ROLLING WEEK = 54M |
SEASON MILES = 2352 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 27 6/4-6/10 |
The first half of this week went pretty well. I probably would have just shut things down after Rhody, knowing that the weekend in MN wasn't going to be much mileage and I could use a break anyways, but I wanted to run the workout on Wednesday since that was Oscar's last. I felt pretty good there, despite the conditions. I was really happy with Sunday's race and wasn't too sore on Monday. Tuesday's run in the Fells was great, I should try and do that more often. Hopefully the time off recharges the batteries and gets rid of some of the little nagging injuries. If I were diligent about running this weekend I could have gotten in mileage probably every day, but sometimes a break is actually more helpful. I'll probably take Sunday and possibly Monday off before getting back into it again. I'm going to call this the end of the "season" and move to a new log. The plan for now is mileage over the summer, maybe a road race here or there with the focus on the cross country season. Pretending to still be in college has worked well enough so far, might as well keep it going a little longer. June Miles : 86 | 54 |
| Saturday | Day off. I drank a little too much last night to be running at 7am, so I slept until about 8:30 and then headed to my grandparents. We spent some time cleaning the outside of their house and then drove over to a different, and easier, 9 hole course for some more golf. I played a lot better, shooting 51 on the way out and 57 on the way back, but I started spraying my drives into the woods a lot more on the back nine. We got back to my grandparents around 5:30 for dinner and then drove down to the Twin Cities so we wouldn't have to do that early tomorrow morning. | 0 |
| Friday | Day off. I slept until 8am and left for my grandparents at 8:30 after taking a shower. We headed to the golf course at 9:30 and then went to dinner with my uncle's friends from high school afterwards. We didn't get back to the hotel until midnight. I shot okay on the front nine, 57, but didn't hit more than one or two good shots on the back nine and struggled home in 67. | 0 |
| Thursday | Day off. I spent today travelling to Bemidji, MN for a golf weekend and didn't manage to get in a run today. I probably could have this morning, but I went to Roads last night and left all the packing for this morning before leaving for the airport at 9am. I got to Minneapolis at 3:30 and then went to my aunt's house for a bit before driving up to Bemidji and getting there around 10pm. We visited with my grandparents until midnight when we checked into the hotel. I'm planning on basically taking this weekend off, if I get a chance I'll run but I'm not going to try and force in mileage. | 0 |
| Wednesday PM | BAA Workout. 2M-1.5M, both along the river in 9:44, 7:19. It had been raining all day long and I was half hoping that Pieroni would just call off the workout. I managed to get myself out the door at 5:50 and was looking forward to a good workout. I was pretty soaked by the time I got to Harvard, we were supposed to run 800-2k-2M on the river-1.5M on the river, but Pieroni cut the track stuff out, so we were just on the river today. I hit the Port-A-John and then headed over to the river with Oscar. The field was flooded by the baseball diamond and we had to run through water up above my knees for a bit. I had a lot of time to stretch out and run some strides before we got into it. We had a pretty large group for this one, probably because it was Oscar's last one before moving back to Denver. Magill, Wayne, John Dudley, John Friedman, Oscar a new guy and myself were all running the workout, Matt Ely, Terry Shea and Mark LaRosa all showed up too. I got out pretty well at the start of the 2M, we were running the 2.5M course and just stopping early. Just before the Northeastern boathouse Dudley pulled away a little bit and got a gap. The puddles weren't too bad, we hit one or two that were deep and long, but we were already soaked so it wasn't an issue. I wasn't able to see the mile split, but afterwards Wayne was saying that he was 5:00, so I must have been a few seconds under 5:00. Heading back towards Elliot I felt like I had John in reach but just couldn't close the gap. The road was blocked off and there was a pretty strong current flowing across the road, which was a little daunting to run through. Magill got up on my shoulder when we got to the curve and we slowly started reeling in John. The 2M mark is apparently the traffic sign before the Legion parking lot, Magill and I surged pretty hard and almost caught John as he was easing up, we all came through in 9:44 but I feel like that must have been short. We all jogged over to Elliot and took a few minutes rest more. We didn't get out very aggressively at the start of the 1.5M, John and I were running side by side along Memorial down to JFK Street. We hit the bridge at 4:09 and Oscar took off. I waited until I was coming down off the bridge to start rolling and tried to close the gap to him. Magill was up on my shoulder the whole way and we reeled Oscar in maybe 400m from the finish. I kept moving but Oscar wasn't going to let me pull away and all three of us wound up hammering together through the line. This workout was only half as long as what I'm used to, I was pretty fresh at the end and expecting there to me more coming. We cooled down with another 1.5M loop and then doubled back to JFK Street. I chatted with Oscar for a little bit and wished him the best in CO and then headed home along the river. The inside of my right knee started aching on the way home, that kind of came out of nowhere. My right hip has been sore recently and today my right plantar was giving me some issues, I guess this old body isn't holding together so well. I'm leaving for Minnesota tomorrow morning, the plan is to just get whatever mileage I can when I'm out there, but I don't really feel like trying to force anything in and I could use a little down time. Mike and I talked a little bit about plans for the summer, and there's really nothing I'm excited about until cross starts up. At least for now the plan is to just train through the summer and run the occasional road race as a tempo/workout and to pick up some beer money. | 12 |
| Wednesday AM | Orange Line in the rain. Woke up to temps in the mid 50s and a steady rain falling, I got rolling at 7:30am and was feeling okay. The wind really picked up by the John Hancock tower, not such great weather this morning. I kept things easy and my legs started getting tight and sore as I was leaving the Common. Felt good on the stride down Clearway, but didn't bother staying out in the rain to run any more. It's another long workout tonight, 800-2k-2M-1.5M. | 4 |
| Tuesday PM | Grass Loops with Nolan. I guess Sean was the only guy interested in running this afternoon, even though I sent an open invitation to all the guys still in Boston. We got going just after 5pm, after spending a few minutes shooting the shit with David Blau and Uzoma Orji. Apparently Tuesday afternoon is softball day on the turf and Briggs, so we were dodging 4 or 5 teams' batting practice and just skipped the turf altogether. After a nice and easy 24:00 we stopped to chat with Akin who was getting ready to play softball for Draper and then jogged back to the track. Sean went to the river to add on and I ran four or five laps around the infield barefoot and then a few strides. I stretched out a little bit on the track before calling it a day and heading home. | 4 |
| Tuesday AM | Middlesex Fells. Kathryn is chaperoning the 8th grade trip to Washington, DC this week and had to be at the middle school at 6am today. We left at 5:45 and I dropped her off at 6:05 then drove over to the Fells. I parked on South Border Road and was running by 6:20 this morning. I'm normally not a big fan of the Fells, but it's been awhile so I thought I'd give it another shot. I was lucky and found some of the mountain bike trails after just a few minutes, so I didn't have to deal with the narrow, winding, rock and root filled trails at the start. I managed to stay on the wide, gravelly trails for almost the whole first half of the run, basically heading perpindicular to I-93 to the end of the Fells, or at least a chain link fence. Then I picked up some other trail which took me back to the Sheepfold and from there I ran the Orange Trail for awhile. I started getting fed up with the slow going of that trail and took the first mountain bike trail I came to. I wasn't sure whether the trails around the Reservoirs really were off limits, but I managed to get by without them today. At about 45:00 I started trying to work my way back to South Border Road and then was a little confused about where exactly I was parked, so the last few minutes had some starting and stopping. I found my car at 59:00 and tacked on a little extra to bring things up to 66:00. I ran a few strides down Jeremiah Circle on the other side of South Border and then headed back to MIT for a shower before going to the lab. Today was a good run, really enjoyable and changed my impression of the Fells. Running that early is always enjoyable, I saw a woman 5:00 into the run and a biker as I was heading back to South Border near the end of the run and that was it. | 10 |
| Monday | Arboretum. I got going about 7:30am and wasn't as tired as I had expected to be. I kept things easy at the start and made it to the Arboretum in 33:30. Pretty boring and uneventful on the way out, my legs started out tight but they loosened up over the first 10:00 or so, and after that it really didn't feel like I had raced yesterday. I kept things easy in the Arboretum, coasted through the usual route in just under 30:00. Things didn't change on the way home, the run wound up at 95:00. No strides today. | 14 |
| Sunday | Rhody 5k. I met Sean at 7am and we picked up Joshua Gordon, a BAA guy who needed a ride, and headed down to Lincoln, RI. The drive was pretty quick and we got there early, so checking in was a breeze and the lines for Port-A-Johns weren't too bad. I warmed up with a group of BAA guys and Nate Jenkins and was feeling pretty good. My legs had some spring in them and even though it was overcast the temps were maybe mid 50s, which made it great for running. I got out pretty well and was tucked into fourth place at the back of the lead pack after the mile. Just after 2M Brian McGovern surged up the only hill on the course and the pack exploded. Pat dropped out the back and I went past Nate at the top of the hill and did my best to reel in McGovern. I was keeping him close but not closing at all until we went past the 3M mark. The gap slowly closed and about 100m out I kicked hard. I must have surprised Brian because he didn't react when I went past and I got the one second win. The sprint finish wrecked my calves, I ran out of tape last week so I wasn't able to tape my arches, and when I bent down to take off the chip my right calf almost cramped up. It stayed right on the edge of cramping up pretty much throughout the cooldown. We watched the start of the women's race and then a big group of us cooled down backwards along the course. Jim, Wayne and myself decided to add on when we got back so we ran the course again before getting some free hot dogs and watermelon. I was happy with how things went today, I managed to stay patient when McGovern surged and eventually kick him down, but more importantly I was able to relax just after 1M and just before 2M when things got a little rough and I felt myself tying up. I did my best to just cover ground and stay in the pack and my legs came back around each time. Good day. | 10 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 26 5/28-6/3 |
This wound up being a pretty decent week. I was feeling good on Sunday and really hammered an 18 miler out to Watertown. My legs were pretty shot by the end of that one, which is a feeling I haven't had too often lately. I did a good job of keeping the mileage high at the beginning of the week, Kathryn helped make sure I got out the door for afternoon runs. Wednesday's workout got off to a shaky start but I wound up bringing it around pretty well when we got to the shorter stuff. I backed off in mileage on Friday and Saturday, instead of just running slower like I did last week. I also have been more diligent about running strides, hopefully it pays off at Rhody on Sunday. June Miles : 32 | 95 |
| Saturday | Run to Remember course. I woke up at 8am and got out to rainy weather at 9am. It was a little bit cooler than I was expecting, but a lot more enjoyable than the last time I was running in the rain. I felt really good the whole way, my legs were feeling fresh and turning them over was real easy. Running through the Financial District was pretty nice since it was quiet and deserted which is unusual. I spent a little more time thinking about the Run to Remember race than I spent thinking about tomorrow's race, but I think I'll be okay. I ran four strides on Clearway before going upstairs to stretch. I was forcing things too much during strides though, I need to work on staying relaxed. | 7 |
| Friday | Jamaica. I was originally planning to go 12M this morning, but I got out the door at 8am and decided to go a little shorter. I figure the extra 3M weren't going to make a huge difference and by going shorter I'd be a little fresher for Sunday. I felt good the whole way but didn't take a watch. I kept things relaxed and didn't push at all but the pace felt a little quicker than I've been running the rest of this week, so hopefully that's a good sign. I ran a couple of strides when I got home and then spent some time stretching out really well. | 9 |
| Thursday PM | Kathryn and I ran together this afternoon. We couldn't decide on where to go, so we came up with a new route. We ran down to the Esplanade and took that to Longfellow but didn't cross the river. Instead we took Charles St to the Public Garden and back along Comm Ave. We were running pretty easy and I felt good the whole way. | 4 |
| Thursday AM | Fresh Pond, rather slow this morning. I was really dragging the whole way this morning. I could tell almost from the start that I wasn't feeling it at all. The temperature rose steadily throughout this one and by the time I was heading home down Brattle I had sweated through my shirt. Just slow the whole way, feeling tired and not in the mood to hammer. I left the pond at 49:00 and made it home in 80. Wasn't up for strides, I was too tired and running late anyways. | 12 |
| Wednesday PM | BAA Workout at Harvard. 2.5M River Loop; 2x1M path; 1000; 600 in 12:43; 4:51, 4:54; 2:54; 1:40. I made a point of starting my warmup earlier today, I got rolling about 5:50 and had some extra time when I got to Harvard. I met up with everybody over by the river for stretching and a few strides. The group tonight was Magill, Ponce, Dudley, Nadeau, Levy and myself. We got out in a pack and the first mile was pretty easy, came through in 5:10 and then Oscar went to the front and I tried to go with him but couldn't hang. He dropped off at 7:00 and then it was myself, Wayne and Jim out front. They both gapped me on the Cambridge side and I really had to work from Eliot to the finish to reel those two old guys in. I was really disappointed in how that interval went, I was wondering if whether I was becoming anemic again, since I was feeling fine but just couldn't maintain the hard pace at all. We took 7:00 rest and headed back to the dirt path for the next two intervals. Jim and I were hauling from the start and hit the gate in 1:24. I was getting really tired and backed off a little but Jim kept going and gapped me. Heading towards the turf I started to focus in on Jim and worked really hard to reel him in. I managed to catch him by the time we hit the parking lot with Magill right behind us. I was pretty tired after that mile and wasn't feeling very recovered after the 3:00 break. Oscar took it out but I wasn't able to keep up with him. I hit the gate in 1:26 and Oscar pulled off just after that, so it was Magill, Jim and myself up front. We basically stayed together the rest of the way. I was feeling better after that one and jogged over to the far corner of the track to get started on the 1k. Jim and Magill didn't follow me though, so I went back to the starting line and we ran from there which meant finishing into the wind. Jim got us out pretty quick, we were something like 68-69 through 400. Jim stopped at 600m so it was just Magill and myself after that. We hit 800 around 2:19 I think and Magill got up on my shoulder coming down the finishing straight. After 2:00 rest we were back on the line and Jim offered to take us through, shooting for 1:40. We came through in about 67 and then I swung wide down the homestretch and pulled away from Jim a little bit over the last 50m. All in all a decent workout, I wasn't as convinced that I'm becoming anemic by the end of the workout. It might have just been poor focus at the start, because after I reeled Jim back in on the first mile I ran the rest of the workout pretty well. I stayed on the track for awhile stretching and talking with Mike P and Oscar. I finally headed home at 7:45 and it took me a little bit to get loosened up. I ran along the river for 20+ minutes and ran strides up Mass Ave to finish off the day. May Miles : 429 | 12 |
| Wednesday AM | Orange Line backwards. Just a quick little shakeout, added on a couple strides in front of the church at the end. Getting loosened up for tonight's workout, it's going to be a long one tonight. | 4 |
| Tuesday PM | Almost didn't run. Jogged over to MIT with Kathryn around 8pm after looking at an apartment. K's going to run the Marine Corps marathon in late October and was supposed to time trial a mile, so we ran a mile in 8:22 around the track and then another in 6:56. Stretched out a bit and then ran home. | 4 |
| Tuesday AM | Castle-Bunker Hill. I wasn't feeling as bad as I did yesterday morning, but today was still a pretty slow run. I was a couple minutes slower than normal today, but I ran some strides when I got back and started feeilng better. Pretty low key run today. | 10 |
| Monday PM | Orange Line backwards. Once I got loosened up I was feeling better than I was this morning. I ran this one backwards so that I could run strides in front of the Church afterwards, but since the weather was so nice the grass was covered with people. I just ran a couple of strides on Clearway instead. | 4 |
| Monday AM | Reservoir with Summit. Felt like ass today, took me 75+ to finish this run today. I think I was really feeling the effects of yesterday's run so I was content to just get through the run at whatever pace my legs found. I climbed up Summit but that wasn't anything spectacular, kept it slow around the Reservoir and real easy all the way back down Beacon. At least the weather was nice today. I got up early to get my run in before going to Logan to pick up Kathryn. I ran strides after the run but my right hip was bothering me, so there wasn't much speed and I stopped after just 4. | 11 |
| Sunday | Science Museum-Watertown. I put in about 8 hours sleep last night and got out the door at 9am today. Temps were already pretty high, I could tell this was going to be a hot one. I got to the river in 4:00 and headed down to the Science Museum. I decided I'd approach this as a long progression run of sorts, 40:00 nice and relaxed, then pick it up for the next 40:00 and then hammer to the end. The first 40:00 was really enjoyable, I was feeling loose and coasting somewhat all the way to Mt. Auburn. My legs really weren't sore ever, just another sign that I didn't run very hard yesterday. I started picking the pace up as I went under Eliott, by the time I was 9 minutes into it, I had found a good rhythm and was clipping along nicely. I felt good the whole way out to Watertown and made the turn at 64:40. I kept things going pretty well back to North Beacon, things got a little rough heading to Arsenal though. I was getting really hot and my legs were getting tired, so I stopped at the bubbler in that park just after Arsenal, 81:00 into the run. I stretched in the shade briefly and then got back into it. I took about 3:00 to get loosened up again, by the time I went under Eliott on the way home. I wasn't really hammering, probably just maintaining the pace I had been holding earlier. I got past River and Western feeling good but my legs really started falling off as I got closer to BU. I was able to focus and hammer for about a minute before the pace would slack again. I "surged" like this the rest of the way and wound up running 1:45:10 along the river, just under 6:10 pace. I managed to shuffle home up Mass Ave and decided to start strides tomorrow. I just kind of laid down and sweated for awhile before half heartedly stretching. Last night's race gave me a small blister on the ball of my left foot, which I felt rip open by the skating rink just before North Beacon Street. It was uncomfortable for a little bit but then I basically forgot about it until I got home. After taking off my shoes I saw my sock was pretty bloody, which is always disconcerting, even when you're expecting it. I ate a little bit and then went for a short walk to loosen up before going to Fenway to watch the Sox play the Devil Rays. I thought a lot about why the race went so poorly last night, I really haven't been able to run hard off a slow early pace for a long time. I feel like that's something I was able to do in high school, I'm not really sure the best way to get that back. | 18 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 25 5/21-5/27 |
Pretty disappointing week. Didn't get in any good work, really, even though classes are over and there shouldn't be any serious conflicts. Wednesday's workout was not that good, the times were decent but it was nothing I haven't been running for 2 or 3 years now. My legs were feeling decently fresh, I just wasn't able to hammer as much as I needed to. The rest of the week was just easy mileage, and not very much mileage, at that. May Miles : 366 | 91 |
| Saturday | Boston High Performance. 5k in 15:13, pretty awful race. Warmed up 2M alone and cooled down 4M with Ryan and Jim. I guess sitting around all day isn't the best strategy to get ready for a 7:30pm race, because I was flat-footed and sluggish the whole way. Got out and nobody took the lead, so I led us through 72-2:22 and Nate Jenkins took the lead at 1k. I sat in 2nd or 3rd until 6 laps to go when Ryan Cararra went to the front and I started going backwards. Dropped to 75-76 per lap and got passed by almost everybody. I got outkicked pretty badly by Adam Fitzgerald and a kid from Dartmouth. Ryan took Jim and I over to some trails by Robert Treat Paine's house for the cooldown. After about 7 minutes I was feeling fine and the cooldown was the best part of the night. Both of those guys like to talk, so I just sat behind them and listened to them talk about the old days of NE running (i.e. the late 90s.) We got back to the track and I ran a couple of barefoot strides on the infield and I was feeling way too good for after a race, I felt almost completely recovered and had a lot of pop in my legs. There's really nobody to blame but myself for this one, I didn't do what I needed to during the week to feel good for the race. I slacked off too much and skipped strides pretty much the whole week. | 9 |
| Friday PM | Orange Line backwards. I ran up to the mailbox on Boylston to mail the bills and then took Boylston to Hereford to Comm Ave and headed to the Common. It was incredibly humid when I got out the door and after a minute or two rain started falling. The rain really picked up after I mailed the bills and when I was leaving the Common there was a flash of lightning. The rain was actually welcome, it cooled things off and the weather wasn't as muggy. My legs were tired and I was feeling flat-footed at the start, but by the time I was heading down Stuart I was feeling a lot better. I threw in an extended pickup in front of the Church and got my legs turned over pretty well. I did a few plyometrics and another stride on Clearway but then there was thunder and lightning pretty much right on top of me, so I just headed inside and stretched out. I haven't done as many strides as I probably should have, but I've been feeling good enough and got my legs moving a few times so it shouldn't be a big issue. | 4 |
| Friday AM | Run To Remember course. I got rolling at 7:45 this morning and headed along Comm Ave towards the Public Garden. Turned right at Arlington and picked up the course at the 3M mark. I was feeling alright this morning, definitely better than I felt on yesterday's run. The run went by pretty quickly, there were some crowded areas but that wasn't a big issue. I kept things easy back down Comm Ave and picked it up a little bit to Clearway. Put in a solid 45 minutes this morning, I like the way my legs are feeling right now. | 7 |
| Thursday | Arboretum, very tired and slow. I tried to think of any excuse to cut this sucker short, but I'm not able to run a double today so it had to be done this morning. I started out pretty slow and things didn't really change for the rest of the run. I got to the Arboretum in 34:00 and ran 31:00 in the Arboretum. I stopped at the Port-A-John before leaving the Arboretum and then ran 33:00 on the way home. Not the most enjoyable run today, just struggling to get this one over and done with. The weather was pretty nice, the sun was up and temps were in the upper 60s, so I wish my legs had been feeling better. Nothing very exciting today, just putting in the mileage. It feels good to be done with this week's work though, as tomorrow is just going to be a 7/5 double to loosen up for Saturday's race. | 14 |
| Wednesday PM | BAA Workout at Harvard. 2x1.5M River Loop, 1600m, 1200m, 800m, 400m in 7:17, 7:24; 4:47; 3:30; 2:17; 62.5. I jogged over to Harvard for my warmup and then hit the Port-A-John like usual. Then Mike told me that Alasdair and I needed to run over to the boathouse by Eliot to start the workout. We crawled under a fence to get out of Harvard's athletic complex, somehow made it across Storrow and met John Dudley and Levi in the boathouse's parking lot. The loop was from the parking lot there down to JFK Street, across the bridge and back almost to Eliot. I was feeling really good at the start and got out pretty well. I feel like I had a little bit of a gap, then Alasdair came up on my shoulder and we got going a little bit. We turned onto the bridge at JFK in 4:02 and threw in a little bit of a surge. I went under the road sign in 5:50 and then I could see the finish line and started picking it up. I felt like I was surging all the way to the line and was pretty happy with how things went. We had 3:30 rest so we jogged back to the parking lot and I splashed some water on my head to cool down. I got out a lot worse on the second one and we were all bunched up for the whole stretch to JFK. We turned in 4:09 and John Dudley got a little ahead of me climbing up the bridge but I found my legs on the down slope of the bridge. We hit the road sign in 6:00 and then I picked it up and gapped John. I felt good through the line, I'm not sure why I couldn't start hammering earlier. We jogged back to the track which took a long time, we got to the track after 7:00 and then had to wait while Levi got water and Alasdair changed into flats. I put my feet up for about a minute, but don't think I did a good enough job of loosening up again. I got off the line okay, Alasdair went right around me and started hauling, I just let him go. I came through in 72.5 leading Levi and John and we stuck together through the half in 2:25. I managed to start picking it up from there, hitting 3:36 and then 4:47, it felt like Levi and John were right behind me. We had 3:00 rest and then got back at it for the 1200m. I was thinking that holding 71s would be a good strategy, I was feeling really good at the start and got out right behind Alasdair and came through 200m in 32. I got freaked out and put on the brakes, coming through 400m in 68 and Alasdair had a big gap on me. I hit 800m in 2:20 running all alone and managed to get my legs turned over and hit 70 for the last lap. Not the best pacing but a pretty good effort. We had 2:30 rest and then lined up for the 800m, which I really wanted to hammer well. I got out pretty well, came through in 67 where I wanted but then faded over the last lap. Took 2:00 rest and then ran a 400. That one was short enough to hammer the whole way, I got out in 30 and was already trailing Alasdair and then he pulled away as I started tying up over the second 200. Not the greatest workout today, a pretty good effort but my legs were feeling good enough that I should have been running faster, I just wasn't able to keep a sustained hard effort. I guess Alasdair decided to run hard on this one and he kicked my ass pretty well. I headed home pretty quickly after the last interval, my legs weren't nearly as tired as they should have been and I was able to hold a decent pace for my cooldown. | 12 |
| Wednesday AM | Orange Line. I went for a quick shakeout this morning, the workout tonight is 2x1.5M along the river then 1600-1200-800-400. My right hip was really bothering me at the start of this one, but somewhere along Stuart Street it started loosening up and by the time I hit the Common I was feeling fine. I finished up down Comm Ave nice and easy and then picked it up down Clearway. I'm feeling pretty fresh right now and the field is looking pretty good for Saturday, hopefully I can put together a decent race. | 4 |
| Tuesday | Fresh Pond extended. I got rolling about 7:30am and kept things rather slow out to the Pond. My legs were feeling pretty good out to the Pond, but the pace didn't feel as slow as it wound up being. I ran around the Pond like normal, but when I got to the path by the Sunoco I added on a mile by running out and back in the other direction. I kept it steady and slow back to MIT, the loop from campus was around 67 and then picked things up a little bit across the bridge and tossed in a hard stride from Boylston down to Clearway. | 13 |
| Monday PM | Jamaica. My plan worked out perfectly today and temps were in the mid 60s by the time I took off. My legs were feeling pretty good, but I didn't really feel like hammering so I kept things pretty relaxed. I feel like this week is going to be a lot of long easy mileage, with the exception of a workout on Wednesday night. Hopefully that will be a decent tradeoff between getting somewhat fresh for racing on Saturday and still putting in mileage. Nothing very exciting during the run though, just a nice, relaxed run with a pickup or two at the end. | 9 |
| Monday AM | Science Museum. I was feeling pretty tired this morning, despite 8 hours last night, and temps were just below 50 degrees, so I wasn't too excited about getting out the door for a long one this morning. I opted instead for just a short one and then let the weather warm up before a longer one this afternoon. I was feeling awesome at the start but made a decision to keep things under wraps for this one, just stretch out the legs and put in miles. Felt good going around the Science Museum, thought about extending the run but decided against it. My legs weren't feeling as good heading back towards Mass Ave, but I threw in a pick up from Boylston to Clearway and then a short stride on Clearway before stretching out pretty well. Now that classes are over it's time to start focusing on the little things again. | 5 |
| Sunday | Arboretum. I woke up at 8:30am and was starving, so I got some breakfast and took off at 10:30. I was feeling decent today, nothing too awesome though. I kept things slow, was a little bit heavy-footed at the start and my legs loosened up along the Riverway. I got to the Arboretum in 33:00 and it was pretty crowded, a lot of people out enjoying the weather, I guess. I kept things under control the whole way, ran the usual route in 30:00 and it was surprisingly dry in the Arboretum. Feeling pretty good when I left, kept things slow on the way home though. Ran 31:00 home, probably should have stopped at Olmsted to use the Port-A-John but I made it home just fine. My calves started getting fatigued around 78 minutes, just before Brookline Ave, so I picked up the pace a little bit and they loosened up. I finished quickly from the Boston Conservatory back home, my legs were feeling pretty good but I didn't really get them turned over at all. Hopefully today was a step in the right direction. | 14 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 24 5/14-5/20 |
This was an okay week, I think I started feeling the effects of the past two weeks though. Had to deal with the rain at the start of the week, thankfully that subsided rather quickly. The weather finally started warming up, it actually feels like spring now. Didn't get in any good long runs and Wednesday's workout was a lot rougher than I would have liked. At least I managed to keep the mileage pretty high throughout the week. I've got a week to pull out of this downswing before the 5k at High Performance. May Miles : 275 | 91 |
| Saturday | Southie. I headed down Huntington, through Copley and over to Berkeley, where I picked up Ocean, going backwards. I had to take a little detour to get under I-93, but after that I made my way over to Broadway and everything went fine from there. Instead of going up and over G Street, I stayed on Broadway as the letters kept increasing, all the way down to the beach. I picked up the boardwalk and took that over to the Fort and then ran along the breakers through the bay. The wind really started picking up then, and I wound up running into it for the next 20 minutes or so. I stuck along the Ocean past Carson Beach and out to the JFK library, then hit a Port-A-John by UMass-Boston before picking up Ocean again. I finished up nice and easy down Mass Ave. I was running pretty slow today, so I'm calling the 88 minutes 13M, even though I called this route 14M last time I ran it. After dropping a 6:01 at last night's festivities I was thinking that my legs might be a little trashed, but they didn't give me much of a problem. Running into the wind along the beach got pretty frustrating and killed the pace a bit, but my legs came back around once I started heading home. | 13 |
| Friday | Fresh Pond. Today was my day off, I thought I could use one after pressing so much to get the semester wrapped up. I spent most of today sitting around and reading and was going to get going about 3:30pm but got wrapped up in putting the finishing touches on my 6.863 project. The weather today was pretty odd, it started out okay then thunderstormed around noon and then went back and forth between sunny and cloudy the rest of the afternoon. I finally got out the door around 4:30 and my legs were actually feeling pretty good. I kept things pretty relaxed the whole way, just running easy and logging miles. After leaving the Pond I hit the same Port-A-John as earlier this week, which made things a lot more comfortable the rest of the way. The regular loop from campus would have been about 65 and I finished up the run in 78 minutes. A little bit short today but I think my legs could use a slightly lighter week. I haven't decided yet what I feel like running tomorrow, probably 12-13M again. I'd like to head out to the Arboretum, but I think I ought to give it some more time to dry out. I spent most of today's run contemplating whether or not I should run the Beer Mile tonight, still haven't made a decision. | 12 |
| Thursday | Docks plus Ollie. Holy hell I was tired today. I managed to drag myself out of bed this morning but wasn't feeling any more awake when I got out the door at 7:30. I was dragging ass from the start and figured it was going to be a long one, so I just made my peace with that and tried to find a pace which didn't hurt too much. My legs were pretty sore and tired today, and they didn't really loosen up ever. It's another day of nice weather though, temps in the mid 60s and sunny, so that made everything a little easier to deal with. I turned onto Summer Street at 38:00 to start the Ollie portion of the run, the Marine Industrial Park is a lot busier during the week, there were actually cars and people there this morning. I crept up L Street and turned onto Marine and somehow managed to climb up G Street, although I thought my head my explode for a few moments going around the Telegraph Hill monument. After a few minutes my legs went back to their regular tired, crummy feeling and that made things a little better. I ran the Ollie portion of the route in 26:30 and then headed to South Station and Downtown Crossing, both of which we very crowded. I hit the Common and then the Mall and crawled down to Hereford. When I turned off Comm Ave I made a conscious effort to pick up the pace, trying to finish somewhat quickly. I didn't build into a stride, but at least got my legs turned over a little bit. Today's the last day of classes, so my workload is going to shrink somewhat from now through September, so I need to start making an effort to head over to the Christian Science Plaza at the end of these runs and do some strides. I'm running out of excuses not to. | 13 |
