October 7th-13th Training

Monday: 9.7 miles (6:32); 5.5 miles (7:05)

Tuesday:  9.4 miles (6:32); 7.8 miles with 4xstrides, 6xhill blasts (6:56)

Wednesday:  5.9 miles with drills and 4xstrides.  I was going to do 6x1 mile at the track, but it was closed.  Drove to another track and it was closed.  I was then going to do a fartlek but by this point, I was hungry, thirsty and didn't feel like running hard, so I stopped a quarter mile into the fartlek.  Too many changes of plans messed my mind up.  I'll try again.  12.1 miles with 4.74 mile progression run.  Ran to the end of LSC and then up-and-down Bison Way.  Plan was to start at 5:05 and work down 5s a mile.  Balanced splits were 5:04, 4:58, 4:53, 4:47, 3:24 (4:36 pace).  I had trouble finding my gear the first mile was over 5:10 pace at .80 miles.  Finally found the flow three miles in.  I thought I would lose time on the fourth since half of it was gradually uphill but I maintained my pace.  Most of the final .74 was down a gradual downhill, so it was easy to fly.  Good workout and confidence booster.

Thursday: 6.8 miles (7:02); 10.7 miles (6:58)

Friday: 10 miles with 4 miles of .15 at sub 4:20 pace, .35 miles easy; 7.7 miles (7:36)

Saturday: 8.8 miles (7:30ish)

Sunday: 16.4 miles with BAA Half-Marathon in 67:17. Crappy performance.  Ran the first mile with Jeffrey Eggleston, about 10s behind a four man pack.  Jeffrey left me about 1.5 miles in and I just fell further and further back.  Tried to find my gears but I could never find my rhthym and my legs never had that race feeling.  Even early on, I felt like I was running 5+ seconds faster than what the splits were telling me.  At 5-6 miles, I knew it was going to be a tough day and once I started running over 5:00 pace, I lost hope and once I started dropping over 5:20, I was frustrated, embarrassed and just wanted to finish up.  Worst race I've finished since college but I took some good things out of the weekend, which I'll get into later.

Week Total= 110.8 miles. Good week up until the race.  I felt really good on my recovery runs and had a good Wednesday session.  Before the race, I had three good workouts in a row, so maybe those workouts piled on me and ended up wearing me out for the race.  Who knows? What I do know is that I have work to do and some changes to make.