6th Post-Collegiate 2008-06-22 148 Week 27 week27 2008-01-11 2009-01-18 Not such a great week, everything leading up to the race in Houston went really well but I couldn't put it together on that day. Had a good last workout at Reggie, five minute pace felt comfortable and I was pretty confident on the line, but I got stuck out alone and couldn't push the pace enough by myself. By the end of the race I wasn't overly aggressive, just working hard enough to prevent it from turning into a disastrous run. (The weekly total looks high because it's an 8 day week, I just tacked Sunday on instead of having a one day week.) SUN Houston Half Marathon, 1:08:39 for 41st. Woke up around 3:45 and walked around the hotel for a few minutes to wake up. Ate breakfast and did the normal stuff, then met Terry and Carly and walked over to the staging area. It was 6am but felt like the middle of the day, I wasn't worried about feeling sluggish for the 7am start. We were escorted to the start at 6:20, so I put in some of my warm up in the convention center, some on the streets during the walk to the start and the rest once we got to the start. It was broken up a little bit and not what I was used to but didn't feel like a big deal. I put in a couple good strides and felt good lining up. Was about 3 deep at the start and didn't make a big effort to get out up front. Was hanging off the back of the second pack and trying to keep it comfortable early but wound up slipping too far off the pack. Came through the mile in 5:08 and was confident I'd pick it up later on. Stayed in more or less the same position during the second mile then put in a fast 3rd mile (4:55) starting to move up. I came through four miles in 20:20 and there were just 3 guys around and we weren't really running in a group. By six miles I was all alone and slowed to 5:20s. It stayed there the rest of the way, it felt more like a hard run than a race and I know I didn't push myself as much as I could have. A little out of it after finishing, I sat down for 10-15 minutes to regroup, drinking water and Gatorade. I finally got on my feet and did about a four minute cooldown outside, pretty sore at the start but was loosened up by the end. Pretty disappointed in how the race played out today, I was too cautious early, afraid of the distance a little bit. I really thought that if I was 20:20 at 4M there'd be 5 to 10 guys starting to move up that I could work with. If I could do it all over again I'd stick my neck out earlier and get out in 4:58-5:00. 2009 Houston Half Marathon 15 HARD AVG BAD SAT Out and back on Houston Half course with TPS. Slept in pretty late and grabbed breakfast before the technical meeting at 10am. Had a little time to pick up my number and relax before Terry knocked on my door for a short run. Headed out from the hotel and ran the last mile or two of the course, turned around at 15 minutes and headed back to the finish. Terry went inside and I ran a few strides in a park across from the finish. I was feeling pretty good today, my legs were turning over well and the strides were quick and easy. Looking forward to tomorrow. 4 EASY GOOD GOOD FRI Back Bay loop. The thermometer was showing single digit temperatures this morning but it actually didn't feel too bad outside. Kept things slow and easy the whole way, made it across the Mass Ave bridge without freezing and headed home. Getting on a plane to Houston this afternoon. 6 EASY AVG AVG THU Highland Ave. Not too excited about heading out in the 13 degree temps, I got going around 6:20 this morning. Forced myself to go to bed not long after finishing dinner last night so I was decently rested when I got up and my legs felt fine on the run. Going pretty slow, the turn in about 30:00 and only 28:00 on the way back, though there were quite a few icy patches on Highland. Tried to go through race day in my mind, but wasn't that focused this morning. All I know is that I'm waking up early on Sunday. 8 EASY AVG AVG WED 4x1M in 5:07, 5:02, 5:01, 4:53. Warmed up with the guys indoors because of the cold and poor footing outside, but had my own tune up workout tonight that I started on my own. Just looking for some easy miles to feel comfortable at pace and to get a bit faster as the workout went on. Started out a bit too relaxed, thinking 5:05s would feel like a jog. Was just a little off each lap and it added up. Brought a little more focus to the workout after the cavalier first interval and things came around well. Was a little slow at the start of the second mile, about 2:32 at the half, but picked things up and got caught by the guys with 400 to go, so I was able to get pulled along a little as they passed me. Matt Ely jumped in for the final 2 miles, I lead all of the third one, feeling the best I had all night, and we were running straight 75s, though we lost a second on the final 400m dodging traffic on the track. Matt led the first half of the last one, taking us out a bit quick in 36 as neither of us could figure out the splits for 2:27, but we got it figured out and hit the half in 2:28. I went around and put in a little more effort, I was feeling good and wanted to finish well but was trying not to get carried away. We ran the last 800 in 2:25, a decent effort but I recovered from that pretty quickly. Cooled down with 2M around the outside of the track then tried to get in some good stretching. Pleased with how today went, it wasn't as smooth as I was hoping for, but it was a good reminder that I can't just cruise along on Sunday. Even though it'll feel comfortable early, it's still going to take an effort the whole way. Now there's really nothing left to do before Sunday. 