| Wednesday PM | BAA Workout at Harvard. 2xMile Path 4:51, 4:55; 2x1600m 4:50, 4:54; 1xMile Path 5:04. Rest was 2:30-3:00-2:30-3:00 Jogged over to Harvard around 6pm and actually had a little time to stretch out once I got there. The group was myself, Alasdair, John Dudley, Levi Severson, Friedmann and Jim Dandeneau. We adjusted the start and the end of the mile path to avoid a stretch of bad mud and puddles, so we were starting 245m ahead of the normal line and finishing just past the normal start line. I got out feeling pretty well but Alasdair pulled ahead slightly on the stretch alongside Soldier's Field Road, I hit the gate by the turf field in 2:21 and started closing the gap on him. I caught back up by the parking lot and stayed relaxed as I pulled away slightly to the finish. I felt pretty good on the first one and was looking for more of the same on the next one. I got out in front this time and Alasdair seemed to be keying off of me. We hit the gate in 2:22 and I pulled ahead a little bit on the grass stretch just before th parking lot. He evened it up and we ran the last stretch together with him pulling away slightly. We all headed over to the track for the next part of the workout. I got out in 71 and was feeling pretty comfortable, but the pace slid from there and I split 71-2:23-3:36-4:50, so 71-72-73-74. I led the whole way, but Alasdair was sitting right behind me pretty much the whole way. I was really sucking wind after that interval but managed to get things put back together and was feeling okay at the start of the next mile. Jim went to the front and said he'd break the wind, which sounded good to me, but we came through in 69 which had me reeling a little bit. We backed way off after that and came through in 2:24 and 3:39 which is where Jim pulled off the track. I did my best to keep things together and moving forward, but I was really struggling over the final 300m. I honestly don't remember whether Alasdair went past me, but I have to belive he did. I somehow made my way over to the start of the final mile but my head was really out of it and my legs weren't feeling good at all. I got out well but pretty soon Jim, John and Alasdair were all in front of me and then they had a gap. I hit the gate in 2:27 which didn't make me feel better, and then put together a little surge lasting all of 5 seconds or so. I didn't close the gap at all, but at least it stopped growing and I managed to somehow make it through the parking lot and gutted out the finish, but wasn't running very fast at the end. Happy to just have it over with, I was doing well through the first 3 intervals today and then things started unravelling. It's a little disconcerting that I can't hold 4:50s right now, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it. Looking back at the past two weeks, I started things off with a 30:49 for 10k and then went on to run 101M that week, then hit a very good workout last Wednesday in the middle of a 95M week. That's a lot of volume and quality work, which I haven't done that much of recently. So I think it's just the past two weeks catching up with me, and I've been putting in a lot of effort to simply finish off the term. I talked with Mike a little bit about racing, the plan is to run the 5k at the Boston High Performance meet next Saturday (5/27) and then run the Rhody 5k a week after that. Those races are coming up pretty quickly and we're not going to try and sharpen me up at all, I'll just start running strides now that I'll have more time and that should get me enough leg speed to hit a decent time. I'm not overly concerned about being super fresh and trying to drop a huge PR, I'd rather focus on advancing fitness and possibly run a marginal PR now and set myself up for a larger PR (14:10-ish) at a later time (Valentine's next indoor or Cardinal in like 11 months.) I survival shuffled back home along the river, the stretch from BU-Mass Ave seemed a lot longer today than it usually does. I got home and stretched out a little bit before taking a shower as the DiGiorno pizza cooked. Not the greatest day, but I'm sure it served a purpose. | 11 |
| Wednesday AM | Orange Line. Finally had good weather to run, I got out the door around 7:30 this morning but wasn't feeling all that great. I was really tired when I woke up and it carried over into the run. I managed to get through the run without any problems, but I've definitely felt better. | 4 |
| Tuesday | Reservoir backwards, with an extra loop around the Reservoir. I was pretty tired this morning and didn't feel like running right away, so I waited until 3pm or so to take off. As I was heading through Kenmore I decided to run this sucker backwards, so I took Beacon all the way out to the Reservoir. Felt okay, my legs weren't all that good and I was running pretty easy, but at least I was dry. When I got to the Reservoir it started raining, actually raining pretty hard, which wasn't a whole lot of fun. Going around the Reservoir, I ran into a pair of geese with 5 or 6 goslings on the path and both geese started hissing at me so I stopped running and waited for them to get out of the way. As they were walking off the path and towards the water I tried to start running again but one of them just kept hissing at me. I eventually made a break for it and went as wide around them as I could without falling down the hill and the goose took a step or two towards me but things didn't escalate from there. The next time around they were off the path and one goose was in the water chasing off a different goose, so I managed to sneak by without incident. I started slowing down after leaving the Res, I climbed up Summit decently, but then started suffering some GI issues and wound up struggle catting home. Today started off okay but the rain really ticked me off and things really went downhill over the last 20-30 minutes of the run. | 13 |
| Monday PM | Orange Line. I got home from campus around 5pm and headed out for a quick shakeout around 5:30 this afternoon. I was feeling okay and kept the pace easy the whole way. The rain had actually stopped so it didn't feel as cold during the run and it was actually an enjoyable run. I finished up with a quick little stride down Clearway and called it a day. | 4 |
| Monday AM | Ocean from MIT. My bike is still on campus so I got a ride across the bridge with Kathryn this morning and ran from the lockerroom. I got rolling about 7:30 this morning, 50 degree temps and more rain. It was really pouring when I got started and I was drenched before I even got to Mem Drive. I felt like I was running pretty quick at the start, but that might have just been because of the conditions. Nolan always said you feel like you're running faster in the dark and in the rain, which seems to be pretty true. Thankfully the rain died down after just a few minutes and the conditions weren't too bad the rest of the way. I was warmer for this one that I have been the past few days, it's nice to get back and not have your hands and forearms numb. About the time I got to the JFK/UMass stop, 25:00 into the run, my legs started getting tired and sore, so the pace slowed a little bit. I hammered G street though, but then went back to an easier jog the rest of the way back to MIT. I was feeling pretty good this morning and actually enjoyed the run, despite the fact that it has now rained for 3 days straight. The only bad parts of today were running across the Mass Ave bridge. I skipped strides and just stretched out briefly before hitting the shower to warm up. | 9 |
| Sunday | Fresh Pond, around the Pond. It's been raining for about two or three days straight now, I woke up to 47 degree temps and steady rain and just couldn't make myself get out the door. I got a lot of work done this morning and ran some errands in the afternoon with Kathryn and finally got out the door just before 5pm. I didn't have any good ideas on where to go, and wasn't that motivated to go long, it was still 47 degrees and raining. I just headed across the bridge, which wasn't any fun, and followed Mem Drive up to Harvard. Surprisingly the road and the sidewalk wasn't that flooded, although I was wet enough that running through puddles didn't really matter. Going around the Pond was surprisingly dry, until I got to the far side just before the Sunoco where I got to wade through ankle deep puddles. I took a much needed pit stop at a Port-A-John in that athletic field across from the water treatment plant and then headed back home. Things were pretty relaxed the whole way today, but I finished up in 75:00, so I must have been hitting a decent pace the whole way. | 12 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 23 5/7-5/13 |
I was pretty happy with how things went this week. I wasn't really looking for a lot of mileage this week because I'm pretty busy as the term winds down. I got off to a slow start on Sunday and Monday, but then put in a nice and relaxed fourteen miler on Tuesday which kept my legs fresh for a great workout on Wednesday night. Surprisingly that workout didn't really put me in a hole at all and I was able to crank up the mileage for the rest of the week. Things were a bit more relaxed this week than they were last week, but Saturday's run was really great and a good way to finish off the week. I've got one more week of school, so next week will probably be more of the same, just getting what I can, and then I'll start thinking about racing. May Miles : 184 | 95 |
| Saturday | Minuteman Bike Trail. I had to get up early to move Kathryn's car before 8am, so I just took off in the rain after doing that, I was out the door just after 8 this morning. It was about 50 degrees and raining, so wearing a shirt wouldn't have helped anything, but it took me about 15 minutes to get used to being hit by the cold rain. Crossing the bridge was probably the worst part, the rain was coming down sideways and making my right side numb. I kept things pretty relaxed on the way to the trail, I was feeling good at the start and decided to hammer the stretch along the trail. I got to the trail in 34:00 and then started turning my legs over. I ran 5:45-6:00 and then went 2:55 out and came back for a 5:53, then ran 5:53-5:33 on the way home. The traffic was light enough that I cut straight across Mass Ave instead of going up to the light on the second mile, but it still seems long. My legs were feeling great, I was relaxed the whole way along the trail but still was running pretty quick. I quit hammering on the way home, but kept the pace steady and quicker than on the way out. I stopped to use the Port-A-John at St. Peter's Field just a few minutes from the trail. I got home in 31:00 to finish off a great run this morning. I was soaked and pretty cold when I got home, so I briefly stretched out before jumping in the shower. | 15 |
| Friday | Extended Reservoir. At first I was thinking Arboretum, but I've run that so often that I thought I'd find something new. I got out the door just after 7am and headed up Commonwealth. I haven't been out to the Reservoir that much recently, so I thought that would be a good choice. I felt pretty good going up Summit, but wasn't really hammering. There was a lot of fog at the Reservoir, you couldn't see more than 50m across the water. I ran two laps around the Res before heading home down Beacon. I climbed up the long side of Summit in just under 3:00, that hill is a lot steeper than I remember it being. I clearly need more hill work before cross season, thankfully that's still a few months away. I stayed pretty relaxed the rest of the way home, finishing up right around 90 minutes. Pretty good run this morning. | 14 |
| Thursday PM | BU plus Grass Loop. Originally my plan was to run a couple grass loops before meeting the guys who are racing on Saturday for a short easy run, but plans changed because I had to get the car from Kathryn so I could pick up Ashley from Logan tonight. I managed to get back to campus just after 4pm and caught the guys just before they left. We ran a BU loop, the guys were pretty chipper and we got moving near the end of the run. They went over to the track and I added on a grass loop. My legs were a little bit tired and I wasn't that motivated, so I cut it short after just one loop instead of bumping the run up another couple miles. | 4 |
| Thursday AM | Docks. I felt fine this morning, surprisingly. I didn't want a long run because I'm planning on running with the MIT guys in the afternoon. Nothing much happened over the course of the run, just put in some mileage. | 9 |
| Wednesday PM | BAA Workout, 2.5M, 1600, 2x800, 400 in 12:33; 4:42; 2:17, 18; 64. Rest was 7:00 after the 2.5M, 3:00 after the mile and 2:00 after the halves. I warmed up along the river to Harvard, got a late start and ran kind of slow on the way there, everybody was heading over to the river when I got out of the Port-A-John. The plan was originally 2k-Mile Path-2k-Mile Path-800, but the only guys who were there were the guys running the 25k championships on May 25, so I jumped in there workout instead of running alone. Alasdair did the same thing, so even though most guys were running 5:05-5:10 pace getting ready for the race, the two of us got rolling. I was feeling pretty good, so after a minute or two of running next to Matt Ely I started turning my legs over and went to the front. Alasdair and I started pulling away, we crossed the bridge in about 4:50 and then ran side by side down to the American Legion. I felt like I was running pretty hard, occasionally Alasdair would sped up and get a step ahead but I was able to get back right away. Through the parking lot and over Elliot I started pulling away a little bit and kept it steady from Elliot back to the end. I started off the mile thinking that hitting 72s would be good, but I got out pretty quick, 33 for the first 200, and came through in 70-2:22 and was feeling good, so I kept hammering and hit 3:33 at 1200 and Alasdair came up next to me going around the corner. We started moving, I was working pretty hard and struggling to keep up with him, but then I started relaxing and stopped forcing things and things started coming a lot easier. The 800s went really well, the mile and the 800s were the best part of the workout for me. I got out in 33-34 typically and came through right around 68 both times. I got to 600m right around 1:43 and didn't cut things loose over the final 200m. Each time Alasdair came up next to me over the final hundred meters and we finished together. I got out really well on the 400, coming through in 31 and then holding on to hit 64. Alasdair didn't run the 400, but I'm sure he would have wound up ahead of me on it. I felt pretty good today, I was comfortable and relaxed the whole time. Talking to Mike Pieroni afterwards he said that I looked a lot smoother tonight, which is how I felt and I think a good sign. I think skipping the workout last week helped and also I kept things easy on Monday and Tuesday. Mike and I chatted in general about plans for racing, I'm going to focus on finishing off the term for the next week and then get in a 5k in late May/early June, probably at one of the High Performance meets. | 11 |
| Wednesday AM | Orange Line plus a lap around the Common. I got going kind of early this morning and was feeling really good. I regretted having to go to the workout tonight because my legs were so fresh that I felt like hammering. I managed to pull back on the reins though, but added on an extra lap around the Common to get a little bit of extra mileage. | 5 |
| Tuesday | Arboretum. I took off just after 11:30 this morning, the skies were clouded over all morning and temps were cool, right around 50 degrees. It started raining a few minutes after I got started, just a steady mist at first and then picking up gradually over the course of the run to a drizzle. I did my best to keep things under wraps today, just putting in some easy miles and hopefully my legs will feel good for the workout tomorrow night. I was feeling really good at the start and it was really tempting to hammer, given the rain, cool temps and fresh legs things were really set up to cut loose but I exhibited some restraint and kept things slow the whole way. Got to the Arboretum in 32:45, ran around in there for 30:00 and then headed home in 33:00. I'm thinking that it's probably about time to find a new route in the Arboretum, I've been running the same loop for months now. I felt relaxed for the first hour or so, but on the way back my legs started feeling tired, which I didn't want to happen. I tired to stress running easy and relaxed, instead of running slow, which felt like it was helping. I was trying to float through the mileage today, not necessarily run the mileage slow. Sometimes it feels that forcing a slow pace makes my legs feel worse than just gliding along at the pace my legs choose. Did not expect to get home from a run in May with my hands and forearms cold and numb, but the cold rain definitely took care of that. I feel like I accomplished what I wanted today, just put in some miles and hopefully didn't take that much out of my legs while doing it. We'll find out tomorrow how well it worked, I suppose. | 14 |
| Monday | Castle-Bunker Hill. Got rolling right at 8am this morning, decided to just toss in an easy 10 miler instead of heading over to Fresh Pond like I originally planned. I kept things pretty much under wraps the whole way, climbing Bunker Hill was a decent effort, but I didn't drop the hammer at all today. They have the Monument fenced off right now, I guess they're doing some repairs and it will be closed May 1 through September 1. Once I got back downtown the pace slowed down some more and the stretch down Comm Ave was basically just a cool down. I was planning on tacking on a shorter run in the afternoon, but I was pretty tired when I got back from classes today, so I opted out. Only 2 more weeks of classes, thankfully. | 10 |
| Sunday | Docks plus Ollie. Woke up not really feeling like running and then got wrapped up in chores and work and didn't get out the door until 4pm or so. I was feeling a little tired from the long week so I just kept the pace nice and relaxed and headed down to the Harbor then picked up the Ollie course at Summer Street, taking that to L Street then down to the Ocean, over to G and then Broadway back to L Street. I ran the Docks part of the run in 60-flat, so I was on the normal pace there despite feeling like I was relaxed and running slow. The Ollie course added on 26 minutes, which was a little bit longer than I expected it to be, I'm wondering if I've forgotten the course, but I can't find a map of the course online right now. | 13 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 22 4/30-5/6 |
I finally managed to get myself back into the triple digits, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to hold it. Got the week off to a decent start with my race on Sunday, a little slower than I was hoping for and a tactical mistake, but at least it was a solid run. Then I managed to lock into a routine of some long, steady mileage for the rest of the week and surprisingly was able to keep it up all week. I haven't been doing a good job recently of forcing myself to run long, I normally convince myself to cut things short. But I managed to stay with it through the whole week and it showed in the total. I even managed to put in a really good 18 miler along the river on Thursday, which is the longest I've run in quite some time and something I need to start getting back to on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. I skipped the workout this week because of Red Sox tickets and also to just give myself a break from all the racing and track work I've been doing the past few weeks. I'd like to say that I'll be keeping up the triple digit pace, but there's only 2 weeks left in the semester and I've got a whole lot of work left to do, so we'll see how much running I'm able to do. May Miles : 089 | 101 |
| Saturday | Arboretum. I woke up at 7:30 this morning and was out the door by 8am. I forgot to bring my watch, but it felt like a pretty standard run, I wasn't trying to force a quick pace at all, just finishing off the week by running how my legs felt. The sun was up and the temps were in the high 60s, which made for a very enjoyable run. Through the Arboretum my legs were feeling okay, I didn't attack the hills and I didn't run them all that great, but I feel like it wasn't as bad as it was last time. Coming back home my legs got a little more tired and the last part through the Fens got a little rough, but I was able to get through it and don't feel like I slowed down that much. I didn't worry too much about it, I was just trying to get home and finish off the run and the week. | 14 |
| Friday PM | Orange Line with Kathryn. I came home from school around 5pm and Kathryn and I managed to squeeze in a 4 miler before heading out to dinner with some old guys I went to school with a long time ago. I was feeling alright, better than I was this morning, we kept the pace relaxed and it was a good shakeout. | 4 |
| Friday AM | Reservoir plus Summit. I got out the door just before 8am today, my legs were pretty tired and I was feeling run down, it's gotta be from yesterday, even though I slept about 7 hours last night. I started out trying to force a good pace, but that didn't work too well and I pretty much wound up running how my legs felt for most of the run. I felt pretty good climbing Summit, mainly because I made a point of focusing on the climb. The rest of the hills didn't go as well. Coming back down Beacon I gradually started feeling better and then picked up the pace for the last 15 minutes or so, basically from Coolidge Corner back home. I guess I wasn't running quite as slow through the middle part as I thought because I managed to finish up in 66:00 today, which I think is a minute or two quicker than normal. Not a great run this morning, but by the end of it I really felt like I had recovered from yesterday's long run. | 11 |
| Thursday | Science-Watertown. I got out the door a little before 2pm this afternoon, temps were nearly 70 degrees and I almost immediately regretted wearing a black shirt, even if it was one of those high-tech mesh ones. I managed to convince myself that I needed a long run, I haven't gone this far in quite a long time and feel like it could really help me advance my fitness at this point. And this week is all about long steady mileage, so I figured a good long run fits right into that plan. I got to the river in 4:00 and then started making sure that I was keeping the pace honest. I didn't work too hard down to Science and back to MIT, but once I got past BU I started making a little bit more of an effort to keep my legs turning over. I was concerned about my stomach, I haven't been able to figure out how to set myself up for a good midday run yet. Just before Eliot I made a wise decision to cross Mem Drive and stop at Mt. Auburn Hospital for a pit stop. I was about 45 minutes into the run and felt like I was finding a good rhythm so I didn't really want to stop, but I knew I needed to. When I got back to the river I noticed a bunch of Port-A-Johns by Eliot, but they were all locked, so the hospital was a good choice. I kept things quick but steady all the way out to Watertown and made the turn at 64:00. I was feeling good then and planned to start picking it up, but my legs all of the sudden got pretty tired by the boathouse/ice rink before N. Beacon St. and the pace sagged a little bit. I started feeling better when I got to Arsenal though, I got there in 1:18, so 14:00 for the stretch from Watertown to Arsenal, which the mileage chart says is 2.28M which means 6:08 pace so maybe the pace didn't slack so much. I felt great heading back towards Eliot, but I was already at 82:00 and realized that averaging 6:00 pace for the river stretch wasn't going to happen. I crossed JFK at 89 minutes, so I knew I needed 17:00 back home to hit 1:46, which is about 6:15 pace. Right about Weeks footbridge is where the wheels first started coming off. It wasn't so much that I was falling apart as I was just getting pretty tired and keeping up the pace was getting harder and harder. I got stuck at the lights at River Street and Western Ave, so that gave me some time to rest and regroup and then I managed to bring things back around for the last stretch past BU and back to Mass Ave. I wound up running the 17.1M along the river in 1:46.12, just sneaking under 6:15 pace. I was pretty exhausted by the end of it and contemplated cutting it off there and walking up Mass Ave to my apartment, but decided it would be quicker to just survival shuffle, so I tacked on another 4:00 back from the river. I was pretty happy with how things went today, my first serious long run in quite some time, since January 24. I was pretty quick on the Cambridge side, despite having to take a pitstop, I was not expecting to make the turn in 64, putting that time in the bank really paid off. I did manage to keep things together decently well through the end of the run, but I was definitely slowing from JFK back to Mass Ave. Pretty good time today, quicker than any of the post-collegiate times I've run it (I'm too lazy to go back through all of my logs and figure out my PR.) Thankfully the sun disappeared behind some clouds for the second half of the run, but I still came home and drank a bunch of water while stretching/lying on the floor. Posting an 18M day certainly helps bump up the mileage total, hopefully I can finish this week off well. | 18 |
| Wednesday | Arboretum. I managed to get rolling pretty early today and my legs were feeling pretty good. For some reason I was slow on the way out, I hit Huntington in 18 and got to the Pond in 24 and then to the Arboretum in 31:45. I think it just took me awhile to get into it, because by the time I hit the Pond I was moving pretty good and kept the pace strong through the Arboretum. I wasn't quite hammering today but I did force the pace through most of the run. I ran the Arboretum in 27:45, but still struggled up the hills on the second half of the loop. I guess that's not such a big deal right now, but without being able to run Lapham this summer I'll have to remember to make a point of throwing in a Summit Ave or Big Green Hill workout occasionally. I kept my legs moving all the way home, hitting 7:45 to the Pond and 13:20 to Huntington, which is pretty much what I was on the way out, so I must have been slow to Huntington at the start of the run. I backed off a little near the end today, instead of really hammering through the Fens, but still wound up running right around 30:00. I've been doing a good job of hitting solid distance runs this week, hopefully I can keep things going for another few days. The weather was still cold and wet, I'm hoping that they don't cancel the Sox game since I've got Monster seats for tonight. Yesterday's game against the Yanks got rained out, I think the right move would be to push Beckett back to today, and move Clement's start back a day and just skip over DiNardo. That would mean Beckett v. Halladay tonight. | 14 |
| Tuesday | Mass Ave-Arsenal then Orange Line backwards, sort of. I worked from home today and didn't get out the door until about 2pm. I was originally planning on going Science-Watertown, but wasn't quite up for it so started out thinking Mass Ave-Watertown. Great New England spring weather, temps were 42 degrees when I woke up and it warmed up all the way to 45 by the time I got going. A cold rain was coming down too and crossing the bridge wasn't much fun, but the rain more or less subsided to a mist and it wasn't a big issue. After going past Elliot I started wishing I had stopped at Mt. Auburn to use the bathroom, and noticed that there was a Port-A-John across the river. I crossed at Arsenal and then planned on Arsenal-Science for 15M. Unfortunately, the gate to the garden where the Port-A-John is was locked, so I ran up by the Publick Theater and found a Port-A-John there. Heading back past Harvard I decided that a better route would be to get back to Mass Ave and then run Orange Line backwards. Things started picking up after the pit stop and I managed to keep the pace pretty honest back to Mass Ave. Heading down Comm Ave to the Common my legs started getting tired and I think the pace started slowing. After getting through the Common my stomach started acting up again, so I cut the route short. I took Stuart Street straight to Huntington instead of heading up to Orange Line. Pretty disappointed in how things turned out with this one, I managed to get a couple good miles in but on the whole the run didn't go so well. | 14 |
| Monday PM | Fens-Riverway. I got home from class and Kathryn and I took off for a quick little shakeout. My legs were pretty good for the first 2M, we turned around at Brookline and stopped to stretch out a bit and then my hip tightened up. It eventually loosened up but ached off and on the rest of the way. Otherwise everything was fine, I'm not really sore at all from Sunday's race, which is encouraging. | 4 |
| Monday AM | Castle-Bunker Hill. Got going a little later than planned and figured the road around Fresh Pond would most likely be closed so I opted for Castle-Bunker Hill for a quick 10M. I kept the pace pretty honest today, I think that's going to be the strategy for this whole week. I've had three straight weeks with BAA workouts and now a 5k and 10k in two successive weekends, so I think this week is going to be more of a mileage-oriented week. Not to mention that I have Moster Seats for Wednesday's game against the Jays, which conflicts with the BAA workout anyways. I felt pretty good the whole way, I wasn't hammering at all today, but I wasn't just running how my legs felt, either. I did my best to keep the pace quick the whole way. | 10 |
| Sunday | James Joyce Ramble, 2nd place in 30:49. I drove out to Dedham and got to the Endicott Estate just before 10am. I wound up parking about half a mile away because there weren't any signs showing where the parking lot was. I couldn't find any of the other BAA guys beforehand so I just warmed up alone, straight down East Street, basically the first and last mile of the course. I was feeling pretty good after my right hip loosened up, got back and stretched out while waiting for a Port-A-John. I had plenty of time to stretch out and lace up my shoes before the start of the race, got to the starting line and met up with Matt Ely, Oscar Ponce and Wayne Levy. They rang the gong to start the race without much warning, I was still jumping around trying to stay loose when the race started. I tucked right in behind Ely for the first mile, he cautioned that the first mile would be really quick, so I figured since he was out front we'd come through in good shape. We hit the first mile in 4:44, just Ely, myself, Dylan Wykes and Tommy Greenless. The next mile was rolling and we backed off a little bit. I took the lead climbing up a short hill just before 2M (9:48), but Wykes and Greenless went past at the 2M mark and I decided to just hold steady through 3M. I managed to reel in Greenless just before 3M (14:48) and then clipped off 3 more 5:00 miles trying to bring Wykes back but wasn't able to do it. I closed the gap slightly around 5.5M but it was too little too late. I wound up with blood on the toe of my right shoe, but it looked a lot worse than it actually was. A small blister on the big toe of my right foot opened up a little bit. The way the bottom of my foot was feeling towards the end I was afraid it would be a lot worse. I headed through the parking lot on my cooldown and ran into Ely so we cooled down about 4M together. Oscar dropped out between 1M and 2M, apparently, so we cooled down without him. We mainly just wound around some random Dedham roads before making our way back to the Endicott House and getting some pasta. I wound up spending another couple hours waiting around for the awards ceremony before finally being able to take off and head home. I thought the race went pretty well today, my tactics didn't work out so well but given how I felt at the end I think I could have run a bit quicker. Probably should have moved with the two guys at 2M when they made that break, because Wykes never came back and wound up running 30:37, staying pretty much 10-20s ahead of me the whole way. April Miles : 347 | 12 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 21 4/23-4/29 |
It's nice to be back to some high mileage weeks again. This week could have been a little bit higher but Saturday kind of got away from me. I finally got back to running doubles, that makes the mileage pursuit a lot easier. Put in some decent mileage days and a pretty solid workout on Wednesday. I thought the workout could have gone a little better, the miles felt a little too relaxed but I wasn't really able to hammer that much. Just the one hard effor this week, but there's a 10k race coming up on Sunday, and then I think I'm going to back off a little bit. April Miles : 335 | 94 |
| Saturday | Jamaica in 56+. I woke up around 8:45 this morning and was starving so I ate some breakfast and started doing some homework and then wound up running errands the rest of the morning and watching the end of the NEWMAC meet at MIT. By the time I got home and got ready to run it was 5:30pm and I had plans to go to dinner at 7, so I could only squeeze in a nine miler. I kept things nice and easy the whole way, my right hip ached for the first few minutes but then subsided and didn't bother me the rest of the run. My legs felt great the whole time, the easy pace was effortless, the weather was great and I was just stretching my legs and enjoying the run. Didn't have any time to stretch or run strides, hopefully I'll be okay for tomorrow. | 9 |
| Friday | Arboretum. I took off at 7:30 this morning and my legs were feeling pretty good. I kept what I thought was a consistent pace on the way out, hit all the usual trails and thought things were going fine until I got to the Arboretum in an all time worst 33:00. Once in the Arboretum I hit the usual loop and my legs started feeling a little worse, especially as I was heading back towards the gate some of the hills really took it out of me. My legs started feeling pretty tired right around 50-60 minutes into the run, but I still had half an hour to go. I stopped to stretch and let my stomach settle before leaving the Arboretum, I spent 31:00 running that loop, about 2 minutes slower than normal. The run home went by pretty quickly but didn't actually go any faster. I've got the run back broken up into a small pieces and all the pieces went by pretty quickly until I hit the Fens. Just a little bit before the MFA my legs really started getting tired, but I somehow managed to stay focused and the pace didn't slip too much. I wound up coming home in 33:00, so today was just an all-around slow day. I'm not too concerned about it though, because an easy day will probably help me and I wasn't trying to really push the pace at all, so it is what it is. | 14 |
| Thursday PM | Old-school Castle-Bunker Hill, backwards with Fivos. We met in the lockerroom at 4PM for the run today and started out in a fairly large group, everybody but Fivos and myself wanted short mileage along the river, so we headed down towards Science Museum with some of them and then kept going across O'Brien to Bunker Hill Community College. We ran to the Monument next then up and over Bunker Hill and then to Castle and headed home. My legs were feeling pretty good but we kept it really relaxed the whole way. Fivos seems to be feeling a lot better this week so we talked about the rest of his season, his goals and stuff. Got back to the track in 48, I messed up my watch so that's according to Fivos. I guess we were somewhere between 7 and 8M, so I'll be conservative and round down. Felt decent running some strides and then stretched out on the track for a little bit. The sun was out but the wind kept things cold so I didn't hang around for too long afterwards. | 7 |
| Thursday AM | Fens-Riverway. I procrastinated a lot this morning, which resulted in me leaving at almost 8:30. Temps were on the cool side, just mid 40s, but the sun was up so it wasn't much of an issue. I jogged down to the Boylston St. mailbox and was originally thinking river, but decided that would be boring and I wanted to check out Little Steve's since they haven't answered the phone the past two times I tried to order a pizza. Jogging past it looked as if they're remodeling, hopefully they haven't closed because they're really the best deal around. Anyways, I hit the Emerald Necklace for a short one this morning since I'm planning on running with the guys this afternoon. My legs weren't doing too badly, which I was kind of surprised at. I wasn't running very fast but I didn't have any problem keeping my legs moving and they weren't stiff or sore at all. I was expecting that running those 400s would have tightened me up a little bit, but it didn't really have much of an effect. Hopefully this feeling good stuff will continue. | 5 |
