Total Mileage 1/23-1/29
Here is my mileage total for last week.
92 miles. 5 doubles, 1 single, 1 LSD.
Will have to consider bringing my mileage down for the Valentines meet 5k.
Here is my mileage total for last week.
92 miles. 5 doubles, 1 single, 1 LSD.
Will have to consider bringing my mileage down for the Valentines meet 5k.
Just got back from my evening run and boy did it stink. 43:35 for Goss Ln in the drizzle. Every bridge I ran over was icey and slick. The run was a little dodgy due to all the fog rising off of the snow. Of course it doesn't help that everyone in Lancaster treats george hill road like the corkscrew turn at Laguana Seca. Did three strides when I got back to turn the legs over a bit.
This after noon at lunch I did Old Lancaster loop in Sudbury with Justin. Afterwards I did three sets of my circuit. Upped the leg press weight to 115. You, the reader, don't even know what I am talking abou do you? My circuit is a set of eight lifts that alternates arms and legs and is done with no rest at all. I try to get it done quick because I don't like to stay any later at work than I have to. The circuit is bicept curls, leg press, lat pull downs, calf press, military press (dumbbells), weighted lunges, overhead tricept lift, Alan Webb calf drill. I call it that because Justin told me Alan Webb did it and I don't know what else to call it. After the three sets I am sweating a good deal and the heart rate is up. I started doing this routine in august and it has helped a great deal with overall strength. Once we move to our new house I should be able to do even more strength work because I will be a lot closer to our gym. Then I will be able to wear tank tops all the time and look sweet.
I am off to bed. Workout at Reggie Lewis tomorrow night. Another evening of dodge the college kids and go into lane 3 around the doubled up slow running groups. Hopefully it will storm so no one goes but us. Those are the best nights.
Easy 16 Miler today in 1:51.55. 6:55 for the first 7 miles and then dropped the pace after I split off christy. Ran on one of my favorite roads. Campground rd. in sterling. If you don't mind hills there are hardly any cars a lot woods. Perfect long run winter weather. Overcast skies and about 38 degrees. Perfect with a light hat, gloves, playdry, vest, and sporthills. For the roads it is as good as it gets. This will probably be my last run over 15 miles for a while. We will see.
Watched Haile G's 1/2 marathon world record at PF changs. Unreal, 14:08 to open, 13:55 in the middle, closed with a 13:45 5k. Who average's 4:29 for 13.1 miles? Seriously, isn't there some sort of law of human limits on this. Didn't Da Vinci come up with some sort of performance thresh hold? When think about how many people in the world that could rabbit him through just 10k at 28:00 you have a good idea of what he did. Then you need to string another 28 min 10k onto that plus .8 mi. I don't even want to think about it. It's all relative I guess. After all, in the post race interview, he said, "Without the wind, it could have been much faster."
Tomorrow I will total up the mileage for the week and start a new one in the log. Left it at work on Friday so I have no idea.
I wanted to write this last night but didn't return home until late so figured it could wait. My goal is write daily. Only took 2 days to blow that goal.
Saturday was a day filled with track and field. A lot of it. In the morning was the women's terrier classic http://www.bu.edu/track/06TrackMeets/ResultsW_Terrier_09.htm. My wife, christy, raced the 3k. She raced well and closed well. Right about where she should be for one month of training. The most impressive performance was put forth by mary cullen of providence with a smoking 15:39 5k. I ran a 45 minute run after warming up with christy and then cooled down with her for a total of 1 hour of running in the am. Good solid 9.
After the Terrier we headed over to the Reebok Boston Indoor Games http://www.bostonindoorgames.com/2006/index.htm. I was lucky enough to run in the exhibition event Corporate Sprint Medley Relay. The race was a really fun time. The mess before hand was not. They told us we were running at 5:40. At 5:30 they told us we were running at 5:30. No one had there spike on so it was a huge rush. Then they could not locate the batons so I didn't have one and had to get one from the table. In the mean time, Tommy lines up all the teams, there were supposed to be 6, but there were 7. Tommy gets pissed at me because I couldn't get my baton and wasn't at the line 10 minutes earlier than the schecule so he screwed me and put me on the outside of the barrel on a one turn stagger. Anyways, gun, I spilt 28,28 for a 56 which is just about as fast as I go so I wasn't dissapointed. I gave the baton for our 2nd leg in a tie for 2nd about .5 seconds behind the leading team who cut in too early. That doesn't really matter because that 55.5 was their stongest runner. And I was our weakest so after that our female ran 28 point, then Joe put out a 23 which was funny because he recieved the stick about 20m back and handed it off about 70m ahead. Then justin closed out with a smoking 800 about 1:54-55. I haven't seen the exact splits yet. I saw Alison there with her ever present camera so I may be able to link to some photo's once she sort's them. It was a fun event to be a part of even though I wish it wasn't in a token role. Our team won 8 tickets to the Patriots next year which is going to be great. I think the Reebok/NFL relationship is involved but that is just a guess.
