Fri 6/7 - off

Long overdue, but not under the circumstances I expected. Got home too tired to do anything, took a long nap and by the time I woke up it was getting extremely late. Raining cats and dogs and decidedly cool which was the final bit of convincing. Had it not been raining I would have been out the door for a 30 minute shakeout. Tapering in earnest for tomorrow instead. Truly gross weather with the remnants of a tropical storm (in early June?) passing through.

Thu 6/6 - PM 35 minutes very easy

Lincoln woods. No time for much more than a short shakeout on very very stiff legs. I'm reminded of why I don't do workouts like yesterday's more frequently. Not helping was last night's far too late bedtime. Muggy conditions with overcast, rain in the offing.

Wed 6/5 - PM 65 minutes incl. 1600-1200-800-400-200-100-100

Different type of track workout than what I've become accustomed to, i.e. faster paces and longer recoveries. Like visiting a foreign land after so much threshold work. My lack of familiarity meant that finding the range was pure guesswork. I knew only that I wanted to hit the first lap of the 1600 in around 80 and hopefully progress from there. Instead it went in 78, a bit strained but still somewhat under control. Rest of the splits:

5:10.4 (2:38, 2:32)

4.5R

3:45.7 (77, 74, 74)

3.5R

2:26 (72.9, 73.1)

2.5R

70.3

1R

35.0

100j (37)

16.8

100j (36)

17.0

For the most part quicker than expected. Wearing spikes for everything but the 1600 certainly helped a bit in that respect. Second lap of the 1200 much quicker than expected and had me recalibrating expectations across the board. Less windy than it has been this spring, mild breeze at most on the homestretch. Calf feeling tight and awkward for much of the warmup but things cleared up eventually. Some stiffness in hammie and glute pretty much throughout. Overall a nice fitness check although I couldn't see myself doing this kind of thing too regularly at this point. 

Tue 6/4 - 65 minutes plus 15 minutes in Walden

Stuffed a lot into this run with hill drills and the first dip of the season. Right calf annoyingly tight for most of the way which was a bit of a bummer but didn't keep me from doing the drills. 50/50 on getting in the water but it's noticeably warmer than the last time I visited the pond almost two weeks ago so it was on. Hopefully the first of many such visits over the next few months.

Mon 6/3 - PM 45 minutes easy

Walden woods. Redeye flight followed by the usual round of post-vacation errands and of course a comatose 3 hour nap after not sleeping hardly at all on the plane. Quite a late start as a result, wasn't planning on going very far anyway. More or less on a lark, did drills and strides in bare feet on the lush grass of the CCHS playing fields. This ended up feeling a lot better than expected, well worth the while. Cool morning with rain showers gave way to sunny late afternoon, cloying humidity left over from all the rain.

Sun 6/2 - AM 75 minutes incl. 8x1000

Amazon trail. Not quite a perfect setup but pretty close. Ran the full loop incl. the 20m or so between the start and end posts which added 5 sec or so to each rep. 200m jog between repeats. The splits were on the slow side even by my modest standards, something I chalk up to being somewhat overextended as per usual on vacation. Took a good long while to feel anything approximating warmed up. Also a relatively persistent breeze coming from the north. Splits were all between 3:38 and 3:41. Ideally it would have been nice to progress the pace on these but it was hardly the case. Very slow cooldown on the Rexius trail. Nearly every step the past two days has been on wood chips, a little slice of heaven.

Sat 6/1 - double, 75 minutes total

AM - 40 minutes easy on Pre's trail. Very mellow run, enjoyed the surroundings and the soft surface underfoot. Another highly recommended spot that didn't disappoint. This place is a shangri-la at least at this time of year under sunny skies with warm dry conditions. Afterwards headed across the footbridge to Hayward Field for the Pre Classic. Sufficiently motivated to take a couple of pictures during the meet itself before it seemed no longer worth my while to fumble with the stupid camera and simply watch the events instead:

 Dibaba tries to pull away, with some difficulty

men's steeple leaders with 250 to go, Kemboi winding up before getting pipped at the line

Then there was this:

Looks an awful lot like a Rock Racing logo, doubt the swoosh people would appreciate the comparison.

Great meet of course, and a great afteroon for it.

PM - 35 minutes, Rexius and Amazon trails. Moving better than the morning run which was an easy shakeout. After a dawdling first few minutes eventually loosened up and the pace quickened somewhat. Hard to resist picking it up on the flat terrain and packed wood chip surface. About 99% of my running today was on wood chips in fact. Some small amount of stiffness in the right hammie but other than that legs felt reasonably good.