| Wednesday PM | 4x(Dirt mile-400-400) in 4:53, 66, 66; 4:50, 66, 66; 4:54, 67, 67; 4:55, 66, 65. Took 2:00 rest after the miles, 1:00 between 400s and 2:00 between sets. I was hoping for good things on this one since I went with the throwback lunch of LaVerde's Chicken Cutlet and pretzels. Of course, they were out of Snyder's Nuggets so I had to settle for the sub-par Snyder's Snaps and I'm cheap so I skipped the Gatorade and just drank water, so it wasn't a full throwback lunch. I warmed up over to Harvard along the river, but got started a little late so I got to Harvard with just enough time to use the Port-A-John and head over to the starting line. I kept things a little relaxed at the start of the first one because I didn't feel warmed up at all, I hadn't run any strides or stretched at all. I settled in next to John Dudley a few strides behind Oscar and Alasdair. As we headed past the turf field and turned right towards the parking lot we reeled in Oscar and finished up in a pretty big group. I settled in behind Oscar at the start of the first 400 and got out in 33 and felt pretty comfortable the whole way, finished about a second behind Oscar. After the rest we found out that only Matt Ely, Jason Bialka and myself were running the full workout, so the three of us lined up and took off. Same deal, through 200m just over 33 and then sped up a little bit coming down the homestretch. Everybody was back together for the next mile and I got out a little bit harder and was leading along Storrow, running next to Alasdair. He's like a cross between Roach, because his legs are pretty long, and Monty, because he seems to be up on his toes all the time. Running next to him made me feel short and slow, because I felt like I was working pretty hard and he was just effortlessly bouncing along. I could tell that he was definitely holding back a little bit, but he still had no problem keeping up. He gapped me a little by the turf field, but I managed to reel him back in and we hit the parking lot together. I felt Oscar sneaking up on us with his kick, but I managed to stay next to him as we crossed the finish. On the second set of 400s, Oscar and I started out hammering the first one, came through in 31high and then I backed off the rest of the way. That was the end of Oscar's workout (he just ran 30:54 out in Oregon on Saturday) and Jason wasn't running that set of 400s, so it was just Ely and myself for the second 400. I led the whole way, running 33-high and then hammering the homestretch a little bit. I led pretty much the whole mile, Alasdair was jogging next to me but didn't get ahead of me like he did last time. I don't know any splits to check on that loop, but we got to the gate in 1:24. Jason offered to lead the first 400 and I was happy to let him do so, we came through in about 34 so I swung wide and tried to pick things up, but wasn't able to speed up that much. We all pretty much finished together on that one. I led the next 400 and after coming through in 33-high we all hit the homestretch and finished pretty much all together again. For the last mile it was just JB, Ely and myself. I led the whole way but didn't really get a gap at all, we were all pretty much hanging together the whole time. We hit the gate in 1:26, so a little slower than #3. On the track, Ely led the first 400 and we came through in 33 high and I got up next to him around the curve and pulled away over the last 50m. I finally felt like my legs were getting tired, my legs got a little wobbly after finishing. On the last 400 JB led the whole way and pretty much dusted us. I was never really close to him after the first curve, he must have been low 64 and I went 33-32. Another solid effort tonight, I would have liked to run the miles all 5-10 seconds faster since two weeks ago I ran 4:44-4:448-4:51 on the dirt mile, I just wasn't able to push myself that much. The wind was in our faces most of the way but it wasn't slowing us down all that often, definitely not 5-10 seconds per mile. Near the end of the workout I was starting to feel like I had been pushing myself, all in all I think tonight went well and my legs won't be completely trashed for Sunday. I'm not looking to be fresh or rested at all, I'm approaching it more as just a workout/tempo, but it would still be nice to feel good. After stretching out a little on the track, talking about Sunday with Pieroni, JB and Oscar and formally meeting Alasdair, I headed home along the river. I must have been running pretty slow on my cooldown because even though it took me just 21 minutes to get to the track, the return trip took about 24. I got home and stretched out a little while eating an orange, then wound up ordering a pizza from Sicilia's because Little Steve's wasn't answering the phone. | 12 |
| Wednesday AM | Orange Line. I again waited until just before 8am to get out the door, but I wasn't quite as tired this morning as I was yesterday. I spent a few minutes looking for my gloves because it was about 40 degrees outside, but couldn't find them so I just manned up for the four miler. It took me a little while to get loosened up and into the run, but my legs weren't feeling so horrible this morning. I got to Arlington and was half expecting my legs to leave me, but I managed to make it through okay. My legs were feeling a little tired as I ran down the mall, but I threw in a stride down Clearway and actually felt really good. Kept it short this morning like most Wednesdays, because of the workout tonight. It's 4X(dirt mile-400-400), something closer to what I'm used to. My diet's been pretty good recently, lots of fruits and vegetables and a big plate of pasta last night, so hopefully that will help me come out of this recent downswing. | 4 |
| Tuesday PM | Orange Line. I headed out for a quick run around 5:30 this afternoon, the skies had clouded over but it was still warm and pretty nice spring weather. I was feeling really good at the start and debated hammering the whole way, but decided to be smart and just keep it nice and steady. Nothing much happened during the start of the run, but after getting stopped at Arlington and Comm Ave my legs became incredibly tired. I was feeling fine, then had to stop for traffic and when I started up again my calves were really tired and I was dragging ass down Comm Ave. I have no idea why something like that would happen, but it really ruined the rest of the run, because running on tired legs like that isn't any fun. Hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow. | 4 |
| Tuesday AM | Docks. I wasted some time this morning and didn't get going until almost 8. The sun was pretty high up in the sky and there weren't any clouds, so even though the temps were just at 50 it was a lot more enjoyable than yesterday. I decided not to bring my watch today, trying to just keep things easy and relaxed the whole way. After crossing Mem Drive heading towards Longfellow my keys hit my calf, which is when I realized there's a hole in the key pocket of my shorts, so I stopped and laced the keys in my shoes. I had the pleasure then of hearing my keys click the rest of the way. The only other real excitement was the firetrucks parked outside the Aquarium with their sirens going and some firefighters were hosing down the pier. The whole run was pretty steady today, not quite as slow as I had hoped for, but it was just nice to not be running on tired legs anymore. | 9 |
| Monday PM | Orange Line. I got back from class around 4:30pm but didn't get out the door for this one until 5:30. My legs were really killing me and I had almost convinced myself that it wasn't worth it, but the high mileage demons won out and I laced 'em up for a short one. I figured that even though I'm in a little bit of a downswing I need to keep plugging away, anybody can put in miles when they're feeling good, working hard when you're feeling bad, that's a lot harder. The run itself was boring and uneventful, my legs never loosened up and the whole thing felt longer than it really was. Maybe if the sky wasn't gray all day I'd be a little more excited. | 4 |
| Monday AM | Fresh Pond. Temps were pretty low this morning and it looked like rain so I found a few ways to waste time until 8am. I took off and it was still mid 40s, so it was tshirt and gloves for me. I felt pretty good actually, but tried to make sure I didn't do anything crazy pace wise. It actually wasn't that hard to keep things under control, because even though I was feeling good I wasn't really able to get any turnover at all. I was actually able to go all the way around the Pond, they didn't have the road blocked off like I expected, but I messed up the watch so I have no clue where I was at timewise. If anything I was slow this morning. I don't know why my legs have been so heavy lately, I was exhausted when I woke up this morning and really have been dragging ass since last Wednesday's workout. I slowed down from about Central Square home and skipped out on strides because I was having some GI issues. I think that my workload should diminish a little bit over the course of the week, so I should theoretically have some more time for the little things that I've been neglecting. I really need to make an effort to get some strides in. | 12 |
| Sunday | Arboretum. As usual I went to bed full and woke up hungry, so I had a little breakfast at 9am and got out the door around 11. It had been raining off and on and temps were in the upper 40s, which was actually pretty great weather for running. My legs were still pretty sore from yesterday, I didn't do the greatest job cooling down, so I kept it relaxed and easy the whole way. I dropped off a movie at Blockbuster at the start so I took a different route to the Fens and followed the standard route along the Emerald Necklace to the Arboretum, in just over 32 minutes. I spent 30 minutes running the usual Arb loop, I noticed that I was really bad at running the hills, maybe just because my legs were sore but it might help to do stress hills a little more. Nothing much happened on the run today, made in back in about 31:00, today was just a decent, relaxed long run. I should probably start making an effort to add strides at the end of these runs and make an effort to stretch out a little better, also. | 14 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 20 4/16-4/22 |
The week got off to a good start but Tuesday got pretty screwed up because of work and the mileage took a bit of a hit. Sunday was a solid long run and it was good to come right back at it the next day with another long run. I thought that Wednesday's workout at Harvard went pretty well too, the times were a bit slow because of the wind but it was still a decent effort. I think that I need to try and get a little more out of those workouts though. My legs were pretty trashed on Thursday and Friday, but I recovered well enough for Saturday's race. The race was a pretty hard effort but going out too fast on the first lap basically killed my legs and any shot of a decent time. I think I'm in pretty decent shape at this point, hopefully I can find someway to get over the hump and bump the mileage up another 10M. April Miles : 241 | 86 |
| Saturday | 5k at MIT Spring Invite in 14:56.54. Kathryn and I drove over to Steinbrenner around noon and got there just in time to watch the steeple. I immediately started regretting not bringing a hat and gloves, because temps were in the 40s and the wind made it even worse. We sat in the stands watching the meet for a few hours then went and sat in the car to warm up for a little bit before the 800s. The 5k was scheduled for 3:00 with the women running first, so I started my warmup at 2:30 and jogged the usual loop with Kathryn. I got back to the track and realized the meet was horrendously behind schedule and I had warmed up about an hour too soon. So I just went to the corner of the track, sat and stretched and talked with Kathryn and Sean until it got closer to the 5k. During the 200s Kathryn and I jogged a couple minutes on Briggs to get the blood flowing again and then I did the normal stretching and strides routine after that. I was feeling really good on the line and took out the first 400 hard, probably too hard, coming through in 66. I backed off of that and ran a 73 and then Caleb Paul from Bryant caught up to me and sat on me through a 4:43 first mile. Somewhere after 2k I had a gap again and kept clipping off 71-72 seconds laps the rest of the way. I tried to pick it up over the last mile and did a little bit, my splits were roughly 4:43-4:54-4:45, so I was at 14:22 at 3M and then ran a 34 second final 200. Not quite as fast as I was hoping for today, but the fast first lap killed my legs a lot. After streching out a bit I ran a couple easy miles around the outside of the track while the 10k was going on and then ran the mile back to Clearway Street to finish up a 23 minute cooldown jog. | 9 |
| Friday | Reservoir plus Summit. The weather was a little cool when I woke up this morning so I waited until just after 8am to take off. I wanted a steady and (relatively) long mileage day, and that's pretty much what I got. My legs are still pretty tired so it wasn't hard to keep the pace under control the whole way, I finished up right at 75:00, which is a couple minutes slower than my normal pace. I want to be fresh for tomorrow without having to totally sell out on the mileage, so hopefully this works out. I actually felt decent climbing Summit, but the rest of the run was just locked in at a conservative pace, logging miles. I probably should have run some strides at the end but I was rushed for time. School and research have been keeping me really busy lately and I've been neglecting some of the small things which I really shouldn't neglect. Only another month of classes to get through though, and then things should lighten up a little. | 11 |
| Thursday PM | Short Jamaica with Fivos. I met Fivos in the lockerroom at 4:15 and we got rolling pretty quickly after that. A big group of guys headed out towards Jamaica but we wound up splitting up along the way. I was still dragging ass and was glad that Fivos wanted to cut the run short, we took a left at Huntington and took that over to Mass Ave then headed home. We wound up right around 40 minutes and weren't really running fast today. I ran a couple of strides on the football when we got back, I didn't feel smooth at all and cut it short at just 4. I need to make sure to hit a couple good ones tomorrow to make sure I'm ready to go on Saturday. I think today was just a generally tired day for me, I'm not too worried about it. The workout yesterday may have taken a little more out of me than I thought, I'm planning on getting plenty of sleep tonight so hopefully tomorrow will go a lot better. Also, having not seen a piece of fruit in a week can't be helping anything. | 6 |
| Thursday AM | Longfellow-BU. I was wiped out this morning when I woke up, last night I went over to MIT to play an IM Softball game at 11:30pm so I didn't get to bed until after 1am. I got out of bed around 8:30 this morning and after some cleaning I hit the Esplanade and just got what kind of mileage I could. After crossing over Longfellow my legs loosened up somewhat and the stretch along the Cambridge side went pretty well. After crossing over the BU bridge my legs started getting a little tighter. The sun was up and the weather was pretty warm, so I just tried to ignore my tired legs and enjoy the weather. Hopefully I'll feel better this afternoon running with Fivos. | 6 |
| Wednesday PM | BAA Workout at Harvard. 3200-2k-1k-2.5M along the River. 9:54-6:04-2:58-12:45. Since Kathryn's on vacation I was able to drive over to the workout today, so I warmed up along the river with Pat, Terry and John Dudley. My right hip was aching and painful pretty much the entire way. It really came out of nowhere, I hadn't had any problems whatsoever until I started jogging the warmup. Thankfully it loosened up right at the end and I felt fine after stretching out, just a weird aberration I guess. I never felt it the rest of the night. The temperature was pretty nice today, but the wind was pretty bad and I wasn't sure what kind of times to shoot for, so I did my best to just run by effort today. Pat and Ed started out with us for the 3200, but they gapped me pretty quickly and I was alone the rest of the way. I got out kind of quick in 72 then backed off a bit and came through in 2:27 and 4:58. Pat was still pulling away over the second mile but I managed to keep the gap from me to Ed pretty much constant at about 100m. We had 5:00 rest after the 2M so I jogged a little more than a lap and Ed and Pat took off early, but I found out they were doing a different workout than we were. I wound up taking the lead for all of the next two repeats and managed to keep the pacing pretty steady, despite the strong winds. Basically hit straight 73s for the 2k, came through halfway in 3:02. I wasn't really sure who all was running with me, the group was pretty big at the start: myself, Magill, Ely, J-Mark, John Dudley and Friedman were all there at the start but guys dropped off the intervals at different times and it was just Magill and myself at the end. We took 3:00 rest before the 1k and after a little debate about the best spot to start, we got rolling. Magill was hauling from the gun and I was in a weird position and couldn't tuck in behind him easily so I wound up running next to him around the curve and passing him down the backstretch. We came through in 35-71 and then backed off a little to hit 2:24 at the half and finished really strong with a 34. The wind was in our faces down the homestretch but it was calm and great running on the backstretch, so finishing without the wind made things much nicer. Then we jogged across some fields and jumped across Storrow to the river for a 2.5M loop running from just after the wood plank bridge up to Arsenal, across to Mem Drive, down to Eliot across there and back right almost to where we started. I sat behind Magill and John Dudley at the start because the route winds around on the different paths there and I wasn't sure where to go. Once we got close to Arsenal, right around 4:40, I threw in a little surge and got to the front and stayed there the rest of the way. Didn't really drop the hammer on the loop though, we stayed in a pretty tight pack the whole way. For the most part it was Magill and myself together but John got up to the front as we got near the American Legion post at Elliot. The stretch from Eliot back to the finish is a lot longer than I was expecting and even though I tried to strategize for a 12:30 finish time, which was pretty much where we were, I was running out of gas before we got close to the finish. My left hamstring was cramping up on me off and on throughout the loop and I was afraid of trying to do too much and really screwing something up, especially coming downhill off Eliot. Magill got a little jump on me near the finish, but I was just taking my time in getting my legs going and managed to reel him back in as we got nearer to the finish. We headed back to the track and then ran a cooldown along the river, JFK St. to Eliot in 21:00. I stretched out briefly before heading home to look for a parking spot. Today was another solid effort, a lot like last week, but I wasn't really dragging ass at the end of it. I was hoping that Ed and Pat would be doing the regular workout so I'd have some guys to chase at least, but that didn't happen. I think I held back a little bit because of the wind, I couldn't really get into a good rhythm going because the way the wind was blowing on the track, I'd feel great for 200m and then get stood up for 200m. Along the river was a little bit better, I was able to focus a little more than I was on the track, we had a crosswind pretty much the whole way but it wasn't a huge factor. Adding up the times from the track gives 18:56 for 6200m, or 18:22 for 6k (if you cut off the last 200m of the 1k.) Then taking the 4k along the river gives 31:11 for a 10k. That doesn't really stack up too well against the build your own 6 miler I ran in September last year (Tuesday 9/20/2005,) which is not very encouraging. I think I need to start taking a few more risks during these workouts and put myself out there a little bit more. | 12 |
| Wednesday AM | Orange Line. I got rolling just after 7am, just a quick little shakeout. The run went by pretty quickly and my legs were good the whole way. Nothing much to report about this one, the real stuff happens tonight at the BAA workout, but I haven't found out what that's going to be yet. | 4 |
| Tuesday | Docks. I kind of screwed up today and it got so late that I didn't have much time to put in mileage today. I wasn't in any shape to run when I woke up this morning and got so wrapped up in work that it was 6pm before I realized it. I felt pretty good on the run though, it really flew by quickly, but I wasn't running that fast. Coming down Comm Ave I had some GI problems which slowed me down, so I wound up cutting it short and walking the length of Clearway. I put in 58 minutes at a decent pace today, happy to take what I could get today. Really poor planning today, wound up working too long and then had to squeeze the run in and allow enough time to get to the grocery store to buy food for dinner. | 9 |
| Monday | Arboretum. Got up early and out the door by 7:30 for a solid 14 miler this morning. The pace was on the quick side the whole way, or at least that's how it felt. My legs were probably a little sore after Sunday's run, I got to the Arboretum in 31+ and then tried to pick it up over my typical loop, but it was more like a fartlek effort as I pushed for a little while before getting distracted and slowing down again. Still, I got out of the arboretum in just over 27 minutes, which is about 2 minutes quicker than normal. I kept the pace decent back to Jamaica but by then my legs were getting pretty tired and I forced myself to slow down on the way back. Wound up being another 31+ minutes from the Arboretum home, a pretty good run today, nice to double up Sunday and Monday, hopefully I can keep this trend rolling for the rest of the week. I'm entered in the 5k at MIT this coming weekend but I don't think I'm going to really back off to prepare for it at all. It should be a good chance to check my fitness and see where I'm at, not sure about what kind of competition is going to be there, though. | 14 |
| Sunday | Minuteman Trail. I drove out to Arlington Center and parked right around the 1.5M mark on the trail. I jogged to the 2M mark and got going. I was originally planning to try and run some kind of progression run, 6:20-6:40 for the first 5M, 6:00-6:20 for the next 5M and then hammer the last 4M. I got started a little slow, 7:00 for the first mile, and then dropped down to 6:30 and 6:18, then backed off a little and hit 6:25 and 6:30. I hit 6:20 for the first mile of the second 5M chunk and then ran into Matt Ely and started running with him. I decided to abort the progression run, which turned out to probably be a good idea. We were in the 6:40s for the next few miles before dropping down the last few miles and hitting 6:28-6:24-6:16-6:12-6:07. Kept the same pace back to my car and then Matt kept going on his own. Given how tired and sore my legs were getting at the end, combined with how my stomach was feeling, I think that trying to hammer would have been a bad idea. It's probably a little premature to try for hard long runs, I'm better off putting in a couple solid distance runs first. I stretched out a little bit before heading back to MIT to shower and get some breakfast. Today was a pretty good run for me, I ran 45:44 for 7M on the way out and 44:58 on the way back, averaging 6:30s for the whole thing. | 15 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 19 4/9-4/15 |
86 | |
| Saturday | Jamaica. I kind of screwed up today, didn't run when I woke up, so I didn't get out the door until after 5pm. I wasn't feeling all that great and wasn't very excited about running, so I kept it short and just ran around Jamaica. My legs were a little on the tired side, I didn't bring my watch but I'm fairly confident I wasn't running all that fast. Pretty low-key run, I stopped at the Port-A-John in Olmstead, which was the only weird part of the run. I opened up the door and there were four large stuffed animals in there. It was weird and a little uncomfortable, probably the second weirdest thing I've seen during a run, right behind the fish falling out of the sky (Monday 11/4/2002.) | 9 |
| Friday PM | Fake Fresh with Yuval and Sean. I met Yuval at Johnson around 4pm and Sean showed up a little bit later, we started running right around 4:45. We weren't exactly flying out there today, we put in a solid 35 minutes, so probably 7:30/mile average. It was great to be able to catch up with Yuval, he's getting ready for a big race against some of his Microsoft friends. We were trying to figure out if he could run 400m and beat a 4x100 of regular guys. Sean and I think he's got that. We got back to the track and ran some strides, I wasn't feeling very fast today, I was forcing things a little too much and just felt out of whack. I naturally got lit up by Yuval, it's a lot different than running them with old man Fivos. We spent a solid block of time 'stretching' on the track with the rest of the distance guys afterwards. | 5 |
| Friday AM | Fresh Pond. I dropped Kathryn off at the airport this morning and got to campus just after 7am, but didn't find a parking spot until 7:45. I wasn't too excited about running after circling around Vassar for 45 minutes, I contemplated just running a couple grass loops but eventually talked myself into a full run. My legs were pretty tight the whole way but I kept the pace pretty decent, right around 6:30s I'd guess. After about 20 minutes I was feeling pretty tired, but things didn't deteroriate from there. The road around the Pond was blocked off by the golf course, so I ran counterclockwise from there to the light, which probably wound up cutting the route a few minutes short. The weather was pretty nice and I was pretty glad that I managed to get out for a regular run. | 10 |
| Thursday | Jamaica. I was exhausted when I woke up this morning, so I wasted some time and then got running around 9am. Temps were almost up to 60 at the start, but it started drizzling a couple minutes into the run. My legs were pretty tired and both knees were aching a little bit, not the greatest run. But the 57 minutes went by pretty quickly, I'm still excited that I was able to run a workout yesterday and the nice weather makes it pretty easy to enjoy running. Nothing very exciting happened, thought about a couple of options for racing, I'm not sure what the best approach is now that I missed about 2 weeks, but I'm pretty sure Stanford is no longer an option, yesterday's workout didn't go that well. | 9 |
| Wednesday PM | BAA Workout at Harvard's Outdoor Track. Mile - 2k - Mile - 1600 - Mile. 4:44, 6:07, 4:48, 4:51, 4:51. Rest was between 2:30 and 3:00 between all of the intervals. The group was a little sparse today, just myself, Oscar, John Dudley, Matt Ely and Wayne Levy. Some of the guys were saying this workout is called the "Michigan," I don't know if that's actually true or not. The mile was mostly along a dirt/gravel road around the perimeter of Harvard's athletic fields, then cuts back to the parking lot by the indoor track and heads through the parking lot to the gate near the outdoor track. I warmed up to Harvard along the river, which took about 26 minutes, then stretched out and ran some strides. I started out following Oscar through the first mile since I didn't know the route, but even if I knew where I was going I would have been behind him because we were hauling at the start. At first I thought I just wasn't used to the fast pace because of my two down weeks, but the pace slackened a little near the end and we finished more or less together. I ran right to the Port-A-John to take a leak and then jogged a little on the track waiting for the 2k to start. Oscar led us through in 72-2:27, then I went to the lead and we hit 3:05 at 1k and 3:41. Oscar went past me just before we hit the mile in 4:55 and then he opened a bit of a gap over the last lap. We were a little more under control for the start of the next one, I led most of the way and surged when I got to the parking lot, but that was a lot longer than I thought and started to tire before the finish, Oscar turned on the jets and lit me up over the final 100m. I was feeling good when we hit the track for the mile, I settled in behind Oscar and we came through in 72-2:25, I took the lead at 800m and we ran a 74 or so, Oscar went around me and opened up a gap over the last lap. He's got a way of deceptively picking it up, I got distracted a bit on the backstretch and suddenly I'm 10m back. Following Nolan's advice on dropping weight near the end of the workout I took off my shirt for the last interval, and we wound up running that a bit more comfortably, Oscar, myself and John Dudley were all together pretty much the whole way, I showed off my kick over the final 20m or so, distancing myself slightly. I stretched out a little and talked with Brian Bissell who was working out at Harvard at the same time, and then I headed back home along the river. I was pretty happy with how things went today, my knee didn't bother me at all until I was on my way home, and even then it wasn't a big deal, just a little tightness. The workout wasn't quite as hard as I had expected it to be, I was hitting some good times but got distracted near the end of the track intervals and the pace slipped a little bit. Oscar and I worked together pretty well, but it would have been nice to be able to chase Ed or Pat through this workout. I felt a lot better running the mile along the path than I did on the track, I guess I'm just more comfortable in those kind of situations, kind of like cross country vs. track. The weather was great, overcast but still warm. The wind had died down a little bit before the workout, it wasn't really an issue, just a few times during the 2k and every once in awhile along the path. Today was my first time at Harvard's outdoor track, it could definitely use some work. If Harvard can spend $400,000 to build a telescope specifically to look for light pulses from aliens, you'd think they could find some cash to refurbish their track. It looks so old it might actually be measured in yards, like their indoor track. | 12 |
| Wednesday AM | Grass Loops. Kathryn drove me over to campus this morning, so I got started about 7:30am and went right to Briggs for some shakeout mileage. Just like yesterday's run I wanted to keep it easy and this morning was just about tacking on a couple miles to the total, and loosening up for tonight's workout. I felt fine the whole way, no knee issues at all. The first lap was about 6:25 and the next 3 were all just under 6:10. I finished up with a stride on the track for a total time of 27 minutes. I stretched out a little bit and did some situps before showering, getting a breakfast sandwich from LaVerde's and heading to the lab. | 4 |
| Tuesday | Jamaica. I did an hour or so of work in the morning to let the temperatures rise a little bit. I headed over to the Emerald Necklace just before 9am, and put in a solid 30 minutes to Jamaica without feeling my knee at all. My legs were doing okay, I wanted to make sure today was an easy day so I'd be feeling good for a track workout tomorrow and had to keep it short because I got going a little later than I had hoped to. I was really excited to be running without my knee giving me any problems at all, but once I hit the Pond it tightened up a little bit, so I guess I'm not completely healed yet. I kept the pace really easy the whole way and stayed on the trails pretty much the whole way, hopefully this will pay off and I can put in a good workout on the track tomorrow. I stretched out quickly when I got home and iced my knee before heading to the lab. | 9 |
| Monday PM | Orange Line with Kathryn. We left around 5:30pm, temps were in the 60s, just great spring weather. When we got to the Common we stopped to watch some of the immigration rally, then snuck across the street and kept going. When we got to Comm Ave Kathryn's foot started hurting her so I ran the rest of the way home on my own. It's great to be running doubles again, and having nice weather makes it much easier. My knee has been feeling a lot better, and through the first two days of this week I'm nearly at half of last week's mileage. | 4 |
| Monday AM | Castle-Bunker Hill. It was pretty cool this morning so I did about an hour of work and then headed out at 8:15am to about 43 degrees. The sun was pretty high and the sky was nice and blue, so I had a pretty good idea that the temps would keep on climbing. I felt decent, not as fresh as I was feeling last week and I didn't feel like I was running quite as fast, just out putting in mileage, to some extent. This was my first run on mainly pavement in awhile and I was feeling it at times during the run, but my knee didn't really hurt at all, just a little tight. I made sure to stretch out pretty well at the end, foam roller and ice and all that stuff. Pretty uneventful, boring run, just over an hour, so a minute or three faster than normal. This route is definitely short, I'm planning on hitting another 4M or so this afternoon. | 10 |
| Sunday | Arboretum. I slept about nine hours last night and got out the door and onto the Emerald Necklace right around 10am today. I was feeling pretty good and the pace was decent from the start. Temps were in the mid 40s, another t-shirt and gloves day. Just after Huntington I headed up onto the trails and ran into Oscar Ponce and Jason Bialka, who were on their way back, so we said hi and then went opposite directions. I got to the Arboretum in 31:20, which is the fastest in quite awhile, and then I spent just 29:50 inside the Arboretum before heading back home, which took just 30:42, so the total time for today was right at 92 minutes. I felt pretty good through the Arboretum, just kept it steady and tried to put in my time and then when I left the Arboretum I did my best to focus on pace and effort, since I haven't put in a long run in quite some time, I felt like the last 3-5M home would be a good chance to get some fitness back. I didn't go crazy, just kept it honest and steady. I felt like today was a pretty good run, it's nice to have nicer weather and more or less healhy legs and the opportunity to just enjoy putting in some mileage. This week is off to a much better start than last week. | 14 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 18 4/2-4/8 |
This week was a little disappointing because my knee is still bothering me a little bit, but encouraging that I was able to ramp up the mileage without any serious issues. The biggest concern I had with my knee was that after I ran it got tight and painful to walk on, but that issue has gone away. Even though it still tightens up on occasion, there isn't any pain and it doesn't bother me when I'm walking around. Once I figured that out I decided to more or less just run through it. Taking Sunday off was probably a good move, even though it was more a decision forced upon me by the scheduling of the day. Then I was feeling good during the two shorter runs on Monday and Tuesday, so on Wednesday I upped the mileage and felt good. My legs were really fresh so I wound up running pretty quick for the rest of the runs this week. Thursday wound up being a bit longer than I had planned on, but everything worked out and my knee didn't give me any problems. I wound up putting in 49M over the last 4 days, which is about 85MPW pace. The weather has slowly been getting nicer, which has made putting in mileage considerably more enjoyable. April Miles : 69 | 60 |
| Saturday | Reservoir. I headed west on Comm Ave a little after 4pm today, typical weekend story, I had a chance to get out the door early but opted to eat some breakfast instead. When I got going I was feeling okay, the past few days of higher mileage are definitely starting to get to me, though. The only real problem was climbing Summit, I felt like I was crawling there, everything else was at a slightly slower, but not noticeably slow, pace. There were maybe one or two times when my knee started to tighten up, but for the most part it felt fine the whole way. It feels good to be back putting in normal length runs again. I came home to discover the Brewers beat the Diamondbacks in the bottom of the ninth to move to 5-0 and that Steve Maltas put together a big 15:49 at the Engineer's Cup, 11 seconds faster than last week and a track PR for him. | 11 |
| Friday | Fresh Pond. I got going a little before 8am today, Spring is slowly getting here, today was t-shirt and gloves. My knee has been feeling a lot better recently, so I decided to go for another decent mileage run. I headed over to Fresh Pond and felt fine the whole way. I was running at a pretty decent pace, slightly faster than normal I'd guess. My legs must still be feeling fresh from all the short stuff I did last week and at the start of this week. Nothing much happened during the run today, just put in mileage and got home. | 12 |
| Thursday PM | Jamaica with Fivos and Yermie. I met up with Fivos in the lockerroom, and even though the schedule said 5-7M he wanted 8M, so today wound up being a little bit longer than I had planned. On our way out we say Yermie coming in so we waited a few minutes for him and didn't get rolling until 4:30 or so. The weather was decent, temps right around fifty, pretty comfortable weather. My knee was kind of stiff at the start and I wasn't sure if running was a good idea, but it loosened up pretty quickly and by the time we got to the Riverway I was feeling fine. Pace was pretty typical, probably around 6:30s and we didn't really pick it up at all. The run was 57:00 total, so a long 8 miler, but it felt good to be able to run that long again. We ran some strides on the outdoor track and I was feeling pretty quick, I've had like a 2 week taper. After that I headed upstairs to stretch on the indoor track and then went down to the trainers for some foam rolling and ice. | 8 |
| Thursday AM | Science-BU. I got going about 7:30am and temps were low again today, mid 30s so jacket and gloves again. My knee wasn't feeling as good as it was yesterday, but it wasn't a big problem. My legs were feeling good though, yesterday's faster than normal run didn't seem to make a big difference. I was pretty exhausted when I woke up this morning, but that's been a common theme this whole week. Today's run was a solid 44:00, which is about a minute faster than I ran last week. Since my knee isn't doing too badly I'm planning on running again this afternoon with Fivos and some of the MIT guys, so I'll get two medium length runs today, hopefully. I noticed last night that Fivos' mileage total is currently higher than mine... This aggression will not stand. | 7 |
