The Streak. Ovah!

The Streak is over.  Huh?  More specifically, the consecutive days blogging streak is over.  I’m too lazy to count the actual number of number of days, but I’ve had something to share, for better or worse, every day since I launched in August 2009.  It’s not like I did not have anything to share yesterday.  Rather, I simply ran out of time … got home late after a workout.  Anyway, I never intended to start or continue any kind of blogging streak.  It just happened.

On to the bid-ness of running … after a scheduled rest day on Monday, I looked forward to getting out on the track last night.  We are in the midst of monsoon season (week) here so I recalibrated the schedule to avoid running outside in that mess.  I don’t have stats on how much rain we’ve experienced, but I read that it’s been a record for March.  Also, a friend noted that by late afternoon today the Hudson River will reach flood levels.  Kind of nuts.  Since I’ve been feeling flat lately, I hoped to use last night’s workout to get the juices flowing again, but not so much so as to leave the race on the track.  It’s so easy to do, especially after I get warmed up and feeling good.  The Armory is such a neat environment for someone completely new to the track & field world. I grew up in a basketball gym. I kind of get lost on the track (in a good way) and end up surging to excess.  Last night, I was committed to not allowing that to happen, no matter the cost.  On tap, 6x800s at 5k pace with 400m recovery … a fairly straightforward, rhythm-inducing workout.  Since most of the team is also racing the 10k on Saturday, coach told us to take it easy.  The results:

Not too bad.  I managed to stay in a reasonable range with no crazy drops in pace, etc.  We didn’t have the full complement of our sub-group so I paced 1 or 2 intervals, but warned folks that if they were looking for a quicker pace, I was NOT the guy.  I also made sure I warmed up and cooled down extensively.  Fortunately, the Armory was empty again so I was able to do both on the bouncy track as opposed to either outside (asphalt) or elsewhere in the facility (concrete). I felt good on the way home … energized without taxing the system.  Coach gave me some tips on using my arms, which was very much appreciated.  I know I don’t use them enough … leaving the legs to carry the burden.  My guess is that I overcompensated when I was experiencing pain in my shoulder blades from swinging the arms improperly last summer.  His tips immediately worked as I hit ok splits, but felt like I was working considerably less.

Today is another rest day.  With the storms passing thru now, tomorrow I will head out for the final run of the week (before the race).  BTW – I finally took the plunge and picked up Lore of Running.  I’m a runner.  Now it’s time to become a smarter runner.  Looking forward to reading it.