Saturday Oct 23, 2010: AM: Out the door decently early as I had to be at work by 9am. Decided on a sort of progression run out-and-back. The route takes me from my apartment doorstep to the base of Edgemont Village. I hit my arbitrary sign signifying my turnaround point at 3.30miles and follow my footsteps back. Today I hit the halfway point in 25:44 (7:46 pace) without perceiving much of an effort. I negative split the return trip in 23:57 (7:16 pace) and was feeling good as I crested the final grunt of an uphill to my apartment steps. A mile of cool-down and some drills and I was ready to get on with the day. Good start.
Sunday Oct 24, 2010: AM: Easy effort the first 6miles with Meredith. We then parted ways and I continued on for another 4 miles. I finished the run with 50meter*4 at max effort, with 50meter rests between sets. Felt good and feeling like my legs are finally recalling the notion of turnover after so many steady miles on the trails. Overall 10 miles (1:20).
The last few weeks for me have been pretty blase (45 miles; 40miles; 40miles). But this has been OK with me; I have been content with keeping the weekly mileage down and hitting the gym a few days a week. I have made the concerted effort to take a bit of down time and I believe this will pay dividends as I pick up my training starting this week. I have decided to focus on a road marathon for the new year and will likely run the Birch Bay Marathon February 20th. The prospect of running this much road and working on my leg turnover/speed is intimidating for me in a lot of ways. Although I have a solid base to work from, I am clearly out of shape when it comes to knocking down low minute/miles. This has been evident to me over the past three weeks as I have introduced approximately 1 speed sessions or LT workout a week. They are hard! But, I look forward to the challenge and believe I will be a better overall runner because of it. I will look to run a few shorter road races in the interim to gauge where I am at in terms of my training and exactly what I should be aiming for a goal-time. So, this is where i am at now. My right hamstring that has been bothering me for the past few weeks seems to be finally under control (cutting back has paid off I suppose). I wanted to start this training block rested and injury-free... I am probably as close as I will be to this point given my personal need to get out and run nearly everyday.
I have randomly been adding some speed work into my runs if I feel good as well as some short distance races. I have actually really been enjoying them. Did the hallows eve 10km last sunday. Felt so good to just go out and giv'r.
ReplyDeleteI was helping out with Heather's mountain madness run on saturday or I would have loved to have gone out with ya. Phantom is in 2 weeks. An excuse to perhaps rip off a fast 12km race? I am thinking about the 19km. Did the orientation run saturday, it's a fun route!
Definately been enjoying the shorter speed work. Even just throwing in 4 times 100 meter strides in the middle or near the end of a basic aerobic run I believe promotes a definate degree of bodily adaption. Short hill sprint for power are something else I am working with.
ReplyDeleteI was also going to do the hallows'eve 10km but was nursing a bit of a hamstring. Thinking about Phantom forsure. Not sure which distance I'll go with though....
I ws
I w