| Wednesday | Mass Ave to Arsenal. I headed out the door at 8am this morning, greeted by 35 degree temps. Felt weird to be running in a jacket and gloves again, but I started getting pretty warm on the way back. I was feeling pretty good today, so I kept the pace pretty quick the whole way. My knee didn't give me any problems the whole way, it felt great to be out running without any issues. I got to Arsenal in 31 flat and made it back in 28, for a solid 59:00 along the river. I was looking through some logs online before the run and got fed up that everybody else is getting faster and I'm just treading water, at best. Nothing much going on with the run today, the biggest thing was that it started snowing when I got to Harvard on the way home. Maybe I'm only healthy when the weather is crummy. I probably could have made it through the BAA workout tonight, but I think another week of mileage and maybe a hard effort over the weekend. | 11 |
| Tuesday | Orange Line to Boston Common, Tremont to Gov't Center, then down Cambridge St, across Longfellow, up to Mass Ave and back home. It was cold and raining this morning when I woke up, so I spent the day working at home and then got going about 4:45. The recent nice weather has definitely disappeared, temps were in the mid 40s and it was pretty windy. I set up the run so that I could cut it short if my knee started acting up. Thankfully my left knee felt fine, but my right knee was kind of tight the whole way. That wasn't such a big deal, I'm pretty used to my right knee hurting. My left knee hurt a little bit climbing the rise of Longfellow, but loosened up quickly again. When I got to Mass Ave, I started picking the pace up a little bit. I stopped just after 77 Mass Ave to say hi to Traina and then hammered it over the bridge, I was wondering how my knee would feel when I ran fast. Just as I was thinking that I should keep it rolling, traffic and stop lights started working against me. Today wound up being 37:00, pretty good run, glad that my knee is feeling a lot better. | 6 |
| Monday | Science. I waited until about 8am this morning to get going. My knee was feeling really good today, I got the whole run in without my knee tightening up. I was feeling pretty good, my legs were nice and fresh and the pace was pretty decent. I'm hoping to put in a good run tomorrow and then be feeling good enough to hit the BAA workout on Wednesday. | 5 |
| Sunday | No running. I slept in and Daylight Savings Time robbed me of an hour, and then I had errands to run most of the afternoon, and a lot of work to do, so I figured a day off would probably help my knee anyways. It felt kind of weird to not run and not worry about when I was going to get my run in, hopefully I'm making a good decision here. I was tempted to sneak in a quick 5 miler on the river around 2:30, but opted to watch some of Godzilla, since we have a free trial of Showtime right now. My knee has been improving every day, hopefully a day off is what it takes to but this thing to bed. I'm going to keep up the stretching, icing and stuff, but I have slacked off on that over the weekend. | 0 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 17 3/26-4/1 |
Disappointing, depressing week. I had a decent race/hard effort on Sunday and things unravelled the rest of the way. I woke up on Monday with my left knee really tight and forced a fourteen miler through the Arboretum, which in retrospect was a bad decision, too thick headed I guess. Monday night my knee got really tight and painful, so I backed off and just went with a couple of 5 milers on Tuesday and Wednesday and my knee started feeling better. I also started being more diligent with the treatment of this thing, foam rolling, ice and ibuprofen. I started increasing mileage near the end of the week and my knee was holding up through 40-45 minutes before tightening up. I wasn't able to get in a hard effort like I had hoped though, hopefully this week won't set me back too much. April Miles : 9 | 63 |
| Saturday | Jamaica. I woke up about 8am this morning, and I was out the door and rolling by 9. My knee was feeling great, i.e. I wasn't feeling it, and part of me really wanted to head all the way to the Arboretum. Pieroni suggested I take some time off, but I've been feeling better every day. I got moving pretty well today, I was just kind of amped up about everything. Goucher ran awesome in the 4k last night, Moen dropped a 28:40 at Stanford and a bunch of the MIT guys are racing today. I haven't run much recently, not very far or very fast, and getting off the river was a great feeling. I don't really know fast I was running, but I finished up in 52:30. The sun was out and the weather was great, which probably also contributed to me being amped up and hammering a little more than normal. Of course, right as I was turning into the Fens my knee started tightening up. I backed off a little over the final 10:00, my knee didn't get too bad but it was worse than I had hoped for. But since I was hoping to be pain free I guess it's not hard to be worse than hoped for. | 9 |
| Friday | Science Museum-BU. Today was a big step forward. I think that without knowing that my knee hurt the past few days I wouldn't have thought that I had a problem today. I put in a solid 30:00 without feeling anything more than a few twinges in my knee. And even those are questionable, since all I'm really thinking about is my knee it makes sense that I feel a few things during the run. I spent the last part of the run trying to think of what that's called, I'm pretty sure it's Heisenberg's Principle (I started out thinking it was Schroedinger.) I was feeling so good heading towards the Science Museum and back to Mass Ave that I started thinking I'd try and get down to JFK and put in some solid miles today, but then around the Boathouse, right at 29:00, my knee started to tighten up. It faded away fairly quickly but it got in my head and made me think that taking another day would be a good idea. My knee tightened up again up that slight climb by the BU Boathouse, so I started thinking that climbing hills was leading to the pain. When I got to the BU Bridge I would have had to wait to cross the road to head down to the next bridge, so I just headed home. I was expecting it to tighten up again climbing that ramp to the Fenway from Comm Ave, but I felt fine. I was happy with how things went, it was disappointing that on the nicest day since Nov 1 (70 degrees) I had to keep it short. I got home and hit the foam roller and stretched out well, I'm going to make sure to stay dedicated to that for at least the next week, it seems to be making a big difference. I'm going to try to back off of the Vitamin I slightly, yesterday was 14 of them (4-4-2-4,) and I'm going to try and get on a 3x3 regimen for the next few days and then down to 3x2. I had been thinking of racing at Tufts next weekend, but I think this week will push things back a little, I know Ed Baker is going down to Brown the next weekend, so I might go down there with him. The MIT team is going up to Bates that weekend, but that's a little further than I'd like to travel. A schedule for the hard efforts is still up in the air. March Miles : 380 | 7 |
| Thursday | Science Museum-BU. I headed down to the river again, at the start I was thinking that I'd just go 4 or 5M because my knee was pretty tight, but after a little while it loosened up a lot and I couldn't even feel it, so I decided I'd go up to BU. I was feeling good most of the rest of the way, until I got to the Fenway, where my knee started tightening up and ached for the last few minutes of the run. I've been better about stretching, foam rolling, icing and taking vitamin I, and it really feels like it's paying off. We'll see how it feels the rest of the day, but I'm going to try and get out for another couple miles in the afternoon. I came home and stretched out, then did a couple minutes on each leg on the foam roller. I didn't run yesterday afternoon because my knee was hurting during the day, but when I got home I iced it down and then went for a walk with Kathryn, except it hurt the whole way. It seems like every time I ice, my knee tightens up again and hurts for a while after icing. | 7 |
| Wednesday | Science Museum-BU. My knee was feeling a lot better this morning, which makes me regret going 14M on Monday. I think that clearly led to my knee feeling so bad yesterday, and then backing off yesterday and being more structured with the I-squared made a big difference. I went to the river again to avoid stopping and starting, and I think that helped slightly. It was kind of weird, my knee vacillated between being almost unnoticable and being really tight. At first I thought that left hand turns were causing things to go downhill, but then I hooked two lefts at the Science Museum and didn't have any problems. So I really don't know what's going on. I was feeling pretty good and pretty fresh, and got rolling a little bit in the middle of the run. I'm hoping to put in another 5-7M this afternoon, and then try to build over the next few days and aim for a hard effort over the weekend. After the run I put in 5:00 on the foam roller, switching sides every minute. My left IT isn't hurting as badly now, and I'm getting a lot better at rolling on that side. I need to make sure I stay at the rehab type stuff for the next week, even if this thing subsides. | 7 |
| Tuesday | Science Museum. My knee didn't feel any better today, so I spent most of the morning worrying about what I should do. I eventually got out the door around 11am after a few sessions on the foam roller and some vitamin I. My knee was aching at the start, it's not really painful, it just feels like I shouldn't be running on it. I headed to the river so I could run more or less uninterrupted and I think that was a good idea. By the time I got to Longfellow, about 12:00 into the run, it had loosened up and felt decent. Kept it easy the whole time, but then when I turned onto Mass Ave it tightened up a lot. I hit the foam roller again, my left IT really hurts when I do that, and iced it afterwards. Pieroni agrees that I shouldn't do the track workout tomorrow, but I'm hoping to be able to get this taken care of over the next few days. | 5 |
| Monday | Arboretum. My plan originally was to put in 18M today, but I woke up hungry and my left knee was hurting, so I ate breakfast and waited to see if it would loosen up. It didn't really get any better, and I wasn't quite sure what I should do about it. I set out to just run Jamaica and probably should have just stuck to that plan. As I was heading along the Riverway I was feeling good so I decided to head to the Arboretum and put in a 14 miler so the mileage total wouldn't suffer. My knee wasn't a big problem, but it tightened up every time I stopped and gradually got worse as the run went on. It reminded me a lot of my right knee back in sophomore year. Thankfully it's not as painful, it just basically feels tight, like it needs to pop. I did the foam roller a lot and my left IT is really aching, so I'm hoping that if I get right on top of this now it won't become a thing. It was really disappointing that my knee was hurting because otherwise I was feeling reallly good and it would have been nice to cut loose a little on this one. It took me 32:30 to get there, I don't know why getting there was been so much slower recently. I spent just 30:30 running the normal loop, and then just 31 and change getting home. The weather was nice, mid 50s, but this knee thing kept me from enjoying it. I'll probably skip the workout on Wednesday, just because the stopping and starting was bothering me so much today. I'll try to get in as much mileage as I can the next few days, keep up the foam roller and hit the I-squared. Assuming I manage to get this under control I'll probably hit a hard 10 miler, or maybe 5x5:00 along the river. | 14 |
| Sunday PM | Science Museum. I got going after watching the George Mason v. UConn game, just planning on running 4-7M to stretch out my legs, depending on how I felt. I was pretty tired the whole time, but after a few minutes my legs loosened up and they actually felt pretty good. Today was probably my last race for awhile, so I think the plan will be to ramp things up for the next few weeks. Also it's my spring break, so I should be able to get after it a bit more this week and be able to get a little extra rest, too. Tonight's run was pretty uneventful, I think having hot dogs for lunch after the race wasn't a good idea as I got side stitches a few times. Otherwise I just kept it easy and steady the whole way. | 5 |
| Sunday AM | An Ras Mor 5k in Somerville, 16:11, 1st place. I got to the race pretty early, so I just sat in the car waiting to warm up for about half an hour. I got going at 10:15 and felt pretty stiff, I wasn't feeling very fast or loose at all, but I wasn't too worried. The stride at the end of the warmup helped some, then I stretched out on a patch of grass next to the car and waited for the start of the race. The sun kept going behind clouds, so it was warm when the sun was out and then it would cool off a lot when the sun disappeared. I started running strides a little too soon and was standing around waiting for the start a little too long, but it's hard to judge the start of these road races accurately. I got off the line pretty fast and was right in the lead. After maybe 1000m I'm following the lead cop car and he starts pointing out of his window, so I assume he's saying go left. I turn left and head downhill, but start thinking I may have taken a wrong turn. I hear the cop car pulling a u-turn and as I get back to Washington the cop catches up to me and says that he was merely telling a car to stop, not pointing the direction. So we go one block over and head back towards the course. The guy in second had caught up to me, but I managed to pull away and was comfortably in the lead until I missed another turn. This time, the cop sped ahead on a straight street and by the time I got to the end of the street, there was a cop there telling me I missed a turn a block or two back. I turned around to see the second place guy turning, so I had about a 100m deficit. I had no idea how much time was left, so I just started hammering, trying to catch him. The course had a couple of turns, which made it harder to keep my eye on him, but I managed to close the gap and caught him with I'd guess 1000m to go. I pulled away and wound up winning by 0:16, but who knows how far I actually ran. I heard afterwards that the course might have been long to begin with, but there were so many twists and turns that I can't remember what the route was, so I have no way of trying to measure it. Today was an honest effort, but I don't think I ran as hard as I could have. I cooled down 4M by running down Washington towards the Schraft's building, and then turned towards Bunker Hill Community College, instead of climbing Bunker Hill. I Spent about 9 minutes running around the BHCC athletic fields before heading back for some free hot dogs and oranges. I picked up a pair of glasses for winning the race and winning my division. Not a bad morning. | 9 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 16 3/19-3/25 |
This week got off to a pretty solid start, finally put in a long run on Sunday. And then Tuesday was a pretty high mileage day, which left me feeling pretty tired for the next few days. I decided to skip Wednesday's morning run because I was exhausted when I woke up, but the workout went decently well, aside from the second mile. The rest of the week went kind of downhill. Thursday was decent mileage, but my legs were pretty useless the whole time, and the same for Friday, except having guys to run with made it much more manageable. I should have finished the week off a lot better, I just let things get away from during the day on Saturday. Thankfully I managed to frontload the week enough that two short days weren't a big deal. March Miles : 326 | 96 |
| Saturday | Castle-Bunker Hill. Typical weekend day, I didn't run when I woke up and then wound up not running until late in the day. I stayed up late last night watching the NCAA tournament games so I didn't get up until 9:30 today. I ran some errands and then got caught up watching the LSU v. Texas game and didn't get out the door until after 7pm. The game was kind of a letdown after the exciting series that led to Texas' 3 pointer to tie the game with 30 seconds left, but Tyrus Thomas might be the most athletic person in the world. Anyways, I really dropped the ball today, should have put in about 14M in the middle of the day, instead I left the door thinking I'd put in 7M along the river. Changed my mind after seeing how dark it was and convincing myself that I needed to put in some mileage today. Even though I'm racing tomorrow, I didn't really want to rest up for it, just use it to put in a hard effort. But I was heading across the bridge already, ran Fresh yesterday and didn't feel like running through downtown at night for Docks, so I really only had one reasonable route. I actually felt really good today, my legs were pretty fresh. The run was pretty formulaic, I made sure to keep it easy the whole way, I was just out enjoying the night and the run. I got home and stretched out while watching some of the UCLA v. Memphis game, which wasn't as exciting. I haven't seen much of Memphis, but from what I have seen, Rodney Carney could probably give Tyrus Thomas some competition in the most athletic person in the world category. | 10 |
| Friday PM | Brattle Street. I met Fivos in the lockerroom at 5pm and there was a big group about to run, it's the most people I've run with in awhile. We were about to get going when Jake decided to tell us that he had to run a mile over hurdles before Coach left at 6pm, so we all wound up starting the run with some laps around the track while he did his steeple work. We eventually hit the roads and headed out on some bastard child of Fake Fresh and Fresh Pond. There was a gap pretty quickly, with the old guys (Fivos, myself and Nolan) about 10m behind Jake, Khatch, Joe and Jacokes. Us old guys yo-yoed a little bit, closing the gap sometimes and then the gap would reappear. I couldn't tell if we were running slow or if they were running fast, I wasn't feeling that great today, but at least my legs weren't aching. When we turned on Brattle the gap exploded and we never saw the guys again. I was happy just taking it easy and catching up with Fivos and Sean, hopefully my legs will start feeling better soon. Ran a couple good strides on the outdoor track before heading inside to stretch out indoors. Since today is the Friday before Spring Break I was thinking that I'd be able to watch the Gallon Challenge, but due to a disappointing lack of leadership it wasn't organized and didn't occur. | 9 |
| Friday AM | Grass Loops. Logistically it made more sense for Kathryn to give me a ride over to campus this morning, so I ran from the lockerroom a bit after 7am. I decided to just run on the grass and do whatever I felt like, after being so tired yesterday. Also, I'm planning on running with the guys this afternoon, and I don't want to wind up running 19M like on Tuesday. My legs were feeling a little better, my HR was down around 38-39 while watching basketball last night, so I'm thinking that I'll be alright. I wasn't too excited about this one today, started out at 6:20 for the first lap, then droppded down to 6:12, 6:05, 5:59, 6:03. I finished up with an attempt at a hard finish on the track but I was feeling pretty awkward and didn't get going very fast. Put in a total of 34:00 this morning. | 5 |
| Thursday | Arboretum. I spent the morning working at home and didn't get started until about 3pm today. It was worth waiting though, because the temps climbed up above 50 by the afternoon, and a new pair of shoes showed up from the BAA. Since my old pair was getting close to 900M, I was glad to get the new pair. Surprisingly, my old pair was holding up well, but the smallest toe on my right foot has been starting to hurt, I think it's been getting rubbed the wrong way. Anyways, I got started just after 3pm and quickly realized I had forgotten to bring my watch. It was probably just as well, because I was not running fast today at all. I felt alright getting to the Arboretum, but once I got there I just started getting more and more tired. I really started noticing the fatigue as I was running next to the train tracks, I did not enjoy heading up the back hill there. Having to climb that hill right after crossing the street really took it out of me. I've been sleeping about 8 hours a night recently, but keep waking up exhausted. I started thinking about why I was dragging ass so badly today and I came up with a couple of options: (1) This cold has stuck around for a week now, it's not much more than a runny nose now, but it's conceivably wearing me out. (2) Tuesday was a 19M day and then I ran the workout yesterday, so I was just tired from two big days back to back. (3) I've been hitting pretty high mileage totals again, this will be 4 straight up around 90M after a few shorter weeks, so that could just be catching up to me. (4) Anemia could be coming back into play, I stopped taking iron supplements but in general have been trying to eat red meat a few times each week, but I feel like I haven't done that this week. I think I need to go ahead and strap on the HR monitor tonight, just to make sure I'm not overtraining. I finished up pretty slowly, or so it felt, back past Jamaica, then onto the Riverway and the Fens. At Jamaica I caught two people who were running some kind of fartlek workout, but only doing roughly 0:10 intervals, so I'd pull away and then they catch back up at the end of their sprint and then I'd pull away again, so it took me a lot longer to get away from them than it should have. Right by where Brookline Ave hits the Riverway there was a roadkilled skunk, the whole area smelled pretty badly. I probably would have been better off trying to double up today, putting in a couple shorter runs instead of one long one, but there's something to be gained from running through fatigued days like this. That is, assuming the fatigue is just general tiredness and not from overtraining. | 14 |
| Wednesday | BAA Workout at Reggie 2x(800m-1600m-800m). Times were 2:18, 4:43, 2:19; 2:17, 4:51, 2:17. Rest was 2:00 after the 800, 3:00 after the mile and 3:00 between the sets. Headed over to Reggie around 6pm, took a new route, followed the Southwest Corridor Park, which runs along the Orange Line. Got to Reggie a little quicker, I decided to just stick with the park for another couple minutes to get to 3M. The group was a lot smaller today, just Ed Baker, Jason Bialka, Matt Ely, Levi Severson, Mark LaRosa and myself today. We took our time getting started, but Jason took the lead on the first one and I just sat behind him the whole way. Ed went to the front pretty quickly and was running a couple seconds quicker than us on all the intervals. I led the mile, we went through in 2:21 and came back in pretty much the same time. I led the next 800m, also, and we got out pretty quick, about 33, and then backed off a little. We started moving over the last 300m or so and finished up pretty quick. I ran to the bathroom during that rest session, so my legs were kind of tight for the start of the mile. About halfway through I started regretting having eaten an apple at 5pm and I started fading back. I came through in just over 2:20 but had just gotten passed by Matt and Levi and I got myself out of it mentally and just kind of got to the finish line. Tried to get myself ready for the last interval, I started out in the back of the pack and just tried to hang on. We came through pretty quick but I was feeling good, 34-68, but with about 300m my legs started getting tired. That's about where everybody else started hammering, I didn't have the legs to keep up and quickly lost touch with the group. It wasn't so much that I was fading, because I finished pretty well, but everybody else just started hauling. They came through in about 2:14, I think, and I was a few seconds behind them. I cooled down about 16:00 around the outside of the track with Ed and then stretched out and used the bathroom before heading home down Tremont with Ed. Put in a solid 4M cooldown and was feeling good, but after taking a shower I was pretty exhausted. I was really tired this morning when I woke up, so I figured that trying to get in a 4 miler wouldn't make much sense, I could see myself just dragging down Comm Ave. Also, I had some work to finish up, so I didn't mind having the extra time. | 11 |
| Tuesday PM | Ocean with Fivos and Yermie. I met the two-man miler group in the lockerroom for another run this afternoon. We got started and they were going 8-10M, so that put Ocean right in our wheelhouse. It was a little longer than I would have liked, but I think I'll be able to handle it. Might be a little tired for tomorrow's workout, but it'll pay off in the long run. Pretty average run, we actually climbed all the way up to the top of Telegraph Hill, my legs were doing alright on the climb, but it's hard to accurately judge when it's just me and two milers. Not exactly great competition. We kept it pretty easy the rest of the way, Fivos picked it up a bit on the downhill just after Telegraph, but we relaxed when we hit the South End. The highlight of the run was seeing Kathryn on Newbury Street on the way back to Mass Ave. Ran a couple strides on the outdoor track and talked with Coach Taylor a little bit. Then went up to the indoor track and stretched out a little more before heading home. Got an email from Mike Pieroni today, it looks like Cardinal Invite at the end of April will likely be the focus, Mt. SAC is a little too early. | 9 |
| Tuesday AM | Jamaica with Jared. I met J-Mark at Mem Drive and Mass Ave again, I was looking for something 8-10M this morning since I'm planning on running with some guys from the team this afternoon. We ran over to the BU Bridge and then cut to the Riverway. We kept it pretty relaxed at first but as we were heading around the Pond it felt like Jared slowly started speeding up. We sped up a little but I wasn't really looking to hammer and thankfully we kept it under control. On the way back we stayed on the Emerald Necklace and went through the Fens to Mass Ave, so I wound up right near my apartment and only had to cross the bridge once. Temps started out pretty low, down in the mid 20s, but it felt like it warmed up as time went on. No big news to report, just another mileage day. | 10 |
| Monday PM | Orange Line. Just a quick shake out before going to Shaw's to get stuff for dinner. Not too excited about running in the 30 degree weather, I can't wait for it to warm up for good. Wasn't really in the mood to hammer, just kept it steady and relaxed and put in my time this afternoon. | 4 |
| Monday AM | Docks. Got rolling just after 7am, first day of spring and it's 22 degrees. Wonderful. Aside from the weather issues, today went pretty well. Typical mileage day, nice and relaxed the whole way. A couple minutes faster than normal, but that's probably just because I was feeling chipper every once in awhile. This one went by fairly quickly, I wasn't in a huge hurry but it is nice to finish up just after 8:00 in the morning. I'm getting into a pretty good pattern of 3 hard efforts every 2 weeks, so since I took it easy this past weekend I figure I'll either run a hard 10 miler or find a road race around Boston to run in, not sure yet. | 9 |
| Sunday | Johnny Kelly. I woke up around 8am and was out the door just before 9am today. Not all that early, but better than I do on most weekends. The temps are still pretty low, down around 30 degrees when I got started. Headed down to Comm Ave and was feeling pretty good, didn't try to hammer at all, just hoping to get in a good mileage day. I was pretty relaxed all the way out, the one big hill kind of kicked my ass, wasn't ready to climb, I guess. There were a fair number of people out there today, everybody must be starting to gear up for Boston. Anyways, I kept it easy to the statue, got there in 49:30 and then headed home. Didn't pick it up too much, just found a slightly quicker rhythm. Nothing special on the way home, made it back in about 47:00. I was finally able to put up a pretty big number on a Sunday, hopefully I can keep it going through the rest of the week. | 15 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 15 3/12-3/18 |
This was a pretty good week, I hit a good mileage total despite racing on Sunday and shorter days on Thursday and Friday. Sunday's race was certainly the highlight of the week, I was really happy with the time, but not so pleased with where I finished. But things like that are harder to predict and harder to control at this level I guess. I don't get to see the heat sheets a few days before the race, instead I'm going into these road races unsure of who else is going to show up. I managed to put in my mileage with decent discipline, even managed a few doubles, but I feel like I'm still running these a little slower than normal. Hopefully the weather will turn soon, I think heading out to nice weather makes hammering a little easier. Wednesday's workout went pretty well, unless you compare what I did to what Ed Baker ran. March Miles : 230 | 94 |
| Saturday | Arboretum. I started out really slowly on this one, I felt like I was running normal speed but I got to the Arboretum in 34:20, significantly slower than normal. Maybe I messed up the watch somewhere. I couldn't really psyche myself up to hammer the run today, jsut kept my legs moving and enjoyed the run. I'm really starting to feel like I'm putting together a good base and days like this, where I'm not working towards any specific goal, just advancing overall fitness, really make me feel like I want to keep doing this for awhile. If only every day could be Saturday. Once I got to the Arboretum, I guess I sped up a little, I wound up spending 31:20 in the Arboretum, running the usual route. That's a little slower than what I normally run, but it's pretty much what I've been running recently. On the way back I didn't really hammer, but I made a consicous effort to keep things together, I guess you could say I stressed the last part of the run. Since I'm normally putting in 8-12M runs, I wanted to make sure I got some benefit out of the few extra miles. | 14 |
| Friday | Reservoir with Summit. Another low mileage day, got going right around 7am today, headed down to Kenmore Square and wound up running this the regular way, although I was originally thinking about running it in reverse. I felt okay going up Summit, but I wasn't running very fast or very hard today, just putting in the miles and stretching out my legs. The weather is still cold and my cold is sticking around, so I wore a hat again today, although it was probably warm enough to go without it. Going around the Reservoir I was in the sun, the wind died down and I got pretty warm. After going around the Reservoir the rest of the run went by really quickly, pretty good run today. | 11 |
| Thursday | Fresh Pond with Jared Markowitz. I had made plans to meet Jared at Mass Ave and Mem Drive around 7am this morning, but wasn't really sure how the run was going to go. I woke up with a stuffed up nose and sore throat, I guess a cold snuck up on me somehow. I also wound up staying at Roads until midnight last night, the beer and cheap pizza weren't helping anything at 6:15 when I woke up. Jared said he was up for 12M, so we headed down the river to Fresh Pond. It was nice to have somebody to run and talk with, the time passed a little quicker this morning. My legs were feeling a lot better than I expected, it took maybe 10 minutes to loosen up but after that things felt pretty normal. The nice weather is definitely gone, temps were in the low to mid 30s, I wore a hat and gloves because of my developing cold. I decided not to double up this afternoon, after spending the whole day working at home and watching the first round of the tournament (that Pacific-BC game was great,) I decided that tacking on just 4M wouldn't help all that much, heading out into the cold weather again would probably just make things worse. | 12 |
| Wednesday PM | BAA Workout at Reggie. 1600-1600-3k-1600 in 4:51, 4:50, 9:05, 4:42. 3:00, 3:00, 6:00 rest. Started my warmup right around 6pm, jogged over to Reggie and met the group as they were finishing up their first lap. I stuck with them for the start of their second lap but turned around to get to the bathroom, which was probably good because Magill was up front and really had them moving. Since most of the group are racing the New Bedford Half Marathon this weekend, Pieroni just wanted us to take the first two miles relaxed, around 4:52 is what he suggested, and then start running harder if we wanted. Oscar led us through in 38-77. I went into the lead after that and dropped down to about 35s, which wasn't good enough for Ed Baker, who went around me on the backstretch and that was the last I we saw of him. Oscar, Jason Bialka, Matt Ely and probably a few other guys stuck right with me the rest of the way and we finished up in a big group right at 4:51. The rest period felt really long, I was feeling pretty fresh at the start of the second one. I went to the lead at the start, but Ed Baker went right around me on the first curve and took off. The rest of us ran 35-36s pretty much the whole way, Jason Bialka and Oscar went past me over the last half mile and finished just ahead of me. Ed took off again at the start of the 3k, Magill led Oscar and I through in 36-74. I was wanting to run straight 36s to hit 9:00 and got a little anxious, so I went around and then did my best to chase down Ed. I was running pretty much 35-high and 36-low, hit 3:00 at 1k and 6:00 at 2k before I started to tie up. I never managed to close the gap on Ed and started getting less and less committed to hammering. Just after 2k, Jason went past me and I hung with him pretty well, then he wound up stopping at 2400, but Matt Ely went flying past and I did my best to stick on Oscar after he went around me. We managed to stay pretty much together through to the finish. I started getting really hot, so during the rest I splashed some water on my face and neck. Last week I was fine in the adidas mesh shirt, but I guess the longer intervals were too much, I should have brought out the singlet, I guess. Also during the rest, Ed Baker decided to lace up his Eldorets, so we all let him start in the lead since it was pretty obvious he was going to try and fly. I tucked in behind Oscar and we were running pretty quick, out in 34+ and then hitting 35s to get to 800m in 2:23. I tried to go around Oscar to help out, so he wouldn't be doing all the work, but he picked it up so I tucked back in behind. We hit 1200m in 3:34, then Oscar dropped down to 34 for the next lap and I did a decent job of sticking on him, but he started pulling away on the last lap, and I heard Matt behind me telling me to relax and pick it up, I somehow got around without tying up and closed the gap to Oscar slightly. All in all today was a pretty good workout, although we all collectively got hosed by Ed Baker. I guess he took offense to my innocent comment last week about how we were poking fun at him and showed up today with something to prove. Ed, I apologize. I cooled down about 3M around the track with most of the guys and then stretched out for a little while before jogging home. Ed came with me down Tremont and turned off at Washington, probably to go find 4 or 5 entrees to eat for dinner. | 12 |
| Wednesday AM | Oragne Line. I was looking at some options for races this spring and got a little distracted this morning, didn't get going until 7:20. But I was just going for a little shakeout because the BAA workout is tonight at Reggie, so I still got back before 8am. Tonight should be a pretty good one, 1600-1600-3k-1600. I'm feeling pretty tired when I wake up, but as the day goes along I've been feeling better, so hopefully tonight goes well. | 4 |
| Tuesday PM | Fresh Pond with Fivos and Brulois. Met the guys in the lockerroom and we got going around 4:15 this afternoon. We kept it pretty easy, it was conversational the whole way. My legs were feeling pretty good, I forgot to bring my shoes with me to campus today so I ran in the Supernovas, which felt a little loose and clunky, but didn't give me any problems. Just a boring mileage day, talking about some of Fivos' plans for post-collegiate stuff. I ran a couple strides on the outdoor track but nothing very fast, and then headed inside to stretch out. | 7 |
| Tuesday AM | Docks backwards. Got going a bit after 7am this morning, headed down to the Common and then through Downtown Crossing. Temps were in the mid-40s so I went with just a tshirt, but it started raining when I hit the Common and for awhile I wished I had worn gloves. But I eventually got used to it and didn't mind the rain so much. Felt like I was running quicker than normal at the start, but I must have relaxed because I hit the World Trade Center Convention Center right at 20:00, my usual pace. From there I kept it easy the rest of the way, didn't wind up running very hard. I messed up the watch somewhere so I don't have a final time, but it must have been around 60:00. Fivos sent me an interesting link this morning about the guy who got second in Sunday's race, Alene Reta. | 9 |
| Monday PM | Longfellow-BU. I got home from campus at 5pm and was out the door at 5:05. Kept it pretty easy and relaxed the whole way, just putting in some mileage. My legs were aching all day, but I was actually feeling good once I got going. As I was on the footbridge to Longfellow I saw Fivos and Brulois running what I assume was Docks, I tried to catch them at Charles Street but got there too late and didn't feel like chasing after them, so I just crossed Longfellow and stuck to the river. No watch on this one, just an easy shakeout. | 6 |
