that the terrain was much more challenging than I had expected. I finished pretty hard coming through in 33:06 for 10km (33:14 for 6.25M). This makes the last 5km a 16:23, so at least I negative split the halves.
After the tempo, I went right into an easy jog for about 3 minutes which brought me to the base of the big pantry hill. I sprinted pretty close to all out up the hill, which rises about 100 ft in 400m or so. I timed the hard efforts at ~65 seconds. From the top of this hill, we continued for another 3 minutes jog rest to the base of the Dakin hill and then a similar rep of about 65 seconds hard up the steep hill.
Once at the top, we stopped to rest and I changed back into my trainers and put my pants and jacket back on. The only tough part about this loop was that we were now about 4.5M from home, so it meant a long cool-down. Luckily, I had Mr. C to keep me company (and keep me distracted from thinking about lunch!) It didn’t actually feel too long and took 34:53.
All in all, this was a pretty good workout at the end of a very tough week. Last week, at Long Lakes, I was able to run 5:10-13 for the last 4M of that tempo. After comparing that run to today’s, I think that the most significant difference was the terrain. Long Lakes is a pretty fast course and today’s course was pretty challenging. I think I was also just a bit more tired than I was last week. Wednesday was a significantly harder interval workout, Thursday was a just as hard if not harder moderate run. Still, I’m pretty pleased that I can average under 5:20 pace for 10km and have it be a good but not be a great day.
After the run, I had a bowl of yogurt and fruit and some Gatorade and then sat in the ice bath for 20 minutes. It was really cold.
5:22
5:16 (10:38)
5:31 (16:09) (5km - 16:43)
5:12 (21:21)
5:25 (26:46)
5:20 (32:06)
10km –33:06 (last 5km - 16:23) (5:19.5 average)
(33:14 for 6.25M)
Cool down: 34:53
PM: I got a ride to BU from the rents to watch the DMR which was really intense. Everyone ran really, really well; it was pretty inspiring to watch. Sam had an awesome (and super-ballsy) move with 400m to go and ended up holding onto the lead for the last two laps and winning the heat. Amazing.
Anyways, after the race, I got dropped off back at school and headed over to Gantcher to do a shakeout on the elliptical. I took it pretty easy; this morning’s workout was pretty solid and I want to have a good long run tomorrow, so I really just wanted to shake my legs out. I did 33 minutes of the elliptical and then walked back to Dewick for post-workout, first dinner.
DMR Splits:
1200m: Jamie
30.5
32.1 (62.6)
30.5 (1:33.1)
30.3 (2:03.4)
30.7 (2:34.1)
30.3 (3:04.4)
400m: Graham
23.2
26.4 (49.6) (3:53.9)
800m: Marvel
26.7
28.2 (54.9)
29.0 (1:23.9)
29.7 (1:53.6) (5:47.5)
1600m: Haney
29.3
30.8 (60.1)
33.2 (1:33.3)
32.8 (2:06.1)
32.0 (2:38.1)
31.0 (3:09.1)
29.8 (3:38.9)
31.8 (4:10.7) (9:58.3)
Sunday, March 06, 2011 – AM: I slept for a long time and woke up naturally around 8:30am (really slept in!). I got up and took my iron and had half an orange. Then, it was super-toast (half a wheat bagel, jam, bunch of raisins) and a pear. I jogged over to Gantcher at about 9:50am and ran one mile around the indoor track, since I knew Dan would only want to do 18M or so. I figured I could tack on a mile after or do strides or something and that way I wouldn’t go too far over if we ended up doing 18+ or 19.
We debated about the route we would take for a bit before heading out. I had wanted to head to the Charles where I knew there was plentiful dirt/grass to run on and I knew exactly how long we would be going. Murner wanted to go over towards BC res and come back on Mass ave… this didn’t sound too appealing. Nick ended up coming with us as well, and so he finally picked where we were going for whatever reason and we headed out towards No Hill.
Honestly, this was a pretty terrible long run. I hate to say that because I love long runs and I don’t like to speak ill of one of my favorite runs, but it was just not fun today. I think that there were a lot of confounding factors. First, yesterday’s workout was pretty hard and only 24 hours before the long run. Recently, I’ve had more like 36-48 hours between my last hard session and my long run. I also don’t think that I ate enough last night. I usually have a big dinner and a big carbo-intensive snack on Saturday nights, but I don’t think I got in that big snack. I woke up this morning at like 5am and was really hungry and had to have a chewy bar to get back to sleep – not a great sign.
