9/20/08
Fri 9/19 - PM 95 minutes, Walden woods
Moving fairly well for much of the run today, esp. the last 15 minutes. Today was the day to go longish. Left ankle very stiff again to start like yesterday but after a few minutes it had loosened up completely. Quite cool all day, as a boreal air mass settled in over the region. As such it was sunny all day but the temp never got over 60 degrees. Felt more like mid-October.
9/18/08
Thu 9/18 - PM 75 minutes, Area 51
Track Road to Area 51. Another day of ideal conditions, dry crisp air with a cool edge to it. Great day to be outside. When the weather's this nice it gets mentioned first. Expected to be stiff and sore from all the laps yesterday, left ankle was definitely creaky for the first 5-10 minutes but after that things smoothed out considerably. Pace ended up getting down to a much faster level than I would have expected for the day after a workout. Again, the conditions could have had something to do with it.
Wed 9/17 - PM 75 minutes incl. 2(8x300)
Second shorter repeat session since the resumption of workouts, with the benefit of ideal conditions for this or any other time of year. Took a while for legs to loosen up (de-stiffen) on the warmup. Recovery between reps a 200 jog with 4:30 between sets. Splits as follows, set 1 on the left, set 2 on the right:
55.2 - 53.9
55.1 - 53.5
53.6 - 53.1
53.3 - 53.3
53.5 - 53.3
53.3 - 53.4
53.5 - 53.3
53.4 - 52.5
I went in to the workout with 54 as a vaguely defined average time goal. The first two were basically an extension of the warmup in that the effort felt no different on subsequent reps in the first set and they were all over a second faster. The numbers show that I settled on a sustainable rhythm by the middle of the first set. Stayed consistent the rest of the way through. Tried to run a controlled first 100m on each rep so there was something left in the tank both later in the rep and the workout as a whole. Mild heroics on the final rep to dip under 53. Nothing earth-shattering about any of these numbers, but it was good turnover work nonetheless. The recoveries ranged from 54-59 seconds and were 2-3 seconds faster on average in the first set.
55.2 - 53.9
55.1 - 53.5
53.6 - 53.1
53.3 - 53.3
53.5 - 53.3
53.3 - 53.4
53.5 - 53.3
53.4 - 52.5
I went in to the workout with 54 as a vaguely defined average time goal. The first two were basically an extension of the warmup in that the effort felt no different on subsequent reps in the first set and they were all over a second faster. The numbers show that I settled on a sustainable rhythm by the middle of the first set. Stayed consistent the rest of the way through. Tried to run a controlled first 100m on each rep so there was something left in the tank both later in the rep and the workout as a whole. Mild heroics on the final rep to dip under 53. Nothing earth-shattering about any of these numbers, but it was good turnover work nonetheless. The recoveries ranged from 54-59 seconds and were 2-3 seconds faster on average in the first set.
9/17/08
Tue 9/16 - PM 60 minutes, Area 51
The run today started off quite slowly, legs leaden and stiff. Feeling better eventually but it took a while. The plan was to do strides on the way in and the way the first 15 minutes went I didn't think it would go off, but in the end I was able to get them done. Cool day and overcast, still feeling resentful that this wasn't the kind of weather around on Sunday.
9/16/08
Mon 9/16 - PM 1:55 plus 20 minutes in Walden
Gentle and relaxed run today, pace was very easy at first and took 20+ minutes to get moving to anything faster. The big wrinkle with today's run was that the stop at the pond happened in the middle of the run (just after an hour) rather than near the end like usual. Splitting the run like this definitely changed the way the back half felt, less fatigue in the legs and resultant stumbling on uneven trail surfaces. Pleasant, sunny, breezy late summer's day, makes yesterday's steambath all the more galling.
9/15/08
Sun 9/14 - AM 70 minutes incl. Josh Billings 6m run leg
33:02 with mile splits as follows:
5:19
5:29
5:25
5:47
5:21
5:41
one of the more oppressively humid days I've ever had to deal with. As if it needs to be any harder with this course. Not that hot after raining most of the night, which had me deluded into thinking that I could actually run a decent time this year. Those hopes went by the boards when I felt myself starting to overheat during the third mile while only matching the splits from last year's mediocre effort. In fact this year's effort was superior despite the slower time, said difference in time being totally from the last mile. Ran the last 3 miles on fumes, both literally and figuratively thanks to the diesel-spewing lead truck that was driving too close. Drove myself past the point of exhaustion as I was in mortal fear of being caught by Pat Moulton, as noted here. As it turns out I had an 11 minute head start on him so no need to worry but hindsight was no comfort at the time when I was flogging myself. Finally realized it was in the bag after five miles, at which point I lost all motivation to continue pressing. Felt like stopping and taking a nap during the uphill sixth mile. Finished drenched with sweat and convinced that I had run like crap but in looking at the other runners' times the conditions made it brutal for everyone. 10 minute soak in the pond post-race was the best part of the day as it brought my core temp back down.
5:19
5:29
5:25
5:47
5:21
5:41
one of the more oppressively humid days I've ever had to deal with. As if it needs to be any harder with this course. Not that hot after raining most of the night, which had me deluded into thinking that I could actually run a decent time this year. Those hopes went by the boards when I felt myself starting to overheat during the third mile while only matching the splits from last year's mediocre effort. In fact this year's effort was superior despite the slower time, said difference in time being totally from the last mile. Ran the last 3 miles on fumes, both literally and figuratively thanks to the diesel-spewing lead truck that was driving too close. Drove myself past the point of exhaustion as I was in mortal fear of being caught by Pat Moulton, as noted here. As it turns out I had an 11 minute head start on him so no need to worry but hindsight was no comfort at the time when I was flogging myself. Finally realized it was in the bag after five miles, at which point I lost all motivation to continue pressing. Felt like stopping and taking a nap during the uphill sixth mile. Finished drenched with sweat and convinced that I had run like crap but in looking at the other runners' times the conditions made it brutal for everyone. 10 minute soak in the pond post-race was the best part of the day as it brought my core temp back down.
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