Fri 10/7 - 1:50 easy

Another quasi-double, 50 minutes in Lincoln woods with drills on Pine hill, then drove over to Weston and ran a very easy hour with two of the wild kittens. All this after spending the night in Nashua, waking up obscenely early and driving to VT for the ibex tent sale, shopping for an hour, and driving back home. Needless to say, all the sitting around in the car on top of the workout yesterday meant that the left leg was a complete mess by the end of the afternoon. Tightness in left hammie and TFL, the entire leg twinging from hip to ankle, wonderful. Spent a lot of time with both the foam roller and lax ball, needless to say. Crisp, clear cool day, very nice conditions to be outside.

Thu 10/6 - PM 60 minutes incl. 4x400, 4x300, 4x200, 3x100

Theoretically this was supposed to be a leg prep workout but not enough recovery between reps made it into something else entirely. Easily enough remedied, not that I made the adjustment in the midst of the workout as I probably should have. 300 jog after each 400, 200 after each 300, etc. on down to the last lap which was 3x100 with 50m jogs between. Combination of stiffness in left hip and underlying fatigue from not sleeping enough still having their effect on the quality of workouts as evidenced by the decidedly humdrum numbers:

400s - 75-77, 86-90 second recoveries
300s - 56-7, roughly equal time on the recoveries
200s - 38, 30 second recoveries

After the 400s it felt like I might be stalling out, tried to moderate the effort the rest of the way. Still dead beat by the end. Total 6400m in 24:20.

Wed 10/5 - PM 35 minutes easy

Jogging around Weston HS fields. Also some bike riding back and forth along the course. Meet got over late, at dusk in fact. Left hammie and SI joint still stiff and tight. Humidity a thing of the past (for now at least) as the NW wind took over by lunchtime. Chilly by sunset.

Tue 10/4 - 65 minutes very easy

Round trip to 10 Spencer. Out via rail bed, back along 27 as darkness had fallen by that point. Legs feeling better today, although maybe not as much as I had hoped. Energy level still low, and dropped off after taking a bathroom break at the S. Acton trestle halfway through the trip out. SI joint feeling stiff, spent some time rolling on the lax ball as a result and it felt much better afterward all the way down my left leg. Heavy rain showers during the afternoon, subsided soon after I got started but the first few minutes weren't fun at all.

Mon 10/3 - PM 55 minutes very easy

Area 51, barely moving but salubrious nonetheless. Legs felt terrible all day, hammies quite sore and stiff as well as every muscle group attached in some way to any part of the hip bones it would seem. Desperately tired on the way home from an awfully long practice with the wildcats, made me consider taking the day off entirely. Stretching would have been less productive without some kind of easy jog though. Got a late start, first of many runs in the next few months done entirely in the dark. Still humid but cooling off compared to last week.

Sun 10/2 - AM 1:40 incl. 15 mile threshold run

Attempting to turn a 10 mile road race into a 15 mile marathon pace run. The major caveat to this plan was that the course is in Harvard meaning plenty of roll with miles 7-9 each being net uphill. On the plus side the layout lent itself to doing the first 4 miles of the course plus a mile to get back to the start area after doing the actual race course. Under control early on, but when the course turned up the pace slowed right down. First six mile splits averaged just under 6:00, next three uphill miles averaged 6:15 and felt like dung. Took just under 4 minutes to get from finish line back to the starting line to do the next five miles. Not surprisingly the splits were slower (avg. 6:15) and the hill on the third mile was no fun at all. Also dealing with a pretty strong urge to use the bathroom, thought for sure I'd have to make a pit stop which didn't end up happening but still didn't feel so hot. Gloomy overcast conditions, spitting drizzle at times with thick ground fog early on. Kind of gross but no chance of overheating. Hard to say if the whole thing was successful, expectations not exactly sky high to begin with given how tired I've been feeling lately, just hoping to survive the thing really. Both hamstrings stiff and sore later on afterward, range of motion very limited when I attempted to do some stretching.