Ouch

I got up at 5:05 a.m. to run 30K. I will blog more later. All I can say now is: ouch.

Daily Quote

Last night was chaos at work, didn't get my run in. Not very happy. I can't skip it tonight, even though it is pouring rain. Here is an inspirational quote for an otherwise blah day.

 

"Taking charge of your body can help you take charge of your life. And that power can help you go wherever you want to go, every single day." Cheryl Bridges Treworgy, former U.S. cross-country runner.

Tuesday's intervals

Alas Wednesday is my rest day and I feel I deserve it after three solid days of consecutive running. I had a great interval session last night. I opted for 6x800m repeats.

My splits were quite consistent, which is encouraging because the last few times I've done interval sessions my initial splits were on pace and then I started slipping at the end.

For the record they were: 3:01, 3:00, 2:59, 2:55, 3:00 and 2:59.

The 2:55 lap was a bit of an anomaly. I glanced down at my Garmin and I think I misread the pace so I really kicked it up in the last 200 metres and was pleasantly surprised when I crossed the 800 metre threshold. It is one of those sessions where I was finished thinking, "maybe I should add two more repeats just for fun." That is the bizarre thing about intervals is during the lap I'm pushing it to the point where I'm not sure I could go much faster (and still do another repeat) and yet at the end I still have some energy leftover. Perhaps I'm not pushing enough? Anyway, t his is moot because the little voice on my shoulder advised against it, so I went home had a bowl of cereal and dozed off to sleep.

The one interesting side note on this run is that when I calculated the distance and time, I ran 4.8K in 17: 55. I know those splits have 90 second recovery periods built in but that would put me on pace to break my  5K PB. Just something that popped into my head.

Quote of the Day

"I often wondered why runners could accomplish what they did. It's like analyzing love or passion. Why I had to run remains one of the mysteries of my life." -- John J. Kelly, American marathoner

Another 8K in the books

Mondays are normally my rest days but considering I took almost all of last week off and Saturday, I felt that my legs could handle skipping my rest day. So I went out for another leisurely 8K keeping in mind that Tuesday is my speed day and I want to do six or eight 800 repeats. I felt a lot stronger on Monday's run than Sunday's run but I tried to keep the pace relaxed. I finished in a shade over 35 minutes, so about 35 seconds faster than the night before. It was a fantastic night for a run, the air was cool, there wasn't much wind and I had a decent amount of light out. I'm starting to get worried about my shoes. They should have been replaced a few months ago but I thought I could postpone it due to my sorry March/April/May running schedule. Sadly, I think the time has come to retire them pretty darn quickly.

Quote of the Day

I subscribe to the Quote of the Day from Runner's World. They are normally pretty good, so instead of just hitting delete, I'm going to post the ones that I like here for all of you who still visit my blog despite my lack of updates recently.

"I've always felt running is a form of meditation. Running enables us to stop our lives, to go out and find a safe place for ourselves."

-- Nina Kuscsik, first official women's champ with her 1972 Boston Maraton win and two-time NYC Marathon champion.

A nice easy 26K

Today was my first run since last Friday, we were in Maine for a vacation and while I had my running gear, alas no running happened. Unless you count running from outlet store to outlet store as training. I didn't think so.

So today, I went out for a 26K run. If you call last week a cutback week, where I missed a LSD, this is 4K farther than my last LSD. In my mind, this isn't pushing too much, and I hope to get 30K or 32K on my next LSD. Back to this run, my first 13K were pace, plus 25 seconds or so. Aside from the first two splits and a few sprinkled here and there, I kept that pretty close the entire time -- so they were supposed to be between 4:50 min/k and 5 min/k. The final 13K were supposed to be near goal marathon pace, so around 4:30 min/k. I only had four splits of more than 4:40 in the last half, which is four more than I had hoped but it was still a good run. I only had one sub-4:30 min/k, however, and I had been hoping for a few more of those. I finished in about 2:03:30, my Garmin is in the van. I did a negative split on the way back and I just missed by about 24 seconds doing the second half in under an hour.

My last two LSDs have given me some hope that my training is going somewhere. I just don't feel like my short stuff is where it should be. Why can't I hold a sub-4-minute pace for longer than 5K? Last year, I was running 18:40 5Ks in training with some kick left at the end. I hope it is just the lack of mileage. I won't be ready for a great Saint John marathon but I'm hoping Moncton will be a more approriately timed event, training wise.