This was also the first long run that I haven’t done in Concord on my normal route in a long time (I think 8-9 weeks). In general, but especially when it comes to running, I am a creature of habit. Once I get into a routine, I really don’t like to fuck with it, especially when it’s a routine that has been working really well. A lot of the time, my motto with training is that variety may be the spice of life, but consistency is the base of success. Part of what I really like about running the same course in Concord every Sunday is that I know the mile markers and I know exactly how I’m doing (whether I’m on pace, ahead, or behind). One of my biggest problems today was that I had no idea whether I was feeling shitty because I was trying to run too fast or if I was running at normal pace but just over-tired.
With that said, the first part of the run was okay, I guess. We ran to Long Lakes and went backwards up to the turn to No Hill. The first 2M were over 7:00, I think, and from there we were under 6:30 pace for the rest of the run. As we turned up No Hill, Murner and Nick started to pull away from me. I was feeling the hill a bit, especially after yesterday’s hilly tempo session, so I let them go and figured I could catch them easy enough on the other side. They had a pretty good lead by the time we reached the top (maybe 20m or so) and as we started to come down the other side they picked it up, pulling farther away. I had to really work just to maintain contact.
Passing through a stop-light, I sprinted for a few seconds to catch back up. As I pulled up beside them, there was no mention of what had just happened. We ran for a while on the road and turned onto the bike path after about 70 minutes of running. From there, we stayed together until a huge, deep puddle separated us. Nick plowed right through and Murner jogged around, slipping into the middle. Seeing his slip, I decided to stop and walk around the puddle. Nick took off again. At least this time I knew my way back.
I worked to catch up to them, but at that point they were getting faster, not slower, and I was pretty tired from my surge before. At some point, I threw in the towel and decided that this was going to be a solo long run.
I ran all the way to the end of the bike path and then back to campus. I had a few more miles to cover, so I decided to run over to the outdoor track to see how it was looking. It was clear of snow but COVERED in goose shit. Pretty disgusting. I had 15 more minutes or so to run (I didn’t have the distance, so I was planning to just run until I hit 2:10), so I headed over to the turf field. Unfortunately, there was a LAX game or practice going on, so I decided to just run around the grass instead. This turned out to be a mistake – the field was a sopping, wet pile of mud and goose shit. I found myself up to my ankles in the disgusting mixture which flowed into my shoes, essentially turning them into bowling balls.
Incredibly frustrated now, I left the field and ran a loop down to summer st, to Winthrop, and then back on Boston ave. I got back to Gantcher and the only people left were Hutch and Dan. I feel really bad because I kind of blew up at Murner when he really didn’t do anything. I apologized later, though, so I think we’re cool.
Once everybody left, I had a cliff bar, did full foot drills in my tumbes spikes and then rolled out a bunch before heading to Dewick for brunch.
Later, I mapped out the route as best I could (adding on the ¼ mile on the track and the mile in Gantcher at the beginning). What I thought was around 20M ended up being 20.94M. At least I kept it under 21! This also meant that the pace was much less slow than I had assumed and it was more that Nick and Murner were running fast, not that I was running particularly slow.
The total run was 2:14:44 for 20.9M, 6:27 avg.
PM: I went right from brunch to work on our ME-1 project in Anderson. I was really stressed out about this; it’s due Tuesday and as of this morning, we had pretty much nothing. We spent a few hours working on our original prototype and then tore it apart and again had nothing. Starting from scratch, we took a new route and within 15 minutes had a totally working design. A couple hours later, we had a polished, tweaked model and a nearly complete report. Pretty awesome and a huge weight off my back.
Anyways, after leaving Anderson around 5pm, I headed over to Gantcher to do my shakeout on the elliptical. I did 45 minutes at a pretty easy intensity – watched Archer and read Jon’s blog and a long article about Josh Mcdougal. From there, it was off to Dewick for dinner and Sundae Sunday!
PM2: After dinner/Sundae Sunday/finally taking a shower, I did core – 100s, 50s, 30x side dip, 30x bird dog, 20x static lunge, 50x leg lift - in Lewis. Whew, Long day!
Total for week: 106 miles, 10 runs
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