Training, week of 5-4-09

Monday 5-4: 14 miles. 3 mile warmup, 7.25 to 7.5 mile run at Fed Hill in around 6:30/mile (Ben had some crazy route that ran through some ridiculously sketchy areas... I would never have done this run by myself), 3.5 mile cooldown back to JHH (took a longer route to bump up the mileage to 14 or so).

Tuesday 5-5: 10 miles. 3 mile warmup, 4 miles on track, 3 mile cooldown (slightly longer warmup and cooldown in a fruitless attempt to avoid getting muddy in the insane rain). Track workout was 1600, 800, 800, 1600, 800, 800 with 90 seconds rest between each, 140 or so between the 8 and 16. People seemed to think the times would be a bit slow due to the heavy rain and wetness (which subsided as the workout went on), but I still really strong and ran the workout well. My splits were 1600: 5:26, 800: 2:36, 800: 2:35, 1600: 5:16, 800: 2:34, 800: 2:32 and I finished still feeling pretty good, so it was a succesful workout that made me push, but not to the point of serious fatigue, which is what I wanted, given that I wanted to hit fairly high mileage this week and couldn't afford a few days of soreness.

Wednesday 5-6: 12 miles. 2.5 mile warmup, 7 mile canton run in 46:xx (pretty easy), and 2.5 mile cooldown.

Thursday: 5-7: 17 miles. This was definitely the big run of the week. I did a 16.5 mile tempo with a .5 mile cooldown at the end. I went out with the intention of going out too fast and trying my best to hold on as well as I could as a sort of mental trainer for difficult long races. I ended up going out in a little over 6 minutes a mile, but surprisingly, it ended up not being too fast to hold for the whole run and I ended up averaging 6:06/mile for the whole run, which really surprised me. Most of the run (about 13) was on roads and 3.5 was on trails. Both the raods and trails portions contained challenging sections, but I worked my hardest on the trails to keep the same fast pace that I had on the roads. The 2nd half was extremely difficult with hills on both Circle Road and Bellona (absolutely massive uphills), but I was able to hold on and sped back up to a slightly faster pace after the hills were done, hitting a mile that I had tracked out from about 15.4 to 16.4 in 5:50. Overall, I was extremely pleased with the run and I registered for the Stillwater Marathon as soon as I got back.

Friday 5-8: 16 miles: I first did 14 miles around Towson pretty easy. I forgot my watch, but it felt like around a 6:50 per mile. This run was more just to recover from the previous day, so I really tried not to push myself to hard. After the run, I ran into a girl from my church while I was stretching at the gym who was about to go running 2 miles and I was just joking around saying I would pace her, but she took me up on it, so I did another 2 miles, which actually served as a really good cooldown.

Saturday 5-9: 12 miles. I first ran a mile to get to the gym to lift. After lifting, I ran another 11, from the gym along the ROTC trail to Druid Hills, did the longest possible loop around the zoo and then the lake (with a couple cut backs in the trail section), ran back to campus, ran a loop around campus, and then ran home. I couldn't find my watch, but my pace was probably about 6:30/mile and it felt very manageable, which is good considering this is the pace I need to hit for 26.2 miles at the Stillwater Marathon.

Sunday 5-10: 10 miles: I did a very fast 9 mile tempo around Druid Hills from my apartment and then back to the gym before lifting and eventually running a mile back home. I haven't been able to find my watch for a couple days, but I could tell that this was extremely fast for the distance and the difficulty of the course, probably around 5:45/mile.

Total: 91 miles. Overall, this was an excellent week for me. My legs still feel excellent after 2 90+ mile weeks, so I'm feeling really confident going into Stillwater.

I'll do around 70 miles this week, focusing on speed and tempo. I'm definitely feeling like I can top that Boston time and hit a sub-2:50 at Stillwater as long as I'm careful over the next 2 weeks.