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April 6, 2005
yesterday, and today
(cannot think of a better title; this will have to do) I've not posted that much about my actual training, but I will today. Because I'm coming back from an injury, my mileage isn't where I would have liked it to be. In February I finally got back to 60+ mpw, and March saw 65 - 75. Last week I ran just over 85, but that was because my work schedule made me flip long-run days last weekend. Most of this mileage has been dog-slow; the exceptions have been track workouts, long-runs, and races.
Yesterday afternoon was my weekly track workout, the last "regular" track workout before Boston. The schedule called for 11x400 broken into 3 sets (4/3/4), with 200 rest between items and 400 rest between sets. I have a love/hate relationship with track workouts, for some usual reasons (I hate the pain) and for some unusual reasons (I can't quite run with my old club-buddies yet, so I run my workout on the same track with them, but out-of-synch and definitely solo, which is harder for me because I have no one to run at). Since I started back doing track workouts in January, I've had trouble some weeks meeting the goal times my coach set, but this week turned out ok. My goal time was 1:30 - glacial to some of you, I know - but I ended up averaging 1:27. I don't know if this was good for the marathon or good for my legs, but it was good for my head.
Today was another blessed comp day to make up for Saturday's all-nighter, so I slept in, woke up when I wanted and sipped my way through 2 whole cups of cuban coffee before heading out for 8 miles. I wasn't sore or tired from track (hmmmm) but I also wasn't pushing or trying for anything more than "8 miles at some pace." "Some pace" turned out to be about 15 - 20s faster than my average "some pace." Again, good for my head. At this rate my head's not going to fit through the security gate at the airport.
So let's cmon back down to earth and think about this 5k coming up Friday evening: 75F and sunny, big crowds, narrow city streets, I hate 5ks anyway. I am tempted to treat it as "just a hard run," actually tempted to skip it altogether.
If I really wanted to come down hard I could start thinking about that 7:24 pace I'm supposed to hold for 26.2 miles in a couple of weeks. But I'll hold that in reserve :-)
Posted by joe positive at April 6, 2005 6:17 PM