December 17th-23rd Training

Monday: 20 miles (6:11). Was planning on doing a 20 miler with the last five at MP right after school but it was pouring rain.  After about an hour delay, I was able to head out the door.  Felt a little weak for a while but got better throughout the run.  I could tell my legs were getting a little bit tired and since I've only done five miles in the last three days, I decided to scrap the fast finish part.

Tuesday: 8 miles (6:49); 7.4 miles (7:15). Holy crap, my quads are insanely sore today. I don't think it's from running because my quads rarely get sore from running and I didn't run very many downhills yesterday.  I think the culprit was stupidity. We were filming a school video, where I dressed up as Batman.  I decided to surprise my next class by keeping my outfit on and crouch on top of the 8-9 foot column in the corner of the gym.  Unfortunately, they were seven minutes late, so I was in a semi-squat position for quite some time.  And before they came in, the principal came in the gym and spotted me. Anyway, I think that's what jacked my quads up.  I'll have to delay Wednesday's workout until Thursday now.

Wednesday: 4 miles (6:54); 12.2 miles (7:01)

Thursday: 4 miles (7:10); 14 miles with planned workout of 4800m (5:00 pace), 3:00 jog, 4000m (4:55 pace), 3:00 jog, 3200m (4:50 pace).  Unfortunately, the windchill was sub 30, with 25-30 mph winds with gusts up to 40mpw.  I decided to try this on the track and run mainly by effort.  I surprised myself and ran the 4800m in 14:57 (4:59, 5:00, 4:58) and felt pretty strong.  The wind messed up my pacing and I would split 40s on the "slow" 200s and 34s on the "fast" ones. I nailed my time again with a 12:16 (4:52, 4:57, 2:27).  That one felt decent and I felt like I would be able to hit my last time.  On the 3200m, I came through in 71 and my hip flexors were shot, so I stopped.  I then jogged 100m and was going to try some 400s at 70ish with 100m jog rest but after 200m, my legs still felt like crap.  Frustrating because I felt strong aerobically, but my legs just all of a sudden quit.

Friday: 10.7 miles (6:42); 5.5 miles (7:18)

Saturday: 9.4 miles (6:42); 5.7 miles with 6xhill blasts (7:26)

Sunday: 17.2 miles with planned workout of 3x4.2 miles (2.1 mile loop) at 5:10 pace with 1k jog recovery at sub 6:00 pace.  

First Round: 21:40 (5:08, 5:11, 5:08, 5:09).  Legs were turning over very quickly at first but I felt more controlled on the second loop. 5:55 pace recovery jog

Second Round: 21:42 (5:07, 5:11, 5:09, 5:10). Felt better on this round, except the hill tired me out some on the second loop. 5:58 pace recover jog

Third Round: 21:47 (5:10, 5:13, 5:08, 5:11). Started to get a little tired but still was in control.  The hill on the first loop hurt and I crawled up it the second time.  At the end of this round, I felt really good and strong, while these workouts normally kill me. But my calves were pretty tight from my A5s. I ran this course and workout two years ago, before Rocket City and was over 30s a mile slower then and ended up running 2:27:08 in my race, so this is a good sign.  The only frustrating thing is that whenever I run here, the second mile on the loop is nearly always 4-5s faster than my first.  Today, it was slower every single time. Maybe I bled a lot of time up the hill on every loop. Who knows? But I'll take a 5:09 average for this workout.; 6 miles (7:22)

Week total= 124.1 miles. New lifetime record.  Solid long run, with a frustrating workout on Thursday but a great workout on Sunday.  If I wasn't so sore, I could have run Thursday's workout on Wednesday, which was near perfect conditions. I hate ending that workout early because I haven't had much extensive stuff at around HMP, which I feel I need.  Because of that, I'll run a little harder than anticipated on my Wednesday workout next week.  I've been having consistent PVC's for a few weeks now and am having some other symptoms of low iron, so I'll get that tested tomorrow.  If I find out that it's low, I have no idea what I'll do. When it was low in September, I was destroying my workouts but struggled with anything faster than HMP. I guess if it's borderline low, I'll try to somehow boost up it before the race.  If the numbers are tanked like they were in September, I'll think about scratching Houston and running Mercedes a few weeks later.  But hopefully my numbers are ok.