| Monday AM | Jamaica. Got distracted by some work this morning, didn't get going until 8:30. I was at first thinking of running Arboretum, but decided to break today up into two runs, so I just ran around Jamaica Pond. Headed out on the usual Arboretum route through the Emerald Necklace, my legs had really been aching last night and this morning but I felt fine when I was actually out there running. I think I kept the pace pretty relaxed, just trying to loosen up. Felt good around the Pond and then ducked onto the trails on the way back. I don't know why I never ran those when I was in college, you can put in a decent amount of mileage on them. Started noticing that I'd wind up right around 8.5M, so instead I shut it down at 54:00 when I was in the Fens and did a couple of strides the rest of the way home. I figured that was a good idea since I didn't run any yesterday, I didn't really do anything aside from cooling down 4M with Jared yesterday. I was feeling great by the end of today's run, I'll head out again for 6M or so after class. I'm really enjoying the return to nice weather, it makes getting out the door a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable. | 8 |
| Sunday | Boston's Run to Remember, 7th place in 24:13. Felt alright on the warmup, went 2M out and back on some the industrial roads down by the harbor. My right hip was pretty sore but it didn't really bother me after the warmup. Got out well at the gun, we were hauling pretty well, I looked around a little and realized I was right in the middle of a pack of 7 Africans. I did my best to settle in and stay relaxed with the fast pace, we were going downhill onto Atlantic coming off the bridge on Seaport and I ran the tangent and got to the lead, then settled back in the pack and took the left turn onto State Street pretty poorly and that was really where I started losing the pack. I later found out the mile mark was right on State Street, we must have been about 4:40, Jared Markowicz told me later that he came through in 4:50 and we were gone. We turned onto Congress and went downhill and that was it, the gap was there. I did my best to stay close the rest of the way, but didn't close the gap any. Hit the 3M mark in 14:15 and crossed the line at 24:13, about a minute or so behind the winner. I got rolled pretty well today, but I felt comfortable the whole way, so I guess there's a bit of a silver lining. It would have been interesting to see what I could have done with another 2k. Afterwards I cooled down about 4M with Jared, running some of Docks and some of the course. | 11 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 14 3/5-3/11 |
March Miles : 136 | 90 |
| Saturday | Run to Remember course. I looked at the map a little more carefully this time, realized that last time I didn't actually turn onto Washington, so I corrected that mistake and got a pretty good look at the course. It was a little weird since I picked the course up in the middle and ran the last few miles first, as I got to the end of the run I ws getting more psyched up, but was at a part of the course where I would be pretty early on. Normally I'd be getting more psyched up as I got closer to the finish line. Ran pretty slow today, covered the course in just over 36:00, total time was just over 50:00. My legs were still a little tired, but I think I'll be ready tomorrow. | 7 |
| Friday | Arboretum, shortened slightly. I got going about 8am this morning, weather was great today. Mid-50s, it was wet like it just rained, must have overnight. Went in just a tshirt, hopefully this sticks around. I headed out to the Arboretum but cut the typical route short. I got to the Arboretum in 33:00, I was feeling good but guess I was running slow. I ran for about 9:00 along the typical route and then turned back at the 42 minute mark. Kept it easy/slow the rest of the way home, made it back in 32:30. Don't know why I was so tired today, just wasn't feeling it I guess. Pretty boring, uneventful run. The mileage is slowly creeping back up, but tomorrow will probably be a little shorter. | 12 |
| Thursday PM | Lechmere to Castle to Magazine Street to the River then some Grass Loops with Sean. Kind of ran all over the place today, started out with Fivos and Brulois, they both weren't running the workout because it's their first week of the season. Fivos wanted 6M and Brulois wanted 5M, so we headed east on Memorial then went through Lechmere and followed McGrath Highway into Somerville. We didn't run much of the Castle route, we just ran past Target to the intersection which is more or less at the base of Castle. Then we headed back to Central Square where Brulois turned off to head back to MIT. Fivos and I headed straight to the river, on what turned out to be Magazine Street. We were right at the Shell station then, so we just followed the river back to MIT. On our way back we ran into Nolan who was just starting, so he doubled back with us. We got back to campus at about 45:00, I was planning on calling that a short 7M to go with the long 6M this morning, but Sean decided to run Grass Loops, so I tagged along with him for a couple. We ran the old school loops, going behind the track instead of going west on the turf. The whole run went by pretty quickly, we weren't running very fast, but just having people to talk to is nice every once in awhile. I was tempted to keep going with Sean but thought better of it and peeled off at the 60 minute mark. I ran a couple of strides on the indoor track before stretching out with some of the guys. Didn't really feel any affects of yesterday's workout, we kept everything relaxed and easy but my legs were feeling good. | 9 |
| Thursday AM | New route around Downtown. I'm running the Boston's Run to Remember on Sunday, which is an 8k around downtown so I figured it would be helpful to check out the course. I had to be at the lab at 8:30am for some meetings so I took off at 6:45am. I headed down Comm Ave and picked up the course at Berkeley. Headed one block down to Arlington, then left onto Boylston to Washington. I got a little confused around there and wandered through Chinatown for a few blocks before picking up Atlantic at South Station. I'll have to check out the map again to figure that part out. Then I took Atlantic to State to Congress, past Haymarket and left onto New Chadron, up to Cambridge, down to Longfellow, left onto Charles Street back to Beacon, then Comm Ave. Looks to be a pretty quick course, only real hill is up New Chadron, which then immediately rolls into a downhill on Cambridge. I spent 27:00 on the course, but I skipped the portion on Seaport down to the World Trade Center, and cutting through Chinatown messed it up, too. I was running for 42:00, so right between 6 and 7M. We'll see what I run this afternoon, but for now I'll call it a long 6M. | 6 |
| Wednesday PM | 2x(600 1k 600 1k.) 1:45, 2:53, 1:43, 2:51; 1:43, 2:51, 1:42, 2:52. We had 1:00 after the 600s, 2:00 after 1ks and 4:00 between the two sets. Warmed up over to Reggie and ran a warmup loop backwards thinking I'd find the guys, but I guess they got a late start, because I was finishing up when I finally saw them back by Reggie. Took a little longer stretching out and then put in some strides before getting down to it. Pretty small group today, just Ely, Magill, Ponce and myself. The workout was shorter than normal, Pieroni's plan was to run the 1000s hard (2:50-54) and the 600s steady (1:43-1:45.) Sounded good to me, Oscar had taken some time off after getting his wisdom teeth pulled, so he didn't know what he'd be up for. I led the first one, came through in 35+ and 71 before picking it up on the last lap. I led the first 1000 also, coming through a little quicker, about 2:19 at 800 and finishing strong. Magill led the 600 wire to wire, we came through in a low 34, then 68+ and 1:43. Matt Ely led the start of the next 1000, we came through 600 right around 1:44 and then I went to the lead and really dropped the hammer over the last 400. I was feeling it then, but the 4:00 rest was plenty and, surprise, I started out too quick on the 600, coming through in 33 before relaxing for the next two laps. I made the same mistake on the 1000, we started behind two other groups and they moved out into lanes two and three for us but I guess I picked it up too much to get past them since we came through in 33 again. I relaxed a little, but not too much, came through 800 in 2:17 and closed with a 34. I got a little distracted after that interval because I saw Nolan's doppelganger jogging around the track (check out Athlete of the Week for Feb 5), there were a lot of college teams there getting ready for D2 Nationals. Oscar led the 600, he was really moving and my legs were feeling the 33s from the previous two intervals and he gapped me. I moved out to lane two on the last lap to let Ely go past me, since he's got a whole lot more speed than I do and I figured he might want to chase down Oscar. Wound up pretty close to Oscar anyways, it turns out that was his last interval, so it was just Ely, Magill and myself for the last one. I led the last one wire to wire, running pretty even splits, but picking it up a little at the very end. Pretty solid workout today, this was a lot closer to the MIT workouts that I'm used to, I felt a lot more comfortable out there. I cooled down for about 10 minutes around the track with Oscar then stretched out a little on the infield while making fun of Ed Baker (who's currently in Argentina) with Pieroni, Oscar and Mark LaRosa. Then I finished up by jogging home, LaRosa came with me, having somebody to talk with made it a lot nicer. | 10 |
| Wednesday AM | Orange Line. Just a quick four banger to loosen up this morning. Not quite as warm as yesterday, but I think the worst of the cold is behind us. My legs were feeling decent, but it's hard to tell when you're only running 25-30 minutes. | 4 |
| Tuesday | Arboretum. Another day where I was working from home and decided to wait on my run. Today I actually had a good reason, because it was 28 degrees at 7am but I was able to wear just a tshirt and gloves at 2pm because it was a gorgeous 40 degrees for my run. Still not running very fast, right around 32:00 to the Arboretum, but at least I don't feel slow anymore. Meaning that earlier I didn't really have a choice, I had to run slow, but today, if I really had to, I could have gotten the legs moving. Three solid mileage days in a row now, with the BAA workout looming for tomorrow. | 14 |
| Monday PM | Orange Line with Kathryn. Headed out for a nice little shake out, it's been awhile since I've done a typical double like this, feels pretty good. We kept it easy the whole time, upwards of 7:30s I'd guess. Felt good to get the blood pumping after a long day. | 4 |
| Monday AM | Castle-Bunker Hill. The usual morning routine, I waited until about 7:30 then headed over to Sommerville and Charlestown. Felt pretty good this morning, my legs aren't all the way back to feeling fresh and I certainly wasn't hammering, but they weren't as tired as they were most of last week. I looked over the National entries before going out for my run, not only did 14:45 get in this year, but they took 13 guys, also. I was 13th on the list last year and ran sub 14:45 the past two years. Nobody's fault but my own, though. | 10 |
| Sunday | Arboretum. Didn't get going right away but managed to get running before the morning slipped away. Felt pretty good today, the weather's warming up some, which makes it a little easier to get running. I was still a little slow today, 32:40 to the Arboretum and 31:something home. Not too concerned about my pace though, just putting in mileage is what's really important right now. Hopefully this week I can jump back up into the 90-100MPW range. | 14 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 13 2/26-3/4 |
Not a bad week, but it could have been better. The mileage wasn't ever really good, doubling up on Tuesday to put in 18M kind of propped up the rest of the week. Had a lot of double-able days that I just didn't for a variety of reasons. Wednesday's hard run was pretty good, but I faded a lot more than I should have coming back on the Boston side. I got out about a minute faster than normal but only finished up like 0:15 faster. Little things like that and getting tired near the end of 11M and 12M runs make me question a little bit whether I've lost more than I think in the time I took off after indoors finished up. March Miles : 46 | 87 |
| Saturday | Reservoir backwards, up both sides of Summit. Didn't run right away this morning then wound up running errands and didn't get out the door until nearly 4pm. I was concerned about losing the light if I tried to head to the Arboretum, so I just headed west on Beacon and planned on putting in 11 or 12M. I didn't try to hammer anything, just put in mileage. Climbing up the long side of Summit is always a bear, even if you try to run easy, so my legs were a little shot after that. They loosened up when I got to the Reservoir though, made it around feeling pretty good then tired again heading home on Comm Ave. Felt decent heading up Summit and then just tried to get home without imploding. My legs weren't feeling horrible but they were certainly tired, hopefully I'll be able to sleep a little more tonight than I have been recetly. | 12 |
| Friday | Fresh Pond. Pretty average run today, got going about 7:30am and wasn't feeling too bad. Didn't hammer, didn't crawl, just put in my time. Probably going to be my only run today, since now I've got to stay on campus until after 5pm for research stuff. Anyways, I got to the Pond and my legs were a little tired, then right at the Golf Course they were setting up a fence to block off the path, since they're doing some construction on Little Fresh Pond, I guess I timed it pretty poorly because they just finished blocking the path off when I got there. So I just turned around and ran the other direction around the Pond to the light, I got there at about 46:00 which is pretty normal, so I figure it's about the same distance. Kept things relaxed the rest of the way home, finished up right at 78:00. A couple minutes slower than normal, but I was just keeping things easy. | 12 |
| Thursday | Arboretum, turned around early. I worked from home today and waited until after 2pm to get out the door, and I was running pretty slow when I finally did get started. Trudged along the Riverway and got to the Arboretum in over 32:00 and headed on my usual route, but after 7 minutes or so my stomach started telling me that turning around would be a good idea. Maybe it was the pizza I had at 'Roads last night, that's never been the best stuff. I wasn't too happy that I had to cut my run short, but I didn't have many options, since I haven't donated a public toilet to the Arboretum yet. That's my first philantrophic gift if I ever win the lottery. Anyways, I turned around 40:00 into the run and got home pretty damn slow, so even though I was gone for 80+ minutes, it was only 11M. I figure it's 4+ to the Arboretum and then I did about a mile before turning back, so 5+, but not 6M. Pretty disappointed in today's run, I was hoping to get back on track mileage-wise, but I kept thinking about it on the way home and decided it wasn't a giant tragedy. I at least managed to get my legs loosened up a little after yesterday's hard effort and I've still got a decent shot at hitting 90M. | 11 |
| Wednesday | Hard 10 miler along the river, Mass Ave to Arsenal. Got out the door just before 7:30, temperatures still aren't cooperating, just over 15 degrees at the start. Jogged the half mile to the river pretty slow then kicked it up when I hit the bridge. I wasn't sure I really wanted to try to hammer the run today, but I was feeling good so I figured I'd keep it rolling. I was really moving on the Cambridge side around River and Western, and I managed to hit the lights which was great. Just did my best to relax and let my legs find a rhythm on the way out, felt like I got lulled asleep a little from JKF to Arsenal, despite trying not to. That stretch is so long and desolate, it's just boring. Made the turn right around 27:00, didn't really know what that meant, though. Looking back at the previous times I've run this, that's about a minute faster. I was really hauling on the way out, and I was running into the wind, so I was hoping for a good one on the way home, but that didn't materialize. I kept coasting pretty much to JFK and then was able to get my legs going again, only to hit the light at River St and have to wait. Then I didn't really get back into the rhythm until I was pretty much at the BU Bridge. Did my best to keep it rolling back to Mass Ave but I just didn't quite have it in my legs today. I was still running quick but I could tell there was another gear that I couldn't get to, I definitely wasn't hammering the end of the run. My stomach started bothering me over the final 2 minutes or so, not bad enough to affect things but definitely convinced me not to add on a Longfellow loop to cooldown, but I wasn't really excited about that anyways. I wound up hitting 53:00 for the run, which is 0:18 faster than the best I've run, so overall it was good, but I must have really slowed on the way home, since I was a minute up at Arsenal. Hopefully I'll motivate myself to put in some distance runs and get back a little bit of strength. All in all not a bad start to March. | 11 |
| Tuesday PM | Docks. I met Bruce and Wong for a run at 3pm, they were going early for UPOP. They were going 8M so we opted for the usual Docks and took off. I could immediately tell that running with these guys was a good idea, we kept it easy from the first steps. After a couple days of running a little quick having a relaxed run was just what I needed. Nothing spectactular happened on the run, we wound up running 61:00, so we were really chilling the whole way. I put in a good pickup at the end of the run and then was feeling pretty quick on the strides. After stretching out, Bruce and Wong went over to lift, so I thought I'd try out benching and see what 9 months away from lifting did. Just like riding a bike, I put in 3 sets of 6 at 135. Not used to staring up at the roof of Johnson. Another gem from Coach Taylor while lifting... Wong was doing some shoulder crap with 20lb dumbells, Coach looks over and says "Chris, don't push yourself too much, my daughter can lift that, and she's 8 years old." I should really go to practice with the guys more often. February Miles : 296 | 8 |
| Tuesday AM | Castle-Bunker Hill. I was thinking about running Johnny Kelly, but it was a cold and I got a late start, so I just went 10M and planned on a longer afternoon run. I was feeling average the whole way, just logging mileage and putting in some time. I wasn't paying too much attention and almost missed the turn at Bunker Hill, nothing very exciting happened today, obviously. | 10 |
| Monday | Fresh Pond backwards. Wasn't very excited when I saw the temperature was 7 degrees, by the time I got out the door at 7:30am it was about 10 degrees. It felt like it took twice as long as normal to get across the bridge, from there I was feeling better, however, and the temperature wasn't such an issue. I decided to go backwards because the lights weren't set up right for me to get across Mass Ave at Mem Drive. Felt good and the pace was pretty quick the whole way. Nothing very exciting for the majority of the run, I thought about cutting it short a few times but just kept reminding myself that I'm back in a base phase and I've got to pay some dues right now. Got to the Pond and the footing was pretty good all the way around. Kept the hammer down after I got away from the Pond, I somehow got Erasure's "Respect" stuck in my head, that song is like a virus. Going back across the bridge the wind pretty well froze the right side of my face. Wound up running 72:40, again a couple minutes faster than normal. My legs have been feeling pretty good recently and I've put a couple of solid runs together, now I've got to ramp up the mileage a little more. | 12 |
| Sunday | Reservoir plus Summit. Again, I waited around for awhile today, felt more like eating breakfast than getting out the door. I finally got going about 3:00pm and decided to just run out to Reservoir. Since my legs were feeling so good I decided to keep the pace quick, like yesterday, and for some reason also thought hammering Summit would be a good addition. I was feeling good all the way to Summit, when I started hammering I was wondering why I thought it was such a good idea at the start of the run. Kept hammering all the way to the top, then let the pace slacken for a little while. When I got to the Reservoir I picked it up again and kept the pace pretty quick the rest of the way home. Finished up in 66:30 or so, a couple minutes quicker than normal. | 11 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 12 2/19-2/25 |
Kind of a slack off week, hit a solid pr in the 5k on Sunday, nothing amazing but good for my current fitness. Then I felt like resting a little so I took 3 days off, but felt great when I came back. Didn't push anything, just put in a couple of average mileage days to finish off the week. Pretty low-key this week, hopefully it helped to recharge the batteries, get rid of the little aches and pains and get me excited for outdoors. February Miles : 255 | 43 |
| Saturday | castle-Bunker Hill. I was hungry when I woke up this morning so I ate some breakfast and then worked for a few hours to let things settle. Waiting a few hours also let the temperature warm up a little bit, it was mid-20s and snowing when I got going just before noon. Naturally, I only had one choice of routes, and I was feeling good so I thought I'd make it a full out Brewer day and kept the pace quick the whole way. I did relax a little after getting past Castle, snow on the sidewalks made keeping the hammer down tough. My legs are still feeling pretty good, I picked it back up again when I got to Commonwealth. | 10 |
| Friday | Science-BU Loop. I had an early meeting in the lab today so I got out the door at 6:50am and put in just a quick 7 miler along the river. My legs were back to normal, but I'm excited about running and racing again. Starting to put some plans together for outdoors, hopefully I'll be able to put together a good 5k and lower my PR by more than just 1.5 seconds. | 7 |
| Thursday | Fresh Pond in 78:00. I know some people pride themselves on running every day, never missing a run. Most of the time I'm like that too, I make a point of getting work in every day, but I skipped the last three days and it was worth it, just to feel the way I felt for the first mile or so of today's run. It was like running on air, my legs were so fresh and it was so effortless at the start. My legs kept feeling good the whole way, I came back to reality around Central Square, so about 10M in. I wasn't running any faster than normal, but it was a great run. | 12 |
| Wednesday | Thought about starting today, but was busy until 5pm and didn't feel like putting in more than 4M, and what's the point of going if it's just 4M? | 0 |
| Tuesday | Day off, trying to catch up on work. I spent all morning doing some homework and wasn't really in the mood to run when I got home from class at 5pm. Another day off can't hurt too much. | 0 |
| Monday | Decided to take today off, let the legs and the mind relax. I had a chance to get out the door this morning but opted to eat breakfast instead. Kathryn and I spent most of the rest of the day running errands and I did some homework. Yesterday wasn't supposed to be the end of my season or anything, but it's been a solid 10 weeks and my legs, and especially my mind, could use a short break. I need to get excited about getting out the door again. | 0 |
| Sunday | USATF-NE Championships, 5k in 14:36.38. The meet was at Harvard, I warmed up down Harvard Street and onto Western, put in the normal 2M and then stretched out before hitting some strides. I was feeling pretty fast on the strides, and knew I was the second seed and felt pretty good about the race. Got out and settled in behind Jeff Caron and we clipped off 70s through 3k. I took the lead on the homestretch going into 3k and led the rest of the way. Would have liked to run a little faster over the final 2k instead of just holding 70s, felt like I was working harder than just 70s. I tied up a little with 650m to go but managed to relax and regrouped to put in a good last 200m. Afterwards I cooled down by going around Fresh Pond for a nice 9M run, right at 60 minutes. | 14 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 11 2/12-2/18 |
So this week really turned into a little bit of an unintentional taper, but it's not such a problem, really. I was hoping for a good workout on Wednesday and I was feeling pretty smooth the whole time but it wasn't all that hard, under control the whole way. Missed out on Sunday because of the snow storm and the next couple days were tough because of the snow on the ground. My legs were feeling pretty good, don't know about my speed but at least they're fresh and rested. February Miles : 212 | 67 |
| Saturday | Science-BU. Kathryn's parents are in town so I ran early to get it out of the way. Weather has gotten colder, so it was back to longsleeve with hats and gloves. Spent most of the run thinking about why I haven't really ever been able to run a fast 5k that equates to the 2 8:20ish 3ks I've run. I need to find some way to stay relaxed while keeping the pace aggressive the whole way. Hopefully tomorrow will be a step in the right direction. According to the IAAF tables, 8:19.02 equates to 14:22. | 7 |
| Friday | BC Backwards. I was planning on just running the regular BC loop, but couldn't get across Commonwealth, so I headed up Beacon instead. The weather this morning was great, in the 50s, so I ran in just shorts and a tshirt, I love being able to do that. Ran up the long side of Summit. | 9 |
| Thursday | Fresh Pond. | 12 |
| Wednesday PM | 6x1200m at Reggie. 3:34, 3:37, 3:30, 3:30, 3:33, 3:29. Warmed up 3M, cooled down 2M. I guess I headed over to Reggie a little early tonight, I met up with the guys as they were just starting their first loop, so I had some extra time to stretch out. I carried over some spikes Pieroni sent me awhile ago that didn't fit, so my arms were a little tired when I got to the track. I was hoping to put in a solid workout tonight, but most guys are tapering off, so Pieroni had me run with Oscar, going out easy through 600 and then picking it up over the final 600m. Oscar led the first one and we were nice and easy through 600 and then dropped down to 34s to finish. I led the next one and we were kind of all over the place, 35-37-36 or so through 600 and then steady 35s to finish. Oscar took the third, which was his last one, and he smoked me over the final 600. Matt Ely and I decided to run the final 3 intervals regularly, and even though he sounded reluctant to run 70s he led the fourth and clipped off steady 35s the whole way. I was a little irregular on the next one, 35-high and 36s through 600 before finding 70s the rest of the way. Matt took the last one and blew my doors off over the final 600m, he smoked a 31 or so on the final 200. We got out fast enough though that I managed to keep it rolling and finish up with a good time. Today was a pretty low-key workout, even though I wasn't really looking for one. The unintentional taper continues. I slacked off on the cooldown, just ran home and did a stride or two. | 10 |
| Wednesday AM | Longfellow-BU. Just wanted a quick shakeout before this afternoon's workout. My legs were feeling alright, nothing amazing though. Sometimes it's nice to just put in a short one in the AM and get the day started 30-60 minutes earlier than normal. | 6 |
| Tuesday PM | Orange Line. Got going just before 5pm today, feeling pretty good the whole way. My legs were actually really fresh, one of those days where you feel like you could really uncork one if you got after it. I held back most of the way though, just kept it relaxed and low-key. | 4 |
| Tuesday AM | Docks. Got going right at 7am again, I need to start doing that more often. Nothing too special, just put in mileage. Footing was okay most of the way, it was a little sloppy on the esplanade and the bridge. The run was at the typical pace though, despite the snow on the ground. I was on the Docks right as the water taxi pulled up, so I was dodging people there, otherwise things were nice and relaxed. | 9 |
| Monday | Castle-Bunker Hill. Got out the door right at 7am and put in a decent 10 miler, considering the conditions. I was 5-8 minutes slower than normal, but I got sloppy with the watch over the second half of the run, hence the 3 minute range. The footing wasn't too bad, sidewalks were packed down and the streets were pretty much clear, traffic wasn't too bad so the roads were an option most of the way. Good to be back running again. I was planning on running again in the afternoon, but again I just wasn't feeling it after helping Kathryn shovel out her car. | 10 |
| Sunday | I think like most people in New England I put up a goose egg today because of the blizzard. Woke up at 8am and it wasn't too bad out, turned on the TV and they were saying that the worst was about to hit, so I stayed on the couch all morning watching it come down outside. It got pretty bad, pretty much no visibility. Thought about going to FitCorp with Kathryn to run on the treadmill, but we both fell asleep and slept from 2-5:30 and didn't feel like running after that. I guess the unintentional taper of the past few days continues. | 0 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 10 2/05-2/11 |
Not the best training week, the mileage was a little below where I wanted it and I wound up tapering a little unintentionally, but running a 3k PR makes the week a lot better. I managed to put in two runs of decent distance and also hit a solid, consistent workout on Wednesday. Getting more acclimated to the BAA style of workouts, getting my legs under me a little more, also. Going into Saturday I was thinking that 8:15-20 would be a great race, 8:20-25 would be a good race and I'd be happy with 8:25-30. I haven't done a whole lot of quality work, the shortest intervals I've run are 600s, so I wasn't sure that I'd be able to get out in 66s and still feel comfortable. It really just reinforces what I've been thinking recently: (1) mileage works and (2) mindset is more important than workouts. Just being calm on the line and confident that you're going to run fast has a bigger impact than nailing every single interval in workouts. February Miles : 145 | 88 |
| Saturday | 3k at Valentines Invite at BU. Ran 8:19.02, pretty happy with how it went. I got there a little after 10am and was able to watch a lot of the 3k and 5k heats before heading out for the warmup. Did the usual 2M route out to the BU bridge, then headed to the infield to stretch out. I wasn't very settled while sitting there, I got up to check if the line for the bathroom had shrunk (it hadn't) and wasn't really sure how many more 3k heats there were. I managed to put in a couple of strides and was actually pretty calm on the line. We got out fast, I had to remind myself not to settle in, and then found my spot midpack and hung around until kicking the last 150m pretty well. I cooled down 20:00 along the river then headed home with Kathryn. We dropped her car off to get the oil changed and a couple hours later we jogged to the service station and added on a few minutes to get the total time up to 30:00, I'll call it 4M. | 11 |
| Friday PM | BU-Longfellow from MIT. Started out with just Fivos because Jake was going to wait a little before running, so we headed out over the BU bridge and were just running easy and chatting. Typical pre-race stuff. Then Fivos turned at Mass Ave and I dropped down to the Esplanade and was about 100m behind Bruce and Wong, so I picked it up to catch them. They were heading back at Longfellow because they're starting to back off mileage, so I just crossed with them and called it a day. Pretty easy the whole way, just relaxing. Felt pretty quick when I picked it up at the end, then went upstairs and stretched out briefly. I jogged 2 laps on my own and then ran 6 strides, today was the first time in a while that I've felt fast running strides, but I was alone so maybe I just felt fast and wasn't actually running that fast. Excited for tomorrow. | 5 |
| Friday AM | Science-Mass Ave loop. Wimped out last night and didn't get out the door. Decided that tacking on just 4M wouldn't make such a huge difference, and most of my running stuff was still wet from the laundry, so I just stayed home. Decided I'd keep on backing off today, instead of going 7M this morning only went 5M, but felt pretty good. Something this short my legs normally feel fresh, didn't get sore or tired at all. Didn't run any strides, but I'm planning to run from campus in the afternoon, so I'll do some then. | 5 |
| Thursday | Fresh Pond around the Pond. I waited a little before getting out the door for this one, thought of going with two shorter runs but eventually talked myself into the full run. Temps were in the 20s again, this mild winter has really made me soft, but after a few blocks I got used to it. Kind of a weird run, my legs weren't that tired from last night's workout and I was running at a pretty decent pace, but I didn't feel that great, either. I didn't look at my watch very much, finished the run in 77ish. Just getting through the run today, did my best to keep it easy the whole way, but near the end of the run my legs got pretty heavy. Finished up nice and easy, skipped strides but stretched out pretty well afterwards. I somehow got into the fast heat of the 3k for Saturday, so I spent most of the run thinking about how the race will go, getting ready to run fast and relaxed in the middle of the pack, hopefully I'll have some wheels for the end. | 12 |
| Wednesday PM | 2x(1200-600-1200-600). 3:32, 1:44, 3:29, 1:43. 3:28, 1:42, 3:33, 1:41. We had 2:00 after the 1200s, 1:30 after the 600s and 4:00 between the two sets. Warmed up to Reggie and met the group for their second lap, then stretched out a little and ran a few strides. I've never really had time for a full warm-up, would have liked to run a few more strides, I think I'm leaving too late for the jog over. Anyways, we got started and I led us through in 35 but then dropped to 73 somehow, so Oscar and Magill went past me on the backstretch and we picked it back up. I sat on the two of them the rest of the way. Oscar led the 600 and I did a decent job of hanging onto him, then he only ran the last 800m of the 12 since he was resting up for a 5k at BU on Saturday and XC Nats the next weekend. I led through in 69 then he jumped in ahead of me and blew me out over the next 800. He ran the full 600 but I was never close to him, just tried to pace it well, came through under 70 and picked it up on the last 200. Oscar was done after that so I led most of the second set, got out a little fast, coming through in about 33, then backed off and hit 69, picked it up and hit 1:43 then finally found some semblance of pace and finished up well. Tried to hit 34s for the 600, did a pretty good job of that but then faltered a little over the last 600m of the 1200. Matt Ely went past me at about the 600 and gapped me, I rallied slightly over the final 200m to keep the time somewhat decent. We got out well on the last one, came through in 32.5 then slowed to a 67, which is where Matt turned on the jets and left me. I found another gear for a few steps on the backstretch but wasn't able to hold it. I was pretty happy with this workout, was hoping for a little bit more speed, especially at the end, but I'll take it. It wasn't hard enough to leave me in a hole for Saturday, but I still felt like I got in some hard work. I told Peroni before we started that I didn't want to cut it short to rest up for Saturday because I'm treating indoors as more of a base period, just trying to get some good mileage and workouts in my legs to hopefully set me up for some fast outdoor races and hopefully some money on the roads. I jogged about 2 minutes around the track then suited up for the 20 degree weather and ran home. Took a shorter cooldown but added a couple of strides in front of the church, so hopefully I won't be feeling this workout tomorrow. | 10 |
| Wednesday AM | Orange Line plus a lap around the Common. Waited until just after 7:30 to get out the door today, this morning was just a short shakeout anyways. Glad I checked the thermometer before I left, it was just 20 degrees outside so I grabbed my hat on the way out. Broke my rule of not timing runs this short, I took my watch without even thinking about it, was out there for 32:00. | 5 |
| Tuesday | Arboretum. Originally I was thinking that I was going to run 18M, but I couldn't get myself motivated to get out the door, so I compromised and went shorter. I ran in the middle of the day, headed over to the Arboretum for some more soft surfaces. After a couple miles I realized that I made a good decision, I decided to just go easy and rest up for the workout tomorrow. I was feeling pretty good though, so I kept reminding myself to pull back on the reins. Nothing out of the ordinary, pretty typical times for the three legs: 31:40, 28:30 (I think the new route through the Arboretum is short,) 30:00. Felt good to be able to just relax and rest up, hopefully I'll be able to hit a good workout tomorrow. | 14 |