On to the action, and there was a lot of it. The best event was the men's mile. Tight, fast group with no gaps and no one mailed it in. 11 guys broke 4 minutes and the winning time was 3:55. I have never witnessed such a race of tactics and speed that is that tightly packed. All of the miles were close together. The women's mile was great to watch because ex-Reebok Boston club member Jen Toomey came in forth with a quick 4:30 mile. Not far off the winning 4:29. Coe and Blood won boy's and girl's high school race which was also entertaining. I would mention the women's 3k and 5k but those time trial races are boring to me. Defar ran 8:30 and Dibiba ran 14:35 with perfect pacing from their rabbits.
The men's two mile was a complete let down. The rabbit blew it. Absolutely choked it. He was supposed to run 4:04, which he did. But he split it 1:54, 2:10. The real racers weren't looking for 3:36 pace so they let the idiot go and just jogged a 4:18 first mile. The best assembly of talent on American soil ever! 4:18! I would have been right in it at 4:18. I couldn't have closed in 4:08 with a 56 last 400, but still. 8:26 was all they could manage. They proably do repeat 2 mile intervals in 8:26. I don't even want to talk about it.
That's it. I will give another update of the exciting sunday long run this evening. I am off to watch Haile run the PF chang 1/2 marathon in a world record 58.55.
One thing that has always been perfectly clear, certainly to me, is that you can not go out in a race faster than you can finish it. Tonight I went out in 64. I did not plan on running 4:16 pace so why would I do that? When the thought "you are going too fast" runs through your mind right away, it is trouble. The race just started so fast that I was in third to last place in 64. So you can run the pace you know is correct and be in no man's land and hope to catch up to everyone else or say race the race and see what happens. A slow ugly death is what happens.
If nothing else the contest showed I have good fitness because you can't split 4:26, 9:03 and not be fit. Unfortunately that is where the wheels came off the wagon and I flew home in 4:55 or so. So i managed 14:40 which was 19th place. I am certain if the pace was more 4:32, 9:04 I could have finished much stronger. Next time I will be sure not to start too fast. The winner from Lasalle was impressive and ran 13:5x. I was too depressed to look at the results. Maybe tomorrow.
It was only the second race of the season and my first fast 5k attempt on the track in 2 years. Two solid weeks of training before the next big race at BU (valentine meet) and all will be right with world.
There was a lot of other action at the track though. Steve Slattery, ex buffalo, ran a smoking 3k in 7:51 which is always impressive to watch. Then he came back to rabbit zach smith in the mile and zach cracked the 4:00 barrier in 3:59.68. He was very excited and shared his excitment with the crowd. My old training buddy Derek Treadwell is back at it in the mile and ran 4:07 which was great to see.
Tonight I will stretch out well getting ready for my Sprint Medely relay leg at the Reebok indoor Games. See what I can burn a 400 in. It will be interesting.
Oh yeah, wore a new pair of New Balance spikes tonight and they were nice. Only 4.7 ounces. That's nice and light.
The first entry of this blog will not be too exciting. The goal through this community will be to keep my motivation for running and competing up. It has been a bit difficult to get going out the door for the past year. With any luck, a bunch of people monitoring the progress of my running will give some motivation to fight the good fight.
Feel free to complain, compliment, or criticize any racing, training, or remark. I am not a writer; please bear with the polish of the grammar.
Now for the part you have all been waiting for, the latest smoking run, an exciting Magnolia Rd shakeout. 4.5 miles in 29:32. 8 strides and some light drills. Just trying to loosen up for tonight's Terrier 5k at BU. It was really cold so I am not sure how loose the muscles became. Certainly sitting at a desk all day at work will negate any benefits from such an exercise but I went through the motions anyway.
I will have more to report tonight after the 5k.