Before we get to the primary workout of the week, I’ll share a few words on Wednesday’s easy run. Rather than continue to transfer business wardrobe to the office due to the “jobby to CP runs,” I decided to bring the bags home and then run. I lost 30 minutes. When the sun starts setting at 7:15pm, 30 minutes matters. I don’t think I’ll be doing that again. The run itself was uneventful … 3 loops around the Reservoir Path, toss in some drills and I was done. 5.5 miles.
The Thursday team tempo did not look good from the beginning of the day. I suffer from some form of DOMS or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. Although I believe most runners do too. DOMS is simply a 24-48 hour delay of soreness to the muscles after a taxing workout. Tuesday’s intervals would qualify for the latter … especially that silly 73 for the last quarter. Other than heavy legs, Wednesday was fine. Thursday, on the other hand, was a completely different story, at least for most of the day. I felt like hot garbage: lethargic, mystery ankle and calf soreness and stiff (despite, 20 min of stretching on Wednesday night).
This overall craptastic feeling is nothing new … it usually occurs every Thursday and I always make it to the workout. As such, I stuffed my face all day long fueled properly for the upcoming 6 mi tempo. The assignment: 3mi @ MP, 2mi @ HMP, 1mi @ 10k pace. It’s a great, but hard workout, especially since this is my step back week in terms of miles and intensity. I figured the blahs would dissipate on the way to the team meet up spot, as usual. What I failed to account for is getting out of the office later than usual. Tempo failure. It happens. I’ve missed a fair number of workouts lately (vacay), but make them up on my own. Therefore, I took yesterday as my rest day and went to bed early.
Early to bed, early to rise. 5:15am rise, in fact. A Friday night tempo did not seem inviting, so I chose to replicate the good time solo-style before the sun, and most sane human beings, are up. Insane? How about sleeping in the running shorts and shirt that you intend to wear the next morning to gain 5 more minutes of sleep? Yup. I clicked the watch at 5:37am and hit it … SLOWLY. It was pitch black, I was groggy and I assumed anyone operating a moving vehicle at this hour had no problem slamming into me despite my bright orange shirt. While disorienting, the warm up slog to the park ended quickly because I needed to get down to the business of tempo’ing.
If you are familiar with CP, the route description is confusing … it’s confusing to us .. something called the Stuart Mile, rotate up the east side, cross at the transverse, blah, blah, etc. Suffice it to say that much of it started with a downhill and ended with that same uphill with minor peaks and valleys in between. I eased into the MP and finished the 3mi stretch at 7:29, which was on point. I have been on the roads too much of late (vacay in Chicago) so I moved the balance of the workout to the Reservoir Path … what I lose in hill training I gain back in soft surface and happy legs. I modified the workout slightly, instead of straight 2mi then 1mi, I did a fartlek-type session here. For the HP portion I did 1 mi (7:17), brief recovery, then 1mi (7:14). At this point, I was fully awake and into the workout … it took a bit of work to get there. For the final mile, I felt decent and the turnover came easier (6:58). Toss in a nice cool down and it turned into a 9.5 mile jaunt all before 7:30 am. Better late than never.