| Monday | Fresh Pond, around the Pond. Did a good job of getting out the door this morning, although everything was pushed back by 10-15 minutes because I got up late, so getting out the door quickly didn't make a huge difference. I left about 7:15am and my legs were not too bad. I never really felt great today, but I was able to run decently fast nonetheless. Nothing special today, kept a decent pace without feeling tired, put in 75:00 for the run. Pretty happy with how I felt today. Probably not going to double today, I think I'm going to go watch the MIT meet at BU instead. | 12 |
| Sunday | Arboretum again. Waited until about noon to get out the door today, it was another day in the 50s and I was thinking Johnny Kelly, but decided another day of soft surfaces was a better choice, so I headed over to the Arboretum again. I was feeling good from the start, but even though I felt like I was moving it took me 31:40 to get to the Arboretum. I wasn't pushing at all, just staying relaxed and enjoying the great weather. Once I got through the gates things picked up, I wound up running about 28:30 for the normal loop. I was feeling really good and stretched the legs out a little. The ground was still soggy and there were puddles in some places, but no real obstacles. About halfway through the loop the sun came out and it started feeling really warm. The way home went by pretty quickly, again I didn't hammer but my legs were feeling really good so I just kept it rolling. Finished up under 30:00 for the way home, all in all a good run, pretty quick without working too hard. Maybe I'm getting in shape? | 14 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 09 1/29-2/04 |
Not such a bad week, my second good mileage week in a row and it didn't feel much harder. Looking back I guess I could feel it in my legs at the end of the week, that's probably why I wasn't too excited about doubling on Thursday and Friday. Managed to put in a consistent workout on Wednesday, hopefully I'll be able to string together a couple weeks with good workouts. Since deciding not to race XC nationals this year this has become more of a base period, trying to put in some good long runs, some high mileage weeks and some solid workouts. I put in a decent 16-miler on Tuesday but I don't really think of that as a long run. I kind of think of 14, 15, 16 milers as good mileage days, but "long runs" are 17, 18 milers and I treat those a little differently, expect to be tired the next day, etc. It doesn't make a lot of sense, and I probably shouldn't give the 17 and 18 milers as much respect as I do. Just something I thought about during Saturday's run. February Miles : 57 | 102 |
| Saturday | Arboretum. I originally planned on running a hard 10 miler, but really didn't have the right mindset for that, just opted for mileage instead. I waited awhile before leaving today, didn't take off until about 1pm. My legs were feeling better than yesterday but it wasn't like I was clipping along effortlessly. The weather was great again, mid 50s and sunny, so today was a pretty enjoyable run. I just ran how my legs felt, didn't try to force anything, and the run went by fairly quickly. Forgot to check the time when I got to the Arboretum, but it was probably about 31+ minutes, and I was at 62:00 on my way out. Picked it up slightly on the way home but nothing notable, was just under 31:00 for that stretch. | 14 |
| Friday PM | Orange Line. I don't know what it is, but something happens between sitting in the lab and getting home that makes me not want to run much in the afternoon. I was thinking that I'd hit a 6 miler, but even though it was about 50 degrees out I just didn't feel like it. Maybe it's the bike ride home, but for some reason my legs were really heavy. It was great to be able to run in just shorts and a tshirt, I was feeling decent most of the way, but got stuck at Arlington for a long time and my legs were completely dead after that. I struggled home the rest of the way, pretty much just survival shuffling. I forced a stride down the street at the end and actually felt really good. Strange run. USATF released the standards for 2006 Outdoor Nationals today, I just need to drop 55 seconds off of last Saturday's 5k. | 4 |
| Friday AM | Reservoir with Summit. I waited until about 8am to start this one, for no good reason. It was a nice 41 degrees outside but it was raining, so the weather wasn't really all that enjoyable. I felt alright, my legs are still slightly trashed, I guess the pace was good but I didn't feel all that smooth. Climbed up Summit pretty well, but everything else just felt askew. I wasn't all that into the run this morning, just put in the mileage, got wet and that was that. Stretched out briefly before getting in the shower to warm up. | 11 |
| Thursday PM | Orange Line. The plan was to run a 6 miler this afternoon but by the time I got back from the lab I just didn't have it in me. I was just happy to get out the door for this one, it was 43 degrees so I went in tshirt and gloves and actually felt pretty good. I felt a little rundown all day, but my legs were okay. Kept it pretty slow and relaxed the whole time. | 4 |
| Thursday AM | Docks. I was really dragging ass when I woke up this morning, could not bring myself to get out the door, eventually laced up the shoes and stepped out about 7:45am. I was thinking about running this loop backwards to spice things up, but forgot about that at the start and headed across the river. My right knee had started aching during last night's workout and was hurting a little bit during the run. The run was pretty awkward but by the time I got to the hotel by the harbor I was feeling better and the run was a lot better the rest of the way home. The soreness in my legs subsided and even though I felt like trash pretty much the whole way it turned out to be a pretty quick one, just under 59:00 for the 9+M loop. Not too rough of a day, could have been a lot worse, I suppose. | 9 |
| Wednesday PM | BAA Workout at Reggie, 1k-2k-2k-2k-1k in 2:58, 5:58, 5:59, 5:59, 2:53. Had 2:00 rest after the 1k and then 3:00 after all the 2ks. I got started on the warmup around 7:15 and when I got to Reggie the guys were heading out on their warmup, maybe their second loop, so I tagged along to bump the warmup up to 3M. Pat Moulton was talking about running 5x1M, which was enticing, and some of the marathoners were running 4x2M which wasn't so enticing. But I figured I'm not quite in Pat's league and everybody else was running the regular workout, so I tucked in with the main pack, right behind Oscar and came through in 71 and held it steady just behind Oscar the rest of the thousand. I sat in third place for the first thousand of the next interval before moving up at the 1k mark. I did my best to stay close to Oscar the rest of the way, came through a step or two behind him. I switched into my jersey for the second 2k, which made things a little more comfortable. Oscar gapped me during the first 1k of the next second 2k, I came through in 3:00 and then picked it up to 35s for a few laps before settling back into 36s. It felt like there was a bit of a pack riding me over the second half, which was good because Oscar and I had gapped everybody else on the first 2k and I was afraid that with him gapping me I'd be all alone. The last 2k got a little rough, I came through in 3:00 again and then Ian went around and I almost let him get away before rebounding over the final couple laps. I got back up on his shoulder over the final 100m but didn't have the legs to pick it up too much through the line. I was feeling good at the start of the final interval but held back at the start because Oscar and Pat took off hauling. I came through in 34 and then slowed a little as I tried to stay relaxed until the last 400m. Jason Bialka went around me at the 400m mark but I felt pretty good picking it up at 600m, over the final 100m Ian blew my doors off but I managed to finish it off pretty well. I was pretty happy with how the workout went, I would have liked to have been able to finish a little quicker on the last few intervals, but at least I was consistent the whole way this time. My first workout here I was all over the place, then the second one was solid but I was fading at the end of the intervals and this time I was able to hold it together, even rally at the end of the third 2k. I cooled down with one of the warmup laps and then down Tremont to Mass Ave and back home. I had some stomach problems today but nothing that interfered too terribly with the workout. Oscar had a pretty good one going today, it would have been nice to be able to hang with him. Maybe if I'm able to get to these workouts a bit more regularly it'll come around. Mike Peroni and I agreed that running the 3k at Valentine's next Saturday would be a good next move. | 11 |
| Wednesday AM | Orange Line. Got going about 8:30am, just a nice and easy shakeout to loosen up my legs. Contemplated not even going because I had started working and was in a bit of a groove, but decided to head out anyways. The sidewalks were iced over in places, I guess the rain from yesterday froze overnight. Hopefully it warms up enough to get rid of most of it, because it was a pretty big hassle, especially coming down the mall. My legs were okay, didn't really feel very sore, hopefully I'll be able to put together a good workout at Reggie tonight. It's going to be 1k-2k-2k-2k-1k, so I'm thinking I'll just shoot for 3:00s and then hopefully feel good enough on the third 2k to start opening things up a little. I'm slowly getting used to these long track workouts, but they're still pretty new to me. | 4 |
| Tuesday | Minuteman Trail. Got to the trail a little slow, in 34:00, kept it relaxed all the way out. Hit 3M out and back on the trail: 6:23, 6:45, 6:35 on the way out, 6:25, 6:35, 6:18 on the way home. Made it back from the start of the trail to home in 32:00. I kept reminding myself that today was just about putting in mileage and I didn't have to hammer because I'm going to be running the BAA workout tomorrow. I was pretty hungry this morning so I grabbed a little snack and did some work before leaving for the run about 9:30 this morning. Today was one of those runs that seems to just disappear, before I knew it I was already 7M out. I stayed pretty relaxed the whole way, kept the pace reasonable but under control. It was about forty degrees and drizzling the whole time, not horrible weather, felt a little bit like spring, but I wouldn't have minded it being slightly warmer. I seem to be rounding into better shape pretty quickly, I'm no longer dragging at the end of these long runs. January Miles : 393 | 16 |
| Monday PM | Orange Line. I stayed in the lab until almost 4:30 this afternoon and then came home and got out the door a little after 5pm. My legs were feeling alright, just a quick little shake out to the Common and back down Comm Ave. Felt pretty quick on a pick up down Clearway, spent a little extra time stretching out afterwards. My hip has been a little sore recently, nothing too bad but something I should be paying more attention to. | 4 |
| Monday AM | Castle-Bunker Hill. I need to stop wasting time in the mornings, I didn't get out the door until 7:30am and was a little rushed during the run. My legs were feeling great this morning, I wanted to keep it relaxed for the first few miles because I didn't want to get halfway through and then tie up. But after I went past Castle I decided I was feeling okay and started to relax and let my legs turn over a little quicker. I felt pretty good, I was running in a long-sleeve and shorts, but took my hat off about halfway through. Not a very exciting run, put in just over 61 minutes with a longer pick up over the last couple blocks down Comm Ave. | 10 |
| Sunday | Comm Ave to the Johnny Kelly statue. Got going about 11:30 this morning, my legs were feeling okay at the start, but I wanted to keep it relaxed on the way out and then perhaps pick it up on the way home depending upon how I felt. I took a lesson from yesterday and headed out in just tshirt, left the gloves at home, and felt great. It's pretty clear that my hill climbing ability is horrible right now, Telegraph Hill gave me a problem yesterday and today wasn't any better. I got to the statue in 48:00 and then slowly sped up on the way home. I got stuck at the light at Center Street and when I started up again there was another guy next to me and we ran together for the next mile or so. We got rolling a little bit, but I kept the hammer down going up Heartbreak Hill and managed to drop him. Didn't really hammer the rest of the way, just kept it steady and somewhat hard. My legs were feeling alright, I made it back in 46:30ish. Pretty good run this morning, glad I've been able to be putting in some longer runs lately. | 15 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 08 1/22-1/28 |
A pretty decent week, finally a return to decent mileage totals. The week got off to a really great start mileage-wise, and even though I cut back a little near the end still wound up in the mid nineties. Hopefully I'll be able to make it to practices with the guys once or twice a week when classes start, that's a pretty easy way to put in two long runs in one day. I cut back a little on Wednesday and Thursday so that I'd be somewhat fresh for Friday's race. I was really happy with how things went on Friday, I got to 3k in 8:47 and was still feeling relaxed, which was really encouraging since I've run just 3 or 4 workouts in the past two months. I think the mileage and a slightly better mental approach have been paying off. January Miles : 348 | 95 |
| Saturday | Docks plus Ollie. Got going around 11am today, put in a nice and relaxed run along the Harbor and then into Southie. I love running South Boston, it's a great neighborhood. I wasn't really tired or anything, it didn't really feel like I raced yesterday, which is a little surprising since I cooled down so atrociously. I wasn't hammering at all, just running nice and easy and enjoying the weather. It was in the mid 40s so I wore a tshirt and gloves, but probably could have skipped the gloves. Nothing about this run was special, just putting in miles and then one pickup down the street at the end of the run. | 13 |
| Friday | 5k at Terrier Invite, I ran 14:47.04 and got 9th in my heat. Not a great race, I took the lead at 2k and got to 3k in 8:47, pretty much according to plan, but I got passed by a huge pack with 12 laps to go and started fading from there. Managed to close with a 67 though and dug out a pretty good kick over the last 150m to catch Josh Kennedy from Tufts. I did the standard 2M warm-up and only cooled down 3M because I wanted to get back to the track to watch Justin Lutz run his 3k. I wound up standing around talking to Fivos and Maltas and then sat down with Kathryn to watch the Championship heats of the 3k and 5k, so I didn't stretch very much or run any strides, but my legs felt alright. Not the greatest mileage day but I put in some good work and was pretty happy with how things went today. | 8 |
| Thursday PM | Jamaica, but not around the Pond. Met up with Fivos and Jake today, we got going a little after 4pm. I was feeling really good the whole way, kind of holding back because I really felt like running hard but I wanted to stay somewhat rested for the race tomorrow. We kept things under control most of the way, just talking about random stuff, but after crossing the BU Bridge we started picking it up, but the traffic at all the intersections down Mem Drive didn't cooperate. We cut onto Amherst Alley and I must have forgotten how far it is from Next House to Johnson because I dropped the hammer early and kind of ran out of gas by the tennis courts. It felt really good to cut loose though, smooth and fast. We ran some strides upstairs but my groin/hip flexor was still aching and I didn't feel good at all, so I avoided getting up to full speed and then stretched out my groin really well before heading home. | 7 |
| Thursday AM | Orange Line plus an extra lap around the Common. Just a short one this morning because I was planning on running with Fivos this afternoon. Nothing special, the run went by fairly quickly and I didn't bring my watch with me. I felt pretty good but was just running easy and pretty slow. The streets were pretty clear and the footing wasn't a problem at all. | 5 |
| Wednesday | Fresh Pond, around the Pond. Got going a little before 7:30am, it was snowing and the sidewalks were a little wet but thankfully not iced over. Temps were in the mid 30s but I took my hat because of the snow falling from the sky. Trudging across the bridge was a pain because it was horribly slushy, but after that things weren't too bad. The sidewalks were actually fairly clear aside from the usual trouble spots. I got to the pond without any incident, heading around the Pond was pretty nice, too. The snow had pretty much stopped falling so I was able to take off my hat and unzip my shirt a little. It was a lot quieter on the Pond away from the traffic, the path was covered with snow but the footing was actually really great. I caught and passed a guy by the golf course but he stuck around so I got rolling a little bit trying to drop him. I'm not sure how fast I was actually going because I was slipping and sliding a little, but the effort was certainly there. I relaxed a little once I hit the streets again, my shoes don't have the greatest traction because the bottom of the soles are pretty slick, I'm used to the nubby bottom of my Motos. I didn't feel like I was running very fast but today wound up being just over 78 minutes, which was pretty good considering the conditions and the footing. | 12 |
| Tuesday | Science-Watertown Loop. I was afraid that the sidewalks would be iced over this morning so I started working when I woke up and waited until 11:30 to start the run. The sun had come up and the temps were up around 35 by the time I left. I wore just a long sleeve shirt and gloves, and by halfway through I was way too hot. I was a little cautious at the start because my hip flexor was still sore where it got aggravated yesterday during strides. I just tried to cover some ground and didn't pay much attention to the watch at all on the Cambridge side. I was surprised that the path was pretty much clear the whole way and there weren't a lot of giant puddles like I expected. I felt like I was running kind of slow most of the way to Watertown, I really didn't feel like hammering and it felt like I would really have to work to speed up at all, so I just let my legs dictate the pace. Made the turn at 65:00, didn't really know what that meant but looking back at my past runs it was pretty quick. I didn't really try to pick things up at all heading back to Boston until I got past Elliot. The stretch from Arsenal to Elliot wasn't plowed, but then I found out that the path which doesn't run along Storrow was cleared. After Elliot I started slowly picking up, working hard to increase the pace and then holding it until it started to feel comfortable. After River Street I started feeling the distance, I haven't run this long in about a month and my legs were getting tired. I just focused to keeping things together and forcing the pace faster. I had to slow down going under the BU Bridge and past the Storrow underpass where it was pretty icy. I wound up making it back to the Mass Ave bridge in 1:47, averaging about 6:17s. Today's run really turned out a lot better than I expected, when I made the turn at 65 I was thinking that it would be great to make it finish up in under 110, and I managed to come in 3:00 quicker without working too hard. | 18 |
| Monday PM | Castle-Bunker Hill again, this time with Jake and Fivos. I spent most of the day working in the lab and met Fivos and Jake in the lockerroom and we got going a bit after 4pm. We only really had one choice, even though I ran this loop in the morning. Finding out that Jake didn't know the loop only cemented our decision. We weren't really ever able to get moving because of the snow and slush on the ground, but I really would have liked to get my legs turned over a little this afternoon. The sidewalks were messy and hard to run on to Castle, but things cleared up a little after that. Or maybe our feet were just so soaked by then that it didn't even matter. Although the pace was pretty slow all the way, we did pick it up as we ran up the couple hills. We also picked it up a little as we headed down Comm Ave, but we weren't able to keep it going because down Mass Ave and across the bridge was really sloppy and the footing was horrible. We wound up running for 55+ minutes, I screwed up my watch but only for a few minutes I think, so I'm calling it a long 8M to match up with the short 10M this morning. Afterwards we ran strides up on the indoor track, but Fivos' hamstring is still sore so he held back and my hip started hurting on the tight turns so we both kept them slow and easy and stopped after four. Stretched out pretty well and then headed home. | 8 |
| Monday AM | Castle-Bunker Hill. Woke up to find that it was snowing out, so I had to scrap my plans to run a hard 10 miler this morning. Really only had one option for where to run, headed out about 7:30 and sloshed through ten miles. Things were pretty good at the start, there was some snow on the ground but it really didn't affect anything. I know I wasn't running very fast but the time really flew by this morning. The run was great all the way to Bunker Hill, my legs felt good and the weather, aside from the snow, was great for running. Going through Haymarket and following the Freedom Trail got pretty messy though, it was more slush on the ground than snow so my feet started getting really wet and by that time my shirt was heavy from all the moisture. I headed home down Comm Ave very relaxed, just finishing up the run and wanting to get inside and dry off. | 10 |
| Sunday | Arboretum again. Couldn't think of a better place to run today, didn't feel like running on the river and I don't have a lot of other 14-16M routes. Also, I don't know how long the ground is going to be clear enough to hit the trails that make this run so great. I realized that I'm spending maybe 10-15 minutes out of 90 on pavement when I run this route. I waited a while before taking off, it was about 1pm and even though the sun was out it was just 35 degrees. It took me a minute or two to find my hat, it's been awhile. Of course, I got warm pretty quickly and took the hat off after just 10 minutes. My legs were feeling a whole lot better than they did yesterday, right at 20 minutes they got heavy and I thought I was going to be in for a long one, but when I hit Jamaica they really loosened up and I felt great the rest of the way. Got to the Arboretum the same as yesterday, 31:00, but then I started moving a little quicker and spent just 28:50 in the Arboretum. I started thinking a little about Friday's race, I think that helped me pick it up a little. I kept it pretty steady all the way home along the Riverway and through the Fens, pretty uneventful. Would have been nice to get out for a slightly longer run, but at least I put up a decent total on a Sunday, after 0M and 10M the past two weeks. | 14 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 07 1/15-1/21 |
This was a pretty disappointing week, Sunday got off to a poor start and then I missed all day Monday because of travelling. Running in San Juan Capistrano was pretty good in the mornings, put in a lot of miles on the grass/dirt of the equestrian trails. But I had plenty of opportunities to get out the door in the evening also, and didn't take advantage of that. The week ended with some decent mileage totals, I put in 41M in 3 days after putting in 31M in 4 days, so hopefully I'm turning things around. I've decided against racing at the Winter XC Champs, but I am going to be racing a 5k at Terrier this coming Friday, however. January Miles : 253 | 72 |
| Saturday | Arboretum. My legs felt entirely worthless today, I got going around 11am and from the start my legs were tired. I headed right to the Fens and got my legs stretched out a little, the first 20 minutes or so went by pretty quickly and I wasn't feeling that bad, but then I got to the Arboretum in 31:00 and the rest of the way my legs were just tired and sore. I felt like I was running horribly slow, but I hit pretty much the same pace as last week's run when it felt like I was hauling. I ran 30:00 in the Arboretum and 30:00 on the way home. Not much exciting happened, there were a lot of people out running because it was such a nice day, temps were above 55 degrees. I have no idea why I was feeling so bad, the only thing I could think of was that my diet hasn't been so great, I can't remember the last time I had a piece of fruit. That's easy enough to fix, however. | 14 |
| Friday | Twice around the Reservoir, plus Summit Ave. I was really dragging ass this morning, so I went back to bed and got up about 9am. I had a long day yesterday, we left CA at 2pm and I got home around 12:30am. I didn't really feel like getting out the door right away, so I ate some breakfast and started working. I hoped to get started around 2pm, but Kathryn called and said she'd ride her bike alongside, so I waited for her to get home. She changed her mind though, so I took off alone a little before 4pm. Thought about going to the Arboretum, but I didn't think I'd have enough time before the sun went down, so I headed down Comm Ave to the Reservoir. I felt pretty good, but kept things more or less relaxed, didn't really force anything. Took it easy up Summit, didn't feel like I climbed all that well, and really relaxed to the Reservoir. My first lap around was 10:10, whatever that means, and I was about 56:00 into the run when I hit Beacon and headed home. On the way back I caught a guy just before the Summit Ave intersection but he started following me so I kept picking it up and trying to pull away. I kept things smooth the whole way and we probably got down to low 6s if not under for a little while. He turned off at Harvard St and I relaxed the rest of the way. I wound up running 79 minutes, so it was probably a short 13M. Still, my legs felt good and today was a really enjoyable run. | 13 |
| Thursday | On some of the equestrian paths around San Juan Capistrano. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to go to the office today so that I could run a little later, but no such luck. I managed to get out the door at 6am and that let me put in a solid 87 minute run around the town. I decided to explore some new areas, so I took the bike path towards I-5, which was a waste of time because it stopped after a minute or two. Then I crossed over the creek and instead of turning left onto the path just headed straight. I took that road for awhile, it was climbing up hill fairly regularly but my legs were feeling pretty good. Unfortunately, the sidewalk ended after just 10:00 or so, and this doesn't seem to be a big streetlight town, so running on the shoulder wasn't a wise idea. On my way back I turned onto the first side street, which looped me up and around on the side of the hill and then hooked back up with the original street. A few minutes later I turned into San Juan Hills, another expensive looking area with a golf course and big houses. I found a path that headed into the hills and took that and wound up running up and down a couple of the hills. I was able to follow a path all the way into San Juan Capistrano, if I wasn't in the town already, it wasn't really clear, but I was able to pick up the formal equestrian trails. At the start of that though, was a coyote staring me down, but I didn't really have any choice of where to go because the gate was the only opening in the barbed wire fence. I just kept running in his direction and he took off into the hills. I followed the equestrian trails a little and then picked up the trail I was on yesterday and ran back to the top of the first hill. Then I just headed back to the bridge over the creek and hammered the same section back to the hotel. I got hung up at a light briefly and my right knee started aching near the end, which freaked me out a little, but I was able to run the section in 3:00 again, which was surprising to me. I got pretty lucky with this run and after putting in the first half an hour on pavement was able to stick to dirt trails basically the rest of the way. San Juan Capistrano must be a pretty wealthy area to have all these equestrian trails, and there are a lot of stables/liveries/horse farms (glue factories?...I'm going to hell.) I'm flying back to Boston this afternoon, it will be nice to get back to my usual schedule. | 14 |
| Wednesday | Around San Juan Capistrano again. I immediately crossed over the creek bed and took the trail further than I was able to yesterday, only to discover it also ended pretty early. At the end of this trail, however, there were some additional equestrian trails that headed up the hills surrounding the town, so I ran on those. It was kind of weird because I was basically running through people's backyards, but the path was fenced in and everyone had fences up so I figured I was okay. It was a gated community and some really big houses, but it was so early that nobody was really awake so even if I shouldn't have been there, nobody was there to notice. The first trail ended at the top of the hill, so I turned around and ran back down, it was a pretty nice climb, gradual but consistent and pretty long. I headed back along the bike trail and took the second equestrian trail, which was really steep from the start. I was a little nervous because the news has been reporting a story about a guy who shot a mountain lion in his backyard and I figure I'd be helpless against one of those. As I crested the top of this hill I looked up to see a coyote about 50 feet away just looking at me. I turned around right away and headed back down the hill. I wanted to put in 12M this morning so I crossed back over the creek and headed out on the original trail but realized there was no way I'd be able to get the total time up to 72-75, so I got to the end and decided to turn around and just head to the hotel, which would make a solid 68-69 minute run. On the way back I saw another coyote, this time he was straight ahead on the path, so I just swung wide around him. I picked it up at the end again, from the bridge across the creek down to Rancho Viejo, up to Ortega and back to the hotel parking lot. It's roughly 1000m according to G-Maps and I ran it 3:00. I felt good today, kept a quick pace whenever I wasn't climbing up a hill and managed to get a decent amount of mileage in on soft surfaces. Reallly the only negative was that coming back down the hills at times were so steep that running was difficult. | 11 |
| Tuesday | Around San Juan Capistrano. I woke up at 6am and the news was reporting "chilly" temperatures, but I wasn't sure if that was just because it was soft Californians reporting the weather. I got out the door at 6:30 and it was surprising cool, about 40 degrees, but the sun came up pretty quickly and after my hands stopped hurting it was pretty nice weather. I picked up a bike trail and discovered that there was an equestrian trail running next to it, so I was able to get on a dirt trail almost immediately, which I took to be a good sign. Unfortunately, the trail ended after about 15:00, and I explored some adjacent streets but it didn't appear to resume anywhere. I headed back and explored the trail the opposite direction, but it got really sandy and ended quickly. I went back to Ortega Hwy, where the hotel is, and took Rancho Viejo north for a while. I was on the bike path then, but it was paved and ended after just 6 minutes. So I went back to the original trail and crossed over the creek bed it runs next to and explored out that direction for a few minutes before turning back. I threw in an extended pick up at the end, not a full speed stride, just a stretch of maybe 5:00 pace, but got hung up at a light and just cruised in the last couple blocks. Put in about 62 minutes this morning. | 10 |
| Monday | My flight left for Orange County, CA at 7:30am so I didn't have a chance to get any mileage in this morning. Then I got to CA and went to the office and worked there for a few hours before heading back to the hotel in San Juan Capistrano and going to dinner. I got back to my room decently early but since I had gotten up at 5:30am, which was like getting up at 2:30am in CA, I just watched TV for about an hour and fell asleep by 9pm. Were I still in college or had someone to run with I probably would have put in some miles, but at the time sleep sounded like a much better option. I've posted two goose eggs in 8 days, not a good trend. | 0 |
| Sunday | Castle-Bunker Hill. I was feeling pretty good the whole way, putting two higher mileage days back to back didn't seem to affect me much, if at all. I was worried about the footing, because the rain had changed to snow and I though maybe there'd be ice where puddles from yesterday froze over, but I didn't have any problems. The only rough patch was as I was about to go down the stairs leaving the Bunker Hill Monument, it was really icy and I didn't notice until late and almost slipped. I wound up just slowly walking down the stairs holding the rail, because they were all iced over and very slick. I didn't hammer any particular part of the run, just kept it at a steady tempo the whole way. I'm glad that I've been able to keep my runs more or less fast recently, I really enjoy hitting a good rhythm and just clipping off miles. Kathryn and I were dog-sitting this weekend, so my plan was to get out for a run this morning so that I'd be back for when Eric came to get Jack and then I could go out again for a shorter run in the afternoon. Plans got changed and Eric came by earlier so I waited until after he came to go run, which meant I was running a little before noon. Then Kathryn and I had a bunch of chores to do and we didn't finish those up until about 6pm, and sitting on the couch watching football sounded better than heading out for a short run in the dark, so I decided not to run again. | 10 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 06 1/08-1/14 |
This week got off to a really rough start, but from Tuesday through Saturday I managed to pick it back up and actually put in some decent mileage. This week could have easily been 15-20M higher had I not felt awful on Sunday and had I planned Monday a little better. I ran 74M over the final 5 days which is basically 105MPW pace, so I'm pretty happy with how things turned out. I managed to put in a very solid workout on Wednesday with the BAA, still not quite up to the levels I'm hoping for, but a significant improvement over the last time I was at Reggie. Finally got out for some decently long runs, I really like running on the Minuteman Trail, I just wish it were a little more convienent to get to. Near the end of the week I finally started feeling like I was running a quick pace for the runs, my legs were feeling good and I was fast but still comfortable. January Miles : 181 | 84 |
| Saturday | Arboretum. The temps were pretty nice this morning, but it was raining pretty hard the whole time I was out. Probably should have run shirtless because my tshirt just hung there, soaking wet the whole way. I headed over to the Fens and the path was still pretty dry, at least no standing puddles. Along the Riverway things got a little muddier and the trails on the way to Jamaica were even worse. By the time I got to Jamaica I was already soaked so more puddles didn't really bother me the rest of the way. The Arboretum was pretty soggy, the little creek at the entrance was flooded so that was a nice cold shock to the system. I decided to skip the first part of the back section, where it's dug out because I figured it would be way too messy. I almost slipped climbing up the hill by the railroad tracks, really could have used some spikes right then. I was a little slow to the Arboretum but I picked the pace up and kept it steadily hard through the Arboretum, got out of there in under 30:00. Kept the hammer down more or less the rest of the way, trying to mimic what I did yesterday, the part of the run past 10M was the most important part. Felt really good the whole way, managed to finish pretty hard today, also. Didn't stretch out very well though, because I was so covered in mud when I got home that I jumped in the shower, and after that just wanted to relax and lie down, didn't feel like doing all that boring stretching. | 14 |
| Friday | Minuteman Trail. Got going later than I wanted to this morning, but it gave the weather a chance to warm up a little. I felt pretty good from the start, the stretch to Harvard Square went by pretty quickly. My legs were feeling pretty good, I was hitting a decent pace and it felt pretty easy. Got to the trail in 33:30 and then really started clipping. I made a decision to pick it up, but just went by how my legs felt and didn't hammer at all. This time I paid a lot more attention to the mile markers, they're actually pretty easy to spot if you're looking for them. I hit the first mile in 6:17 which was pretty surprising. The next mile was about 6:42, but I think it's screwed up slightly because there's an intersection about halfway through. I got to where I turned around last time but hadn't been running quite long enough, so I kept going until 50:00, which was about 3:15-3:20 past the second mile mark. I ran the next mile in 6:20, which seemed pretty normal but I was moving a little quicker by then and ran the final mile along the trail in 6:04. I did my best to keep rolling on the way home, trying to get back a minute or two quicker than on the way out. Pretty uneventful, just a solid pace the whole way, slowing down a little from MIT back to Clearway. I haven't run this far in a while so I stressed the final 5M as much as I could, trying to get the most out of the run. It made sense to me at the time. Total time was 1:36.25, a pretty good run this morning. | 15 |
