Laundry Day

As the title suggests, today is a day for cleansing (and more traveling – by train today) … cleaning out the staleness of this blog with an update …

Thursday.  Before my flight back to Gotham, I jumped up and banged out an easy run.  The route was similar to the one I followed during Wednesday’s Wind Sailing experience with the addition of circling around the local area a bit more.

It was a fairly pedestrian 10.3mi run … albeit the scenery was fantastic.  To me, SF / Bay Area is the most picturesque city in the country.

Friday. I’m less than pleased when I need to consult the calendar to determine the last CPTC workout I attended … September 7^th.  Good grief.  Since I was flying home on Thursday, I had to miss yet another workout.  This absence stung more than most because I missed my favorite session … hill repeats.  I love them … they hurt deeply, but provide so much stimulus for improvement.  The last (only) time I’ve run them with the team was back in April as folks were preparing for the Boston Marathon.  I captured the experience succinctly with the title: 6 x Hell.

Since my fitness is better, I did not expect such drama this time around … in particular because I would be running the repeats solo and at 6:30am.  The workout consisted of a 2k pickup at 10k pace, 3 x 500m hill, 3 x 300m hill and recovery jog back to the start of each rep.  The results:

I blame the extended pickup on pre-dawn grogginess.  Frankly, at that hour I could not remember if Coach prescribed a 2k or 2mi pickup.  Nonetheless, I felt surprisingly decent for attempting to get some turnover going before the sun came up.  It took the first 2 intervals to fully shock the system awake.  I still can’t believe the pickup was quicker than the first interval. Gah!  After the legs and lungs found harmony, I started to lock in and turned the screws a little.  With a HM tune up on October 2^nd, it was time to build confidence to scale these same hills when it really mattered.  The overall effort felt consistent.  I never sprinted (obviously with those splits), but rather focused on form (leaning slightly forward, keeping stride length short, not pumping arms too much, etc.).

All things considered, it was a solid workout.  Still, I would have much rather have run with my teammates … group suffering and whatnot.  FWIW – I felt like death the rest of Friday because of the travel, cross-country flight, early rise and hard workout.  That said, I’m glad I got the workout in because I believe I would have felt far worse if I had postponed the repeats until after work on Friday … more likely, I would have bagged them entirely.

Saturday. After that April hill session, I was extremely sore for 3 days, especially the glutes.  This time around, when I woke up, I only experienced minor aches in both calves.  My first reaction was that I didn’t hit it hard enough.  Soreness is generally evidence of a hard effort.  Instead, I felt leg weariness during the 7+-mile recovery slog.  At least that’s something, right?

Sunday. Long run day.  Whooo! Whooo!  Not really.  As you will see why in the Weekly Running Review below, I woke up kind of tired.  Fortunately, the plan called for a mid-distance run of 16-18 miles at steady state.  Uncertain of how the body would respond to anything quicker than easy pace, I was thankful.  Similar to last Sunday’s 21 miler, I incorporated both BPN and extended BPN loops (including the same Harlem Hills from Thursday’s repeats).  You might wonder why more hills?  Answer: They make legs strong like bull … good hard training.  While it took the first 3 miles to get into any kind of rhythm, the 17 miles in total felt pretty decent (8:30 pace). The other noticeable aspect of Sunday’s and Saturday’s runs were that I did them without the iPod.  Since we are 5 weeks from Marathon Sunday, it was time to put the music aside … I won’t be racing with headphones so it’s time to put them away.  No noticeable difference … except I was slightly lighter on my feet.

After the run, I scooted over to 5^th Avenue to cheer for my teammates racing the 5^th Avenue Mile road race.  At one point I thought of entering.  There was too much risk of injury and as you will see, I did the opposite of taper this week.

Weekly Running Review (Week of September 20)

Observations: I went to 6 days this week and a lot of hill work in preparation for the half marathon this Saturday. These are certainly the dog days of training.  Legs are heavy and the emotional rush of 20 milers has waned slightly.  But with only 2-3 weeks of hard training left before the taper, it’s time to nut up or shut up.  Time to run with More Fire.