| Thursday PM | Orange Line with an extra loop around the Common. I was hoping to make it over to campus and run with Fivos, but I stayed in the lab longer than I expected, so I just came home and ran on my own. The weather was still pretty warm, but there was a draft or something in the Common, because it was noticeably cooler there. My legs were kind of tired and I was looking for an excuse to go short, I had originally hoped to go about 7M today, but I managed to put in a lap around the Common before heading home down the Comm Ave Mall. Pretty basic run, took about 33-35 minutes, just logging miles. | 5 |
| Thursday AM | Docks. I was exhausted this morning, really didn't want to get up and get out of bed. But I got going pretty quickly and eventually woke up and got my legs under me. The weather's been great recently, in the 40s or so, but I've been trying to remind myself that it's not spring yet and there'll be more cold days coming. I never really can tell how fast I'm going when I run this loop, probably because it's through the city and stops and starts a lot, also I don't really know exactly how far this run is, but it takes just shy of an hour so I guess 9M is a good guess. Kept it easy and relaxed the whole time, didn't force anything and ran the usual time, about 59:30. | 9 |
| Wednesday PM | Workout at Reggie Lewis, 1k-2k-3k-2k-1k in 2:59, 5:59, 9:04, 6:04, 2:52. We had 90 seconds after the 1k, 3:00 after the 2ks and 5:00 after the 3k. I headed over to Reggie a little after 7pm and added on around some random streets to put in a 20:00 warmup. The high school meet took a while to wrap up before we were able to take the track, so we didn't start the workout until almost 8pm. My legs were feeling pretty good but I made sure to keep it easy at the start, trying to avoid my mistakes from the last workout. I'm pretty sure it was Jason Bialka that lead the first interval, we just ran in a line at pace around the track and the pace picked up slightly on the last lap, but I was at the front of the pack at 2:59. Jason led the start of the 2k but somebody who's name I don't know went into the lead around 600m and led for a little bit. Ed Baker went to the front just before the 1k and we came through in 3:00 and we kept clipping off 36s and it felt like we got a little break, but I'm not sure how much separation there actually was. Terry Shea led the first k of the 3k, we came through right at 3:00, then he stepped off and I led for about 700m before getting passed by a couple guys. I started going backwards a little bit after coming through 2k in 6:00 and eventually hooked up with Magill (I think) and we finished up in 9:04. Oscar paced the next 2k and I sat behind 3 or 4 guys most of the way. We came through the first k in 3:00 again and then guys started picking it up and I started fading a little again. Wound up hooking up with Magill for the last few laps, managed to avoid completely falling apart, just like at the end of the 3k. Guys really got hauling over the final k, we started out in 35-69 and then Ed Baker took off. I didn't get my legs moving as well as everybody else, I think I was the last guy to finish up the final interval. Running workouts in a pack like this is a lot different than running workouts alone, like I've done for the last few years. It's a little bit of a racing mentality, it's clear that when I don't immediately cover moves I start slipping and fall out the backdoor. But today's was a lot better than the one I ran in December, things are getting better. I'm still not accustomed to running 2k and 3k intervals, especially on the indoor track. | 12 |
| Wednesday AM | Science Museum. Got going just after 7am this morning, kept it easy and short because I'm planning to run the BAA workout at Reggie tonight. I took a weird step before I started and tweaked my hip, so that was sore for a mile or two but it didn't mess me up at all. Everything else was pretty uneventful and boring, I finished up and spent some time on the foam roller to help my hip. | 5 |
| Tuesday PM | Orange Line. For some reason I was exhausted at the end of this run. My legs felt okay, I wasn't running all that fast today but I wasn't dragging ass either. Just a standard four miler this evening, everything was nice and relaxed but when I got home I just wanted to lie down because my legs were very tired. I'm not really doing anything differently though, outside of biking to and from campus, so I don't have a good explanation for why I was so tired. Probably just a fluke thing, maybe I was just hungry. | 4 |
| Tuesday AM | Castle-Bunker Hill. Managed to get out the door around 7:15 this morning, so I had enough time to put in a longer run. Realized half way through that this was my first ten miler in a while, the longest since Thursday morning last week. Kept things very relaxed the whole time, didn't really feel like hammering at all, but the pace at least felt honest. Kind of coasted my way through the final 20 minutes or so, my legs were starting to feel the fact that I haven't run this long in four or five days. Skipped strides again and headed right upstairs. I did spend a little extra time stretching out. Thankfully almost all of my aches and pains have subsided, the big toe on my right foot was a little sore last night, but that's really been it since the adidas Boston shoes have shown up. | 10 |
| Monday PM | Orange Line. The class ran late, so I didn't get home until 5:45. I was out the door at 6 but wanted to eat dinner so opted not to run for very long. I felt fine on the run today, my legs weren't sore at all, but I wasn't running very fast. The only real problem was that my right shoe felt a little too tight, I don't remember that being a problem before, maybe I laced them up a little differently. Anyways, the run went by quickly and my legs felt okay. Paid the price for wasting time this morning, the next few days are going to be this busy as well, so I need to get on the ball. | 4 |
| Monday AM | Longfellow-BU. I'm taking a class from 10-5 Monday through Thursday of this week, so finding time to squeeze in some mileage might be a little difficult. Got going around 7:30 which was later than I had hoped so I kept the run short this morning. It didn't feel like I skipped a day, but I certainly felt Saturday's races. Both hamstrings were tight and both plantars were tight, but the new shoes are working well and my old injuries didn't bother me at all. Just a nice and relaxed 40 minute run this morning, I've been so focused on racing at Alumni that I'm not really sure where to go and what to do from here. I'll figure something out. | 6 |
| Sunday | Starting Saturday night I felt really sick to my stomach, and it got worse through the day on Sunday. I spent most of today feeling sick and threw up twice. Decided it wouldn't accomplish much to put in some junk mileage, so I just shut it down today. | 0 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 05 1/01-1/07 |
Mileage total was a little low this week, but mainly just because Sunday was short by a few miles. My plan was to be at 80M at the end of Thursday and then back off for Alumni, I wound up being at 78M. Tuesday's workout wasn't quite what I had hoped for, but it was still a hard workout and perhaps I was a little too optimistic about what I'd be able to run. My mileage totals stayed high but it felt like my default pace has slowed some since last Friday when my hip hurt. Thankfully it hasn't acted up since then and my new shoes are a big help, too. I didn't feel incredibly sharp on Saturday, but the few strides I managed to run on Thursday and Friday helped. The races went well, it was great to be racing again, it's been a month and a half or so. It really feels like the high mileage of the past few weeks is paying off, the mile race was somewhat of a strength race and I was able to more or less hold 15:00 pace for a 5k after that, just running steady and more or less cruising. January Miles : 97 | 97 |
| Saturday | Alumni Meet. Won the mile in 4:25, got 9th in the 800 running 2:14 and won the 5k in 15:12. Warmed up the standard loop with Brewer, haven't run that way in a long time. I felt a little sluggish and didn't run the pick up at the end very fast. The women's race got started a little early, according to my watch, and I got stuck only running about two strides. I got out the lead where I didn't want to be, came through the half in 2:13 or so and held off three or four surges from Jake over the final 600m. Pretty exciting race, a little surprised that I got the win. We got close to sprinting down the straightaways as Jake kept surging and I was barely able to stay even on each one. I had about an hour rest before the 800 so I jogged a little and ran some cool down strides where I felt really great and then put my feet up. Before the 8 it was pretty clear the Alumni would win, but it might rely on a good race in the 5k from me, so I wasn't sure how to approach the 800. I got off the line very poorly and that pretty much decided things. I was near the back after 100m, tried a short surge going into the 400m mark and didn't move up at all, so I bagged the race pretty much. Picked things up over the final 150m to get around Hanson. Cooled down with a couple quick laps and then put my feet up to get ready for the 5k. I ran pretty well, got out behind Wong for 75m and then led the rest of the way. Came through 800 around 2:24 and hit the mile in 4:50. Khatch was behind me early, then I felt him start to fall off and surged down the backstretch when Coach told him he had a chance to catch back up. From there I was just clipping off laps on my own, came through 2k around 6:00 and 3k I think was 9:02. I guess I slowed over the final 2k, but I didn't feel like I tired that much, I just wasn't as focused. Managed to bring it back around and closed with a 69. I kind of continuously cooled down from there, a couple laps during the 4x200 and then 5-10 minutes around the track after the meet. I was really happy with how the meet went, I thought the mile was a great race, even though I bagged the 800 I still got my legs turned over a little and then was on pace for 15-flat through 3k before easing up a little and still finished with a 15-low like I had hoped. | 8 |
| Friday PM | Fake Fresh alone from campus. There wasn't anybody around when I got started so I wound up running alone this afternoon. wanted to get some Grass Loops in but they had the turf field closed so I just ran Fake Fresh instead. My legs were okay, these short runs the day before a meet always seem to take so long, to some extent I think that I exaggerate a slow pace. Stretched out on the indoor track and then ran some strides, didn't feel all that quick and I think the tight turns might have been messing around with my hip/groin. Stretched out some more and talked over the meet with Traina and Coach. Then a sports podiatrist talked to the team so I listened to that for about half an hour and picked up some little tips and tricks then headed home. | 5 |
| Friday AM | Longfellow-BU. I slept in a little today and didn't get out the door until almost 9am. I had wanted to get up around 8am but I guess I was fairly tired. I rushed things a little, but kept the pretty much under control. Nothing exciting happening today, just resting up for the meet tomorrow. | 6 |
| Thursday PM | Orange Line. The plan originally was to meet Yuval on campus to run, but he emailed saying he stayed in Seattle an extra day so I didn't bother heading over to campus. I was thinking of going 6M tonight but I lazily decided to just go 4M, compromising that I'd go short if I forced myself to run some strides. I was at the lab for a lot longer than I expected to be today, so I ate lunch very late in the day and waited until after 5pm to run today. I noticed my new shoes had showed up, but I was on my way out the door already so I just put in one more run in the Supernovas. I ran four or five strides in the street afterwards, only got close to full speed on one of them though. | 4 |
| Thursday AM | Castle-Bunker Hill. Today the plan was to put in a solid run, really hammer it up Bunker Hill and then relax all the way to Alumni on Saturday. The run went pretty well, I got going a little late, about 7:30am, but didn't rush through the run at all. Kept it pretty relaxed the whole time, didn't really get going fast at all. I didn't hammer much climbing up the hill, and kept everything under control the rest of the way home. I had a meeting at the lab at 10am so I had a good excuse to skip out on strides again. I'm starting to think that I'm going to embarass myself on Saturday since I feel like I've got no speed. | 10 |
| Wednesday PM | Docks. It feels like after I went short last Friday I've been defaulting back to 7:00 pace, just running easy the whole time. I've been trying to get back to running low 6:00s on average, but it's taking some adjustment. Legs were pretty good the whole way today, I really need to start hitting some strides though. | 9 |
| Wednesday AM | Reservoir. Kathryn took a sick day today, so I didn't get out the door until around 11am this morning. First run back in Boston, after a long delay in the Milwaukee airport I didn't get home until around 2am. My legs felt great today, I stayed fairly relaxed the whole way, felt strong climbing Summit and was probably around 6:30s until I hit the Reservoir. The footing's a lot better around the Reservoir, but on the far side it's still pretty icy and uneven. Picked it back up coming down Beacon, didn't get rolling but just kept it where I was earlier on. | 11 |
| Tuesday PM | Out and back along Lake. Wanted to make this run a little longer but I waited until after 4:30 and had to leave for the airport at 6:00pm, so I just headed north for a little while. I was running about seven minute miles the whole time, I just kept it relaxed the whole way. | 5 |
| Tuesday AM | 5M decreasing pace run along Lake Drive in 6:00-5:43-5:35-5:18-5:05. Got out the door about 8:30 this morning, jogged over to Kensington and kept going out and back along the lakefront to put in a 14:00 warmup. I was hoping to run roughly 6:00-5:40 for the first two and then hit 5:20-5:00-4:40. I thought 4:40 might be too fast, but I wanted to get as close to that as I could. I stretched out a little and then just toed the line and got going. My legs were pretty tight on the warmup, but I guess I was feeling better than I thought because I came through the first half in 2:52 before pulling back on the reins over the next half. Came through in 6:00 and then sped back up to the earlier pace, came through the half in 2:50 and was pretty much dead on at the mile mark. I thought I sped up again but hit the next half-mile mark in just 2:48. That woke me up and I thought I started hammering, but came through the next mile in just 5:35. I was able to get going ont he next mile, but only dropped it down by 17 seconds. Going into the final mile I thought I was going but only managed a 2:40 at the half before finally getting my legs moving and dropping a 2:25 for the half mile from Edgewood back to Kenwood. Pretty disappointed in how I ran today, I was really hoping for a much faster workout. I think it would have helped a lot to have had run with Nick, but we're on different schedules right now. I think that mainly I'm just not very good at speeding up off of a fast pace. These workouts used to be a staple during high school, but I think that at MIT I got very used to running a set pace and kind of lost the ability to successively drop the pace. | 10 |
| Monday PM | North on Lake to Henry Clay, west to Santa Monica and turned south down Wilson to Capitol. I stopped at the track at SHS and ran 4 laps of 150m finishes, jogging 200m then speeding up to the 150m mark and then running fast to the finish. | 7 |
| Monday AM | Bender with Nick End. I met up with Nick around 9:30 this morning, planning on running Bender and then adding on down to Kenwood or so to bump it up to 12M this morning. On my way over to Nick's it began drizzling and it rained off and on throughout the run and it got really heavy as we got to Klode or so. We were running at an average pace, clipping off 6:30s, but I was happy with that after the past few days have been so slow and short. As we were nearing Big Bay I decided that running in a soaking shirt wasn't a lot of fun and I'd just stop after 10M. Kind of a weak thing to do, but I'll make it up later. | 10 |
| Sunday | Art Museum then north along Lake to just past Big Bay. I really screwed up today, and put in a pretty crummy run. I woke up around 10am and should have just run right then, but decided to eat breakfast instead. I had to go visit with our neighbors at 2:30, so I was planning to run at noon, thinking the Packers had the late game today. When I found out the Packers were playing at noon I opted to stay home and wound up having to run around 6:45 tonight, after standing around and snacking most of the afternoon. I had wanted to put in 16M but really wasn't feeling it at the start, so my plan was to run the 8M loop at whatever my legs felt like and then drop the pace down over the extra 5M I was going to tack on. It was dark and raining and I wasn't really motivated to run tonight, so I started out around 7:00 and never got going much faster. I finished up the loop in 56:00 and after running another 7 minute mile decided to add on just 4M instead of 5M, figuring an extra mile at 7:00 wasn't going to help much. So I just turned around at the 2M mark and trudged home. Started off the week with a low total, and another slow day, going to have to work a little bit more the next few days to compensate. What I had hoped for was to average 16M per day through the first 5 days, so that I'm at 80M and then have the ability to pop the total up to 100M with a couple of 10M days, which should let me rest slightly for Alumni. | 12 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 04 12/25-12/31 |
Not such a good week. After last week's big total I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to approach this week, and that indecision coupled with the holidays resulted in two low totals being posted Sunday and Monday. I didn't run any workouts either, but Nick and I got rolling really well at the end of Wednesday's run and I finished up with a few solid sub 6:00s on each of my 10 milers on Thursday. But then my hip acted up on Friday and that really trashed my week. Thankfully I was able to recover and put in a pretty big day on Saturday to close out the week/month/year, but the 102M total was about 10M short of what I was hoping for. Racingwise this wasn't such a great year, missed indoor nationals, ran poorly at outdoor nationals and only had a decent first postcollegiate season, but I do feel like all of my training and diligence is paying off in fitness and I'm hoping that 2006 will bring some better races. This wound up being my highest month ever, and the year was only 40M short of being my highest ever, despite taking off most of June. Finished up with a yearly total of 3908, which averages to 10.7 miles per day. December Miles : 456 | 102 |
| Saturday PM | Out and back along the Parkway with Nick. Very relaxed and very slow, 7:00+ the whole time. I got to Nick's house around 5pm and since it was pretty dark we decided to skip Estabrook and met up with the path in Lincoln. Nick wanted to run easy and I figured going slow would be good for my hip, so we kept it pretty slow the whole way. Nick was out ahead, as always, but I made a point of not getting caught up in that. I think we maybe were going slower than Nick wanted, but I wasn't really feeling like grinding today, just wanted to stretch out my legs and put in some miles, and try to salvage the week. My hip felt fine, there were only a few twinges over the entire run. It was pretty slow today, each half of the run was about 43:00. When I got home I stretched out pretty well and iced my hip. Hopefully it will keep feeling good, but I don't like running in fear of this thing. | 12 |
| Saturday AM | Out and back along Lake Drive. Yesterday's rain turned to snow last night so the sidewalks were pretty sloppy, snow on top of water, but thankfully not icy at all. I was pretty scared to start running this morning, but my hip didn't hurt at all, which was great news. I headed out without a watch and was just planning to run 5M, but I felt so good and was so enthused that I was healthy that I decided to extend it to 6M today, so I ran almost to Klode before turning around. I'm pretty sure I wasn't running very fast, I was uber-cautious running across the snow/water puddles on the sidewalks and also freaked out about hurting my hip. Originally my plan was to run a decreasing pace workout today, then run the BAA workout on Wednesday and then race at Alumni next Saturday, but that's not going to happen anymore. In the back of my mind I think that this hip thing is aggravated by speed, because it seems to hurt the day after I try to end the run with a stride-ish effort. So the plan now is injury maintenance/avoidance while putting in mileage for a few days, then run the decreasing pace workout either Monday or Tuesday, depending on how I feel and the condition of the sidewalks, not run the BAA workout and just get ready for Alumni, which is going to be a tough workout on it's own. Trying to squeeze two workouts in before Alumni was probably pushing it, and the sidewalks today are too sloppy to have run a good workout anyways, so it's probably for the best. If the sidewalks don't get cleared up then maybe Nick and I will drive out to Pettite and run a workout on the 500m oval they have there. | 6 |
| Friday | Nick's house and back. Today did not go well at all. Nick was busy all day so we planned on going at 4pm, we were out a little too late last night to put in a run this morning. In any event, it was about 38 and raining when I took off, and my hip was really tight from the start. After limping through about 3:00 I stopped and tried to stretch it out, but that didn't loosen it up at all. It was a lot more painful that it's ever been, and I reluctantly decided that if it didn't loosen up by the time I got to Nick's that I would just run home and deal with a 4M day. I wasn't ever really able to put in a full stride, as my hip was hurting every step, especially when I would try to lengthen it. I got to Nick's and it was still sore so I told him that I wouldn't be able to run with him. He offered to jog home with me, so we headed up Kensington to Lake and were running pretty slow. By the time I got back it had loosened up a little but was still hurting each step, so instead of trying to tack on any extra mileage I just went home, stretched it out and iced it. I've been pretty lazy about treating the hip and hopefully it's just sore from yesterday, even though it didn't hurt once on the either run yesterday. Nick told me about some strengthening exercises that I've started and I'm taking Ibuprofen now and icing it, so hopefully I'll be able to get it under control. I was pretty disappointed that I wasn't able to put in mileage today, but I don't think it will affect me all that much, especially if I'm able to get over this quickly. | 4 |
| Thursday PM | Bender alone. Got going about 5:30 this evening, my legs were feeling pretty good from the start. At first I thought I was really running fast, but after I got to Wilson in 9:00 again I realized that it just felt that way because I was running in the dark. I hit Port Road in just over 20 but my legs were still feeling really fresh and I was at least moving easily, if not quickly. I saw Dom as I was going into Lincoln, he and another guy were on their way out. I pretty much held it steady through the park and hit Silver Spring in something closer to 31:00. I really started moving along the Parkway though, I didn't know whether I should be trying to race the time I ran in the morning or not, so I just settled on running as fast as my legs could comfortably. I was over 36:00 making the turn onto Bender and was pretty sure there was no way I'd match this morning's 61:45. I kept running fast but relaxed a little mentally and was just concerned with putting in a good run, not so much with matching this morning's time. I hit Klode in 46:30 and decided to time my final three miles. I almost ran into Alec Maduza as I was checking to make sure I hit the Lap button on my watch, but I don't think he recognized me. It was pretty dark out and I'm not very good at reading my watch face using the Indiglo, so I have no idea what the half mile splits were that made up the final three miles, but I ran 6:00, 5:53 and 5:40. I was gradually increasing the effort along Lake Drive and stayed comfortable the whole way and didn't hammer at all. It just took me a lot longer to find this morning's rhythm. Put in a pretty good run though, hit 17:30 over the final 3M and 64:00 for the whole 10 (which has to be long, by the way). Really happy that I wasn't sore at all from this morning and I managed to put in a good pick up as I was jogging home from Capitol. Haven't gotten up to full speed yet, which I really need to do soon, but I don't feel awkward trying to run fast any longer. Very good day, managed to put in two solid runs. | 10 |
| Thursday AM | Bender alone. Got going about 9:30 this morning, my legs were feeling pretty good from the start. I was a little worried because my right hip was really bothering me last night but luckily it felt fine the whole way today. I was a little slow at the start, about 9:00 to Wilson but then started picking it up. I got to Port Road (3M mark) in just over 19:30 and decided I'd shoot for 62, which meant averaging 6:00 for the next 7M. I got rolling pretty well through Lincoln, I was really feeling good and got to Silver Spring in just under 30:00, but then struggled to pick it up again after stopping at the light. I didn't really get rolling again until I got to Bender, which I hit in 35 and change. I was running pretty quick down Bender to Klode and hit 3M to go in 44:50 where I decided I'd run steady for the next mile and then hammer the final two. I felt like I was hitting about 6:00 pace, but I ran the next mile in 5:40, splitting it 2:50/2:50. I decided there wasn't much reason to hammer the final two miles, I'd just keep rolling at 5:40. The next mile was 5:42 (2:48/2:54) and despite not trying to pick it up I closed with a 5:35 (2:48/2:47). I felt really good over the final 3M, I was just coasting along and really not forcing the pace at all. My legs just found a rhythm that worked and I just tried not to screw it up. I was very surprised at how easily I was able to hit 5:40s today, at first I thought the mile mark was short and I kept expecting to see a half mile split of 3:00. My legs started to get tired over the final mile, but I probably could have kept it rolling a little longer, or dropped the hammer at the end. | 10 |
| Wednesday | Extended Bender Loop with Nick. Got to Nick's house just after 10am, the weather was great and my legs were feeling good. We ran along the Parkway and added on 7:00 into Kletzsch, in an area we've never run in before. We kept it easy and conversational at the start, just stretching out our legs and putting in miles, but coming out of Kletzsch we both started picking the pace up a little bit. Down Bender and through Klode we would pick it up off and on and by the time we hit Lake we were consistently hitting 6:00. I didn't check any mile marks until the very end, we were 6:00 from the 2M mark to 4676 and then things really started getting crazy. As sometimes happens when Nick and I run together, we each kept surging and pushing the pace over the last mile. The first half was pretty consistent effort and just faster than normal, but we really got rolling on the second half. For the most part I was content to stay right next to Nick, but as we got 2 or 3 blocks from Atwater Park I started surging more and got ahead of him. When we hit Atwater (about 200-300m to go) I managed to get a gap on Nick but didn't want to sprint to the light so I eased up slightly and we more or less ran together to Capitol. Wound up running a 5:10, splitting it 2:46/2:24. That was about my 12th mile and Nick's 10th. We had to wait at the light for a minute or so and as we got going again down Capitol my hamstrings had tightened up. After a couple of blocks we were back to clipping off a good pace, under 6:30. We ran down Capitol to Wilson and north on Wilson to Sheffield, where I turned around and ran home. I slowed down a little after I turned back but kept the pace decent all the way home. I wound up running for about 102, which is roughly 15M at 6:30 pace and 1M at 5:10. I've been concerned about not having run a workout in a long time, it's been a week since my hard 10M on the river in Boston, but I felt really good today. The 5:10 was surprising to me because I didn't really feel like I was hammering at all, except for right before Atwater when I built a gap on Nick. Everything else was fast and strong but still under control, which is encouraging when it comes after 10+M of running. I think I'm going to try and run one of my runs tomorrow hard and maybe put in a workout on Saturday, but we're getting close to Alumni now, only 9 training days left now, I've got to do at least a little bit of speedwork, I still feel out of whack trying to run pickups at the end of these runs. | 16 |
| Tuesday PM | Out and back along Lake. Got going and my legs felt great so I gradually increased the effort through the whole run. I didn't wear a watch so I don't know anything about pace, but I stayed relaxed the whole way and didn't hammer at all. Built up into a stride about 200-300m long at the end, didn't get up to full speed but turned my legs over for the first time in a long while, which felt good. | 5 |
| Tuesday AM | Out and back along the Parkway to the bridge in Kletzsch with Nick. I got out the door around 9am and headed over to Sheffield to meet Nick. We headed to the parkway of course and kept the run at an honest pace, a little over 6:30s on the way out and a little under on the way back. Nothing special today, just a nice and relaxed run. I was hoping to put in a workout today but I really don't want to run one in the Supernovas again and the Boston Classics still haven't shown up. | 12 |
| Monday | Out and back along the Parkway to Good Hope with Nick. Waited until about 11am to get the run in today, which makes it really hard to double up, so I just went a little longer and left it at that. I felt good, we weren't really moving that fast, probably right around 6:30s maybe a little slower. I've had two lower mileage days this week, but I think that I'll be able to get back up to around 110M for the week. | 14 |
| Sunday PM | Art Museum. I ran a little before 10pm, it was pretty dark and there wasn't anybody else around. As a little present to myself I decided not to take my watch and I'm pretty sure I wound up running around 7:00s. My right hip was really hurting at the start and after limping through a half mile I stopped to stretch it out. It loosened up after that, but then coming home I got to about 2 blocks away from my house and it started up again for no apparent reason. Despite running after a large Christmas dinner my stomach felt fine the whole way. | 8 |
| Sunday AM | Out and back along Lake Drive. Didn't go until about noon today, I was pretty lazy and unmotivated in the morning. My legs felt pretty good and I probably should have extended the run some, but I was still lazy and unmotivated. I didn't bring a watch with me, so I don't know how slow I was going. I think it's hard to get started up again when you're looking at a blank slate and a weekly total of 0M. | 5 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 03 12/18-12/24 |
Today was a pretty good week for me, managed to hit a couple of "records," longest week ever and tied for longest run and longest day. I don't think that I'll be hitting totals much higher than this week, there really isn't much more room to add miles without getting nuts. I'd feel better if my feet weren't hurting so much during my runs, it's all on my right foot, by the big toe and also a little on the outside of my foot by the little toe. Hopefully a new pair of shoes will take care of that problem. Wednesday's hard run went pretty well, it probably would have been a really good one had the footing been a little better, especially out by Arsenal. Monday's long run went well also, managed to close at a pretty good pace, without totally hammering. Putting in 20M on Thursday didn't really affect me more than a normal day, in fact this whole week felt a lot like a normal 90-100M week. Hopefully this is all going to pay off. December Miles : 354 | 115 |
| Saturday | Bender plus an out and back south along Lake Drive. Got going a little before 10am, temps were in the mid 30s. Headed over to Sheffield and met up with Nick, then we headed through Estabrook to Lincoln. The paths through Estabrook were icy at times and we weren't running all that fast so avoid falling down. But when we hit Lincoln we started getting into it and we were clipping along pretty well. The rest of the miles with Nick went by pretty quickly, he stuck around all the way to Capitol. I didn't check my watch very often, but over the final few miles we were hitting 6:00-6:20. I kept going south and ran my next mile alone in 6:07. Then I headed through Lake Park and it felt like the pace slackened a little. It was tough to keep going after having passed so close to my house, but I somehow managed to keep going all the way to Kane, just after Mr. J's place. Turned around and headed back, I couldn't tell if my legs were getting tired or I was just losing motivation to keep running, probably a little of both. Put in my final half mile in 3:05, so I couldn't have been feeling that bad. Wound up running for 105-106 minutes, so a pretty solid 16M today. | 16 |
| Friday PM | Out and back along the Parkway with Nick. Got started around 3:30 this afternoon and headed over to Sheffield to meet Nick. The weather was great with temps just over 40, but the sun was starting to set so I opted for a long-sleeve to be on the safe side. The run with Nick was good, we ran at a conversational pace and talked the whole way, which really helped pass the time. We just ran from his house to the railroad bridge at the very start of Kletzsch and then headed back. The last stretch through Estabrook got slippery as the weather cooled off and the melted snow and ice started to freeze on the path, but otherwise things were great. I changed up the lacing of my shoes again because I felt like it was too loose in the toebox and my foot was slipping around a little. My foot has been hurting on the instep way up where the big toe joins the foot, and I think it's because my shoes have been too loose. I kept the lacing pretty much the same except now I'm going through the 2nd eyehole instead of the third. Hopefully once the Boston Classics get here I won't have to bother with these things anymore. | 12 |
| Friday AM | Out and back north along Lake Drive. Same route as Wednesday night, my legs were feeling pretty good and even though I started out slow I dropped down to 6:30s on the way home and it felt easy and relaxed. I was debating with myself about how far to run this morning, even thought about extending this one to make it 10M and get the long run over with, but decided instead to keep things short. | 5 |
| Thursday PM | Bender. Left a little after 5pm today, kept it pretty relaxed at the start. I think I fell into the trap where you feel like you're running fast because it's dark out and got to Port Road in about 20:30. I did my best not to hammer the rest of the way to try and make up the time and finish in 64 again. The point of today was putting in 20M, not trying to hammer. I was a little cautious at times through Lincoln because it's not very well lit and I couldn't see if there was any ice or anything on the path, but I made it through alright. Got to Silver Spring in around 32 and Bender in 37:40. Kept the pace somewhat aggressive, I made sure not to slacken but I didn't actively press the pace. I felt really good, really strong the whole way, didn't check mile marks coming in from Klode, but I ran the last mile in 5:55, so I'd guess I was 6:00-6:05 over the last 3-5M. Finished up in 66:30, so I was 2:30 slow on the first 3M and then ran even with this morning's pace the rest of the way. Really good day today, great volume and my legs don't feel trashed, at least not right now. I also found out today that I'll have funding for the next 2 or 3 semesters, so I'll be back in school starting in February. | 10 |
| Thursday AM | Bender backwards. Ran around 9am this morning, with temperatures right around 25 degrees. I felt great the whole way, I started out pretty slow just under 7:00 for awhile before dropping to 6:30 and then 6:00-6:10. Didn't hammer at all this morning, just found a good rhythm that felt more or less effortless and let my legs do the rest. The footing was fine the whole way, no real issues to speak of. Had to run on the side of the road along the parkway because there aren't any sidewalks there and the usual dirt trail was covered with snow, but the path was plowed the whole way through Lincoln. Turned onto the Parkway at 30:00 and was at Port Road at 46:00, and finished up right at 64-flat. Pretty good run this morning, not at all sore from yesterday's hard effort or the trip back home. | 10 |
| Wednesday PM | Out and back along Lake Drive. Got home around 7:30 and was out the door a little before 8, which was hard to do because dinner was ready for me. I headed north for 17:30 and then turned around and came back in 16:44. Not running fast at all, the last mile was around 6:45, but I couldn't read my watch very well in the dark. The footing was pretty good, a couple of icy patches but they weren't sheets of ice like in Boston. | 5 |
| Wednesday AM | Hard 10 miler along the river. Got going about 7:30 this morning, I've been going a little later to give the sun a little time to rise so that maybe it'll warm up slightly. Temps were hovering right around 20 degrees, I felt fine in shorts and a long-sleeve, but my legs would freeze up a little at lights and take a few strides to loosen up again. Jogged over to the Mass Ave bridge and got rolling right away. Didn't feel like I was moving that fast, but the pace was definitely faster than normal runs. After getting past JFK Street I started really getting into it and was clipping along pretty well. The only real bad patch of ice was in the American Legion parking lot, but from there to Arsenal was great. Made the turn at 29:00 and was rolling pretty well, but the footing was rough all the way to Eliot and the pace really slackened. Tried to pick it up after Eliot but it took awhile to get back to it. Managed to finish up pretty well from River Street back to Mass Ave. Was hoping for around 52:00, but finished up in 54:00. Looking back on the past times I've run this, it's not too bad, especially given the stopping and starting to deal with the ice. I hit 53:18 and 55:20, making the turn in 28:00 each time. So I was a little slow on the Cambridge side but managed to get the legs turned over pretty well on the way home. I'm still not focusing very well and there's room for improvement, but overall I was happy with it. The BAA workout is 1M-2M-2M-1M at Reggie, but I'm flying home at 5:30 tonight so I can't make it. | 11 |
| Tuesday PM | Orange Line. Got out for a nice and easy four miler around 5pm, just stretched out the legs. I felt pretty good, the run was quick and easy and I threw in a pick-up at the end down Clearway. Didn't get up to full speed, I really need to start running strides on a daily basis. | 4 |
| Tuesday AM | Reservoir plus Summit. I should really just stop running this route because around the Reservoir has horrible footing, it's all iced over and really killed the run. I was feeling good and running pretty quick on the way to the Reservoir, felt good up Summit but had to keep breaking stride as I went around the Reservoir. Able to pick it back up a little heading back down Beacon, but never really got back into the run. Pretty basic run this morning, temps were a little colder, just over 20 degrees, but nothing bad. | 11 |
| Monday | Science-Watertown. Got going about 7:30 this morning, the sun was coming up and temps were hovering around 30, not a bad day to be out running. Took me about 4:00 to get to the river and then I slowly started getting into it. I was feeling good and hitting a decent pace but not hammering at all. After I crossed Mass Ave on the Cambridge side I ran past Terry Shea, so he turned around and we ran together for a few miles. We kept the pace pretty relaxed until Elliot where he turned around and headed home. After going under the bridge I slowly started picking the pace up, I had wanted to run a little quicker today, but having somebody to run with made the time go by quicker, so it worked out. Didn't get rolling too much until I crossed over in Watertown. I made the turn in just under 70:00, which motivated me to drop the hammer a little on the way home. Got to Arsenal in 84 minutes, JFK in 1:36 and I got back to Mass Ave in 1:52.23, averaging just over 6:30 pace. Not the hardest long run of my life but I haven't gone that far in a while and my legs were pretty tired by the time I got back, I felt like I got a lot out of it today. | 18 |
| Sunday | Docks plus Ollie. Spent most of the afternoon shopping so I didn't get out the door until 5pm today, the sun was setting but the temperatures weren't too bad. I wasn't sure how long this route was going to wind up being but I was expecting 13 to 14 miles. Not too into it at the start, but after a few miles I was clipping along and glad to be out running. The pace was pretty relaxed at the start, heading along the harbor towards the hotel my left hip got really tight for a few minutes, it's never bothered me before so I was a little worried but it loosened up and went away. It felt weird, almost like a cramp, not like it was strained at all. The roads were pretty deserted and essentially all the snow/ice has been cleared away, so it was great for running. I picked up the Ollie course at the 1M mark, instead of turning right and going past the Silver Line station I headed left, and the road went through a pretty desolate area before winding up in South Boston. The road became L street which I took all the way up to Marine, then turned left and headed over to G, up G and around Telegraph Hill then back to Broadway and down to L street, back to the Silver Line station and followed the Docks route the rest of the way home. Felt good the whole way, the Ollie addition added on about 25 minutes and the run took 85 minutes. Had plenty of time to think about a lot of things, I think I figured out how to get up to about 115M this week. | 13 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 02 12/11-12/17 |
A good week of mileage, able to put in some long days but I feel like I need to start putting in some longer runs. Had a pretty rough workout on Wednesday and really dragged ass on Thursday, but putting in a decently long run on Friday in great weather seems to have recharged me a little. Getting out the door at 7am in 12 degree temperatures may be taking it's toll. The high total doesn't feel like it's affecting me much more than a 90-95M week does, which is good. December Miles : 239 | 107 |
| Saturday | Fresh Pond. Got going a little after 10am and it was about 36 degrees but pretty nice for running. Things took a little while to get going but I felt good the whole way. For the most part the footing was good, yesterday's rain and temps seem to have cleared off a lot of the snow and ice. I kept it pretty relaxed around the pond because there was still a lot of ice on the ground there, but I was able to stay on the shoulder of the road down Brattle and the sidewalks were clear down Mass Ave so I was able to really get rolling for the first time in a week or more. Would have been about 62-63 minutes from campus, wound up being 76:45 for the whole thing, a pretty decent run this morning. | 12 |
| Friday | All over the place. Started out planning on Docks with the Ollie route thrown in, but I saw Bruce and Lucas at Newbury street and they were running Ocean, so I turned around and ran with them. It was nice to have guys to run and talk with, the run went by a whole lot quicker. We ran the standard loop but since we didn't start on campus it was about 7M back to Comm Ave and Berkley. From there I headed to the Common and picked up the Freedom Trail, which I followed all the way across the Charlestown Bridge. Originally my plan was to just do a straight out and back, but I decided I didn't really enjoy winding through the North End and dodging pedestrians. After crossing the bridge I headed to Paul Revere Park, which you get to by looping under the bridge, but that was a waste because the park is really small, but it looks like they're trying to connect it with a park that would run to Science Museum. Anyways, I went back up to the road and headed up to Bunker Hill and then took the old route past Bunker Hill Community College and crossed over to the Boston side at the Science Museum. I was planning on taking the Esplanade back but the footing was crappy so I took the first bridge across Storrow which put me right at MGH so I ran alongside Storrow to Cambridge Street then ran through the Beacon Hill area to the Public Garden and took Comm Ave home. Originally I was thinking that this would wind up being just about 13M but it lasted 98 minutes, so I'm pretty sure it was a solid 14M. Wasn't hammering at all but we were moving along Ocean and I kept the pace honest on my own. It was raining this morning and according to the news it was freezing on the sidewalk, so I decided not to bother so I waited until about 2pm this afternoon, which was a good decision because it cleared up and it was about 45 degrees when I started, so I got to put in some mileage in just shorts and a t-shirt. By the end of the run my hands were a little cold but I felt great the whole way. | 14 |
| Thursday PM | Orange Line. I was thinking of making this 5M this afternoon, but my legs were already tired by the time I hit the Common, which just put me in a bad mood because I was tired after just 2M, so I decided to just run the usual route and add mileage when I felt better. Pretty crummy day all around. | 4 |
| Thursday AM | Reservoir with Summit. I was really tired and this run was slow and excruciating. My right hip was not feeling good and the occasional step sent a nice sharp pain, too. I was probably sore from my serious slacking on stretching after yesterday's workout. Temps were down around 12 degrees again this morning, but there wasn't much wind so it wasn't too bad. The footing was fine most of the way, a couple of small patches of ice, except for the Reservoir. Don't really know why I thought it would be a good idea to go around the Reservoir, the snow was iced over and not even at all, which didn't help my hip at all. The way home down Beacon just wasn't fun because my legs were sore and tired and I was running slow. Managed to pick it up slightly over the final 10 minutes or so, but the run still lasted 78 minutes, so I was 7:00+ pretty much the whole way. | 11 |
| Wednesday PM | 2 sets of 2k-1k-2k in 5:52, 2:57, 6:02; 6:10, 3:03, 6:25. 3:00 rest after 2k, 2:00 after 1k and 4:00 between sets. I warmed up over to Reggie which took about 10 minutes, signed up for a pass and then headed back out for another 10 minutes. I was shooting for 35s the whole way, so 5:50 and 2:55, but couldn't get my legs going. The first two intervals were pretty decent, I went out with Pat Moulton and we ran 33 through 200 and settled into 35s. About 1400m in he started pulling away and I started dropping back to 36-37. On the thousand he started hammering right away and I tried to just clip off 35s. Started out at 35 on the next 2k and then Pat came past at the 300m mark and I never got close to him the rest of the workout. Wound up running alone and had a lot of problems focusing, just couldn't maintain pace. Jason Bialka and Oscar Ponce caught me around the mile mark and I tried hanging close to them over the final 400. Was feeling pretty bad but tried to stay positive and keep the workout respectable. Took off my shirt to lose some weight, but that didn't make much of a difference. I kept the first 2k of the second set somewhat decent, stayed pretty close to the second group. Started out in the back of the pack for the 1k and struggled through that, knew the last 2k wouldn't be a lot of fun. Started out around 36-37s, came through the mile around 5:10 and at least managed to make it around the track two more times. Cooled down a few minutes around the track and then headed outside with Terry Shea, Pat and Mark LaRosa. We ran east on Tremont to the Police Station then wound our way through some streets and somehow wound up by the Fens. When we got near Landmark Center Pat and Mark turned around and I headed west down Boylston to Mass Ave for a nice 20+ minute cooldown. Got home around 9:30, stretched out briefly then made some dinner and headed to bed. Pretty disappointed in how the workout went today, guess I overestimated what I was capable of and had problems focusing for 2k. Need to start putting in some more hard days, but it was good to feel that post-workout exhaustion again. Changed the lacing of my shoes again, now there's a diamond at the bottom because the laces skip the bottom two holes, then the make a large X by skipping the fourth hole and then cross over like normal at the very top. They're still a little loose, but I think some of that is just the way the shoes are built. | 12 |
| Wednesday AM | Fake Fresh. Just put in an easy run, kept the pace pretty relaxed the whole way. Trying to just stretch out the legs and loosen up a little, the focus for today is on the BAA workout at Reggie tonight. It was a beautiful 10 degrees this morning, only really affected me when I was crossing the Harvard bridge. I felt fine the whole way, not really very tired from yesterday's mileage. Decided that the lacing is leaving my shoes too loose, I'm going to try to figure out a new lacing configuration for the workout tonight. Tried on a few pairs of shoes at Marathon yesterday, I think my next pair is going to be the Boston Classics, they're not quite as clunky as the Supernovas and they fit my foot a whole lot better. | 7 |
| Tuesday PM | Jamaica with Fivos, came back down Huntington to Hemenway, which we took to Boylston and over to Mass Ave. I had a meeting on campus today, so I met Fivos in the lockerroom at 3:30 and we took off for Jamaica. The footing along the Riverway and Jamaicaway wasn't all that great, so after we went around the Pond and got back to Huntington we turned right instead of going to the Riverway. We were running down Huntington and the time was creeping up towards 48:00 so I offered a shortcut and we took Hemenway up to Boylston, then over to Mass Ave and back to MIT. We kept the pace conversational the whole way, it's too hard to try and hammer when the footing is constantly changing. Ran strides on the indoor track and got lit up by Fivos, as usual. I went with the full-on Khatch lacing today, ran them straight up the sides and only crossed over at the top, and my foot felt a lot better. | 9 |
| Tuesday AM | Docks. Tried changing up the lacing on the Supernovas but that didn't make a big difference. The sore part of my foot is tthe tendon that runs from my big toe along the top of my foot, right where the toe hits the foot. Otherwise the run was okay, just putting in mileage. | 9 |
| Monday PM | Orange Line. I tried running in my Nikes today, but my feet still hurt. They did start feeling better by the end of the run, but my Nikes are too far gone, I just need to trash them. Hard to focus on anything else when my feet are aching with each step. | 4 |
| Monday AM | Fresh Pond backwards. Really did not want to run this morning, eventually convinced myself that running early would be better than running in the dark tonight so I got out the door. My adidas have been hurting my feet recently, the top of my right foot is not in good shape. I think the laces are digging into my foot and causing the pain. I was glad I decided to run this backwards today because the hill from the Pond up to the street was pretty slippery and going up was easier than going down would have been. Footing around the Pond was hit or miss, the north side was pretty well cleared but the south side was essentially a sheet of ice. The rest of the streets were pretty clear, but my feet were in such a bad way that I couldn't really get moving. Finished up in 78 minutes though, so given the footing I think it was a pretty good run. | 12 |
| Sunday PM | Longfellow-BU. I headed out around halftime of the late game and was planning on running Science-BU, but I was really frustrated with the footing on the Esplanade so I just cut the run short. Really wasn't all that excited about the run and slipping around on the ice along the river just put me in a worse mood about the run. Mileage total for today will wind up a little lower than I would have liked but I'll deal with that throughout the rest of the week. | 6 |
| Sunday AM | Summit Ave with Brewer. John and I stayed up late last night catching up, so we slept in a little longer and didn't get out the door until about 11am. The footing was pretty good the whole way, we headed west on Comm Ave, ran up and over Summit then came home down Beacon to Kenmore and Mass Ave. The pace was decent today, we weren't hammering like most runs with Brewer, but we kept it honest. My legs were feeling great, we picked it up a little at the end and I felt pretty quick. | 7 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 01 12/4-12/10 |
This week started out pretty well, I had a pretty good mileage total going but Friday and Saturday things fell apart a little. Partly because of the weather and partly because of other obligations I wasn't able to finish off the week as well as I would have liked. I got pretty tired after the 18M day on Tuesday, but my legs came around pretty nicely by the end of the week. Starting to think that getting the weekly total up over 115M might be harder than I originally thought. December Miles : 132 | 97 |
| Saturday | Orange Line plus Longfellow-BU. I waited until about 5pm to run today, and I wasn't really all that excited about it either. I was feeling okay, the footing wasn't too bad on the Esplanade, a snowplow had just gone through so things were pretty clear, and where they weren't I could stay in the plow's tire tracks which were pretty well packed. Wasn't really as long today as I wanted, but I wasn't all that into the run either. It would have liked to have watched the intrasquad meet at MIT, but I was pretty busy all day. My right hip was really sore at the start of the run, but it had loosened by the end. | 10 |
| Friday | Orange Line to Freedom Trail to Bunker Hill with Brewer. John got to Boston about 8am today, he's here to watch some cyclocross races in Providence, so we headed out for a run together before he left for RI. It was about 30 degrees but snowing, so we only really had one option. He didn't feel like a ten miler so we figured out a shorter way to run to Bunker Hill, we took Orange Line to the Common and then followed the Freedom Trail to Haymarket and cut over to the Charlestown Bridge and picked up the Freedom Trail again. We were running a conversational pace the whole time, just catching up, but we weren't crawling along. My legs felt really good the whole way, pretty fresh despite the mileage jump this week. Unfortunately, the storm really picked up the rest of the day, we had "thunder snow" and some pretty strong winds, so I didn't get back out for another run later on. I was planning on going longish today and short tomorrow, so I'll just swap the two days and it'll work out fine. | 8 |
| Thursday PM | Orange Line. I was debating whether or not it was worth it to tack on a four miler, eventually convinced myself to get out the door. I was thnking maybe I'd hammer, but I wound up just running the usual pace and putting in the miles. Laced up the Motos again, I should just throw those away because they're almost up to 600M now and my hip was aching from the start. Other than that I was fine, just got some extra mileage in. | 4 |
| Thursday AM | Fresh Pond, around the Pond. Still dead tired when I woke up this morning, even though I got about nine hours last night. I didn't really want to run, but convinced myself to just get out the door and get it over with. It was about 18 degrees outside and I wasn't really in the mood to deal with that, so I decided to run in pants this morning. Once I got going I felt fine, not amazing but the run went by without my legs falling apart. Didn't run all that fast, about 78 minutes total, the loop from campus would have been 63. Around the Pond was icy in places, everything else was fine. Really the only excitement was on Brattle Street where a house had just burned to the ground. The front wall was standing but really charred, everything else was gone. The firetrucks were getting ready to leave and they were redirecting traffic, but I was able to run through the street to get past. | 12 |
| Wednesday | Comm Ave to Johnny Kelly Statue and back. Got going a little after 7am this morning, in the balmy 24 degree temperatures. I slept about 8 hours last night but was still tired when I woke up this morning, I guess yesterday was a little harder than it felt. My legs loosened up pretty quickly and I got into the swing of things eventually. Things were pretty boring the whole way, nothing much happened. Ran 48:15 on the way out and just under 48:00 on the way back. As I was passing BC I started fading though, my legs just started feeling tired. I kind of just eased through the next couple miles but managed to bring it back around from about the Herb Chambers back home. Not an altogether bad day, I think the route is a little short but yesterday was a long 8 with Fivos, so it evens out. 63M in four days and I'm starting to feel it. | 15 |
| Tuesday PM | Castle-Bunker Hill. Fivos is running his mileage on his own these days, so I headed over to campus to give him some company today. We got started right at 4:30 and got into it pretty quickly. Felt like we were holding a pretty good pace the whole way, probably between 6:00 and 6:15, but I could be mistaken. We took a little different route from Haymarket to the Common by going up and around Government Center instead of following the Orange Line. When we got back to MIT we headed up to the track and ran strides, Fivos lit me up pretty well. Stretched out and then biked home. Two pretty good runs today, felt like I ran pretty hard on both of them. | 8 |
| Tuesday AM | Reservoir. Got going a little after 7:30 this morning, I'm getting pretty acclimated to the 30 degree temps. The sidewalks were pretty much all clear today, aside from the ramp from Boylston-Fenway down to Comm Ave. I was able to get rolling pretty well today, I skipped Summit but stayed on the north side of the street so I could climb the big hill on that side. Felt pretty good around the Reservoir, the snow was pretty soft still, not icy at all. I really started moving down Beacon on the way home, all the way to Kenmore. Wound up running about 64 minutes today, felt good the whole way. | 10 |
| Monday PM | Orange Line. Got going about 5pm, the weather hadn't warmed up at all, especially since the sun had set. I wore the adidas again, but I think they're a little too big, I forgot that Nike's run big when asking for a size 13, I should probably just go down to Marathon Sports to find a pair that works for me. Regardless, my legs felt pretty good today, even though it's kind of hard to tell over just 4M. Put in a pickup down Clearway and felt pretty good, even though it was the first time I've run one since Clubs. | 4 |
| Monday AM | Fresh Pond. Wanted to hammer today but the sidewalks were pretty iced over in a lot of places so the footing wasn't the greatest. Crossing the bridge was okay because the snow was soft there and I could get some traction. My shoes are getting pretty old so the tread is worn down and there's not a whole lot of grip. I was feeling good though, and got rolling a little past MIT where the sidewalks were clear, but then from the BU Bridge to Western Ave it was pretty icy so I backed off a little. I picked it back up again past Harvard but then Mt. Auburn was all iced over. Around the pond wasn't much better, but there was some sand put down in places so I was able to run decently fast. Brattle St was iced over, too, but I was able to stay in the road most of the way. Coming down Mass Ave wasn't so bad, a lot of it was Harvard's campus and they did a good job of salting and clearing the sidewalks. I still wound up running decently quick, the loop from campus would have been about 61:00 and it was 75:00 roundtrip. Would have been nice to be able to cut loose on this one, but I still got in a pretty good effort. I had no choice but to go back to the shorts today after being shown up yesterday by a kid from the Mediterranean. | 12 |
| Sunday | Arboretum. Woke up to a snowy morning, got out the door at 10am and decided to try to run the Fens-Riverway-Jamaica route that I had been planning on. The snow packed pretty well and there was only about an inch when I was out there, so the footing was fine the whole way. Haven't run to the Arboretum in a long time, it was nice to get back out that way again. I was a little slow getting to the Arboretum, about 33:00, but pretty much on pace the rest of the way, about 31:00 in the Arboretum and 31:00 back. I was able to run my usual route through the Arb without any incident, except in the back half. That area which reminds me a little of a quarry I guess is where they put the leaves that they rake up, so they were piled all over the usual trail. As I was going around the mound of leaves my foot found a puddle beneath the snow and I cracked through the ice pretty easily. So for the next few minutes my foot was pretty wet, but by the time I crossed back over the road it was dry again. It was about 27 degrees this morning, so I was wearing a cotton longsleeve and my jacket to stay dry and long pants because the snow was still falling. After about 10 minutes I was wishing I hadn't worn so much because I was getting pretty hot and wound up sweating a whole lot over the course of the run. Glad I was able to get the run in without any problems in the snow, I was even able to run on all the usual trails easily. | 14 |
Day |
Round Up |
Miles |
| Week 00 11/20-12/3 |
Took it easy for a little while after Clubs, and started up again just running short and fast and having fun. Put in a couple runs with Nick, which helped me get out the door, and then managed to keep it rolling when I got back to Boston. Uncovered a new route for a long run by heading out to the Minuteman Trail which bumped up the mileage total for the week. I'm trying to get to a point where I'm consistently 6:00-6:30 on my runs, if not below 6 minute pace. December Miles : 35 | 123 |
| Saturday (12/3) |
Castle-Bunker Hill. Didn't get out the door until around noon, the weather was pretty cold and it took a minute or two to get acclimated. My legs were okay but I kept things pretty relaxed the whole way, not incredibly excited about it today. Just put in the miles and finished off an 80M week. | 10 |
| Friday (12/2) |
Orange Line plus Longfellow-BU Loop. Didn't run this morning because I went to my sister's admission to the Massachusett's Bar, and then I didn't really feel like running the rest of the day. Around 4:30pm I finally decided I needed to just get out the door, but I wasn't really excited about any of the loops, so I went back to the idea that two shorter loops put together would be a good idea. Felt pretty good once I got rolling, it seems like once I finally get out the door I enjoy it, but psyching myself up is sometimes more difficult than it ought to be. Nothing special though, just putting in miles. I watched the MIT milers run their workout yesterday and that got me really excited about running a workout, but I think I'm going to hold off another week and try to just get the mileage up to 100 next week. | 10 |
| Thursday (12/1) |
Minuteman Trail. Ran Mass Ave-Garden St.-Sherman St.-Rindge-Alewife T Station. Got going a little later than normal this morning, didn't get out the door until 7:30am. I guess I started out pretty slow, took me 7:30 to get to 77, but slowly got into it a little more as I headed through Harvard Square. I was a little cautious because this was a new route and I didn't want to get screwed up, but I didn't really have any problems. Made it to Alewife in just under 35:00, it's right around 5M to the start of the trail. The trail was pretty nice, it's paved which is too bad, but it's a nice change from running around the city every day. It's a really nice place to run, the big issue is crossing at the Mass Ave-Mystic Ave intersection. The lights change pretty quickly though, so it's not too much waiting around. The trail was pretty busy around Alewife, which I didn't expect, but once I crossed Mass Ave it was more or less deserted. It's a lot like the bike path back home, except it's not as secluded which is nice. I was able to run on the shoulder a little more than half the time, so it wasn't all pavement. There were supposed to be mile markers, but I wasn't really looking for them and didn't notice them. Turned around just after Arlington High School at 50:10 and made it back to Alewife in just under 15:00. Didn't really start hammering, I guess my legs were just feeling a little better, because I was faster on the way home than on the way out. Coming down Sherman I had to stop and wait for a train, which caught me by surprise, but after that I didn't have any problems. I like this route, there's only two hangups, getting onto Garden Street in Harvard Square and cross Mass Ave while on the trail. Made it home in 46:50, which makes me think I went a little short, especially since 77-home only took 6:20, so I was 2:00 fast on the 6+M from the turnaround to 77 and then 1:00 faster over the final mile or so. Good to get in a long run though, my legs were tiring at about 45:00 but felt fine after I turned around and I felt pretty strong all the way home. Didn't try to hammer at all today, just kept it comfortable. One of these days maybe I'll ride the T out to Alewife so I can put in more mileage on the trail itself, rather than spending 2/3 of the run just getting to/from the trail. | 15 |
| Wednesday (11/30) |
Reservoir. It was raining a little when I got out the door at 7 this morning, but temps were almost up to 60, so it was a great morning to be running. When I got about halfway down the stairs I realized that I forgot my watch and decided I'd just run blind today. Probably a good idea since my legs are still a little tired. I felt pretty good climbing the hills, including Summit, but I wasn't trying to hammer them at all. Felt really good when I hit the trail around the Reservoir but kept it relaxed all the way back home. Pretty good morning, feel like it's about time to start ratcheting up the mileage. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do next, though, so I'm trying to keep track of my thoughts here. November Miles : 300 | 11 |
| Tuesday PM (11/29) |
Longfellow backwards with Kathryn. We took off around 4, the weather was still gorgeous and the run went pretty well. It was nice to be able to just run easy the whole way, we walked across Longfellow but everything else was maybe 7:30ish. Felt pretty good, just stretched out the legs a little. | 4 |
| Tuesday AM (11/29) |
Docks. It was in the mid 50s today, a great morning to be out running. I started out faster than normal and thought that maybe I ought to back off given what I did yesterday, but then decided that I was just going to enjoy the run and do whatever my legs felt like. It felt like I slowed gradually over the run and my legs definitely started feeling increasingly tired. Not an altogether bad run, things are going pretty well in my off weeks. | 9 |
| Monday (11/28) |
Out and back north along Lake Drive. Got going earlier than recently because I had to get to the airport for an afternoon flight back to Boston. It was warmer still, about 45 and misting, just fantastic weather. Decided I'd just head out and back for a ten miler, as I got going my legs were good but I was slow at the start, 6:45-6:50. Decided that I'd keep it steady on the way out for 33:00 and then try and hammer on the way home. Got all the way out just past Green Tree Road before turning around. Didn't get going much faster on the way back, I was 10:30 to Klode, about 30-45 seconds faster than on the way out. But from Klode I really started hammering the 3M back to Capitol, made it back in 17:30 and then jogged the last 2:00 back to the house. I put each of the miles between 5:45 and 5:55, started out pretty fast and tired a little in the second mile but was able to stay aggressive on the final mile. Didn't really hammer as much as I just kept the pace fast. I wasn't really looking for a workout today, just felt like running fast. | 10 |
| Sunday (11/27) |
Out and back along the Parkway. Headed over to Nick's house a little after eleven, he only wanted 7M so we set out on the Parkway. Temperatures were up around 45 degrees, so it was just shorts and tshirt for the run today. It rained last night so the snow that fell Friday was all gone and the footing was much better. I was feeling pretty average today, definitely didn't feel like hammering at all, Nick and I just settled into a good pace and held it there the whole way. We made it past Silver Spring and almost to the police department and decided to check out a little path/trail next to the road. It turned out to be just a small loop, maybe a minute long, and we headed back when we got off the trail. We ran back through Estabrook and took the tunnel up to Wilson, where Nick headed home up Congress and I headed over to Capitol. My legs were a little tired through the whole run, but talking with Nick made the run go by really quickly. | 11 |
| Saturday (11/26) |
Out and back along the Parkway. Headed over to Nick's house a little after noon, he only wanted 5M so we set out on the Parkway. The temps were up around 38 which felt absolutely balmy after the past two days so I opted for shorts, a long-sleeve and gloves. There was still snow on the ground in places where people hadn't yet shovelled, but we didn't have a problem with footing at all. The pace was pretty relaxed the whole way, we spent the time catching up and I didn't look at my watch at all. We turned back just after the railroad crossing before Silver Spring. When we got back to Nick's house I went in and had some pancakes his mom made and we eat for about 20 minutes before I took off again and ran home. It's 12+ minutes to his house, so I'm calling that almost 2M each way and the run was probably a little over 5M. | 9 |
| Friday (11/25) |
Art Museum. Headed out about 3:30 this afternoon, the temps were a little bit warmer but it had been snowing all afternoon so I got to run through half an inch to an inch of snow. The footing was fine the whole way, in fact running on the snow was probably better than running on pavement, kind of a soft surfaces day for me. My legs were fine but I just wasn't up to really hammering and the pace I settled into was pretty slow, about 6:50 at the start and only down to 6:30 by the end. I'm starting to get excited about training, even thought about adding on at the end. My right hip started aching over the final 2M or so, I would have chalked it up to running on snow, but it was aching yesterday too. Maybe I slipped around yesterday and strained something, I don't know. It was kind of tight but it wasn't painful so hopefully it won't be a big deal between now and when I get back to the foam roller. | 8 |
| Thursday (11/24) |
Bender Loop. I flew home last night and got out the door around 8am, greeted by 12 degree temperatures. It snowed a little overnight, which resulted in a lot of small ice patches on the sidewalk, not the greatest footing. I stuck mainly to the grass next to the sidewalk where I wasn't slipping around, but the pace was pretty slow at the start. It took me a mile or two to get used to feeling like my face is freezing, but after that I was fine. The wind was pretty strong, which made things tough, but other than that it was pretty nice. I probably could have gotten by in just shorts and a long-sleeve if it weren't for the wind. This week is just about having fun and stretching out the legs, so I started picking the pace up as the run went on. I was about 20-21 minutes through the first 3M and the run felt like it was taking forever, but when I crossed Silver Spring things started to pick up. I was moving pretty well the rest of the way, running probably around 6:00-6:15 without forcing anything, and dropped a nice and relaxed 5:50 from 4676 to Capitol. Today was a nice 66 minute run and I'm getting a little anxious to start putting in some longer ones. If the weather warms up a little I might think about going 16M one day. Today's calories out will definitely not cover the calories in. | 10 |
| Wednesday (11/23) |
Longfellow-BU Loop. It was about 31 degrees when I left at 7:20 this morning, didn't really feel like running long though, so I kept it short and ran a little quicker. Didn't have a choice, had to put on a long-sleeve shirt and thought that I would regret my decision not to wear a hat, but the only problem I had was with my hands, should have worn my warmer ones, I guess. My legs were good at the start but by the time I crossed Mass Ave on the Cambridge side they were feeling a little tired. I guess that's what 2 days off will do to you. They felt better near the end of the run though, and I felt pretty fast during the pickup from the Korean-Japanese restaurant down to Clearway. My Nike Motos are getting old, so I tried out my new pair of adidas AdiStar Cushion. As far as I can remember, this was my first run ever in shoes that weren't Nikes. | 6 |
| Tuesday (11/22) |
Nothing. It was raining when I woke up, which made my decision easier. The only activity today was walking to the library. | 0 |
| Monday (11/21) |
Nothing. Decided to take the day off today, just got up and worked most of the day. The only activity was riding to the credit union on campus to deposit some checks. A nice and relaxing day. | 0 |
| Sunday (11/20) |
Rochester and Genesee Riverway Trail. Left the hotel a little after 7am, some guy who took the elevator down to the lobby with me wanted to tag along for the first part. I misread the map and we headed north along State street for more than 15:00 before finally hitting the trail. He turned around at 23:00 and I kept going on my own until 34:00. Headed out past the High Falls area and the Eastman-Kodak headquarters. We were definitely running pretty easy at the start, but I started picking it up after he turned back. Felt pretty good today, my legs weren't at all sore from yesterday's race. Made it back to the hotel in about 30:30, I added on a little detour on the way back, trying to see if the trail went back to the hotel (it didn't.) Decent run this morning, just stretching out the legs. Don't know where I'm going from here, this week is going to be easy and relaxed and I'll decide sometime what the next step is going to be. | 10 |