8 HARD AVG AVG TUE BU Bridge. Slept right through my alarm, barely conscious when I turned it off. Didn't even bother with snooze, went straight to off. Got a late start, out the door after 6:30am; it felt strange to have the sun up for the majority of my run. Wasn't terribly excited about running today but decided I couldn't justify a day off this close to Houston. There wasn't any route I was excited about running so I just headed to the Common, took Commonwealth out to BU and came back along the river. Very boring run, just trying to get through it and was running 7:00 pace at the end. All I can really do between now and Sunday is screw things up, so I'm trying to be cautious without cutting all the way back to 4 miles a day. 8 EASY AVG AVG MON Fake Fresh backwards. More snow overnight kept the pace slow today. I had been thinking about running a touch faster than normal, but that wasn't really possible this morning. Great footing for an easy run though, didn't have any issues at all and was 7:15ish along the river at the end. Temps were in the low 20s but without a wind it was very comfortable and the kind of morning I could have gone a bit further had I not been resting up. 10 EASY AVG AVG SUN Castle-Bunker Hill with 3 laps of the Common. I slept somewhere between 11 and 12 hours last night, the double on the track and a couple of beers afterwards did me in. It snowed a few inches overnight which made the route choice simple, I was debating how to tack on a few extra miles and knew the Common would have good footing so I just ran 3 easy laps before continuing on down Commonwealth. Even though my calves were absolutely wrecked walking around, especially up and down stairs, I didn't feel too bad this morning. Wasn't all that sore and the run was pretty enjoyable. My groin was a little tender, but that only affected me when trying to jump over puddles and snowbanks, and I could occasionally feel it when sliding around on uneven snow. A little on the cold side, I opted for pants because it was about 25 with some snow still falling, I felt humiliated to see a guy running in shorts along the river at MIT. Not only was he in shorts, but he was running on the grass, through the snow, instead of on the somewhat cleared path. Tucked my tail between my legs and continued on, trying to convince myself I bundled up to acclimate myself to the heat in Houston. Felt good to have this one over with though, I was pretty tired the rest of the day and managed to sneak in a very short nap around 3pm. 12 EASY AVG AVG Week 26 week26 2008-01-04 2009-01-10 One last week of preparation. Very glad I headed out to Cleveland Circle on Sunday, got in a great 18 miler with a few hard miles at the end and got me excited about things again. Kept the mileage days easy, not pushing anything and just trying to get to Houston. Wednesday's workout was pretty long and had me worn out by the end of it, but I felt good running at or below 5:00 pace and bounced back well the day after. The Alumni meet was a decent tune up, wish I had been more aggressive in the mile, was worried about my lack of speed and took myself out of it. The 5k went really well, felt like I was jogging through the first mile in 4:56-57 then started picking it up and held a good rhythm the rest of the way. Now there's really nothing left to do but get to Houston feeling confident. SAT MIT Alumni Meet. Mile in 4:29.15 for 2nd and 5k in 15:23.01 for 1st. Did the usual warm up with all the milers, felt pretty bad, with heavy legs, but the stride at the end got me loosened up. The race went out slow, about 35 at 200 and 69 at 400, Yermie got a gap on me before 800m and I didn't really try to run him down, just held off the guys behind me. I took myself out of this one mentally in the days leading up, it really wasn't as hard as I had built it up to be. Wish I had another shot at it, guess I'll have to wait a year. Hemu took the 5k out early, I sat back and came through the mile in 4:56 then started picking it up. Caught Hemu by 2600m and ran the second half of the race solo, the last 2M in 9:49. Cooled down about 2M around the track afterwards with Jacokes and Wildman. Disappointed in how I raced the mile but very encouraged by the 5k. Felt under control the whole way, it wasn't easy but I wasn't killing myself either. Bodes well for next weekend. 2009 MIT Alumni Indoor 8 HARD AVG GOOD FRI Inman Square. Nice and easy, very short this morning to get ready for tomorrow. Headed out on Washington and took Prospect to Inman Square, then back along Cambridge. A little icy in places and kept it on the slow side, but all in all my legs were feeling pretty good. We'll see what I've got tomorrow. 5 EASY AVG AVG THU Castle-Bunker Hill. When I got home from the workout last night the roads were iced over so I didn't even bother trying to get up and run this morning, although things looked okay when I took Midge out. Would have been very tired, though, as I was up past midnight, wound up from the track workout. Took off around 5:30, kept things very easy and ran slow the whole way. I wasn't really sore at all, even though I was expecting to feel terrible after last night. 9 EASY AVG AVG WED 2x2k-3k-4x1k in 6:18, 6:11; 9:20; 2:58, 2:59, 3:00, 3:01. There was a good sized group at Reggie tonight: Pat, Michael Chettle, Mark, Matt, Bernie and Lou. Warmed up on the sidewalk outside of Reggie and the school, as everything else was snowy/icy and uneven. The plan was to start out around 5:05 and work down to 5:00 or below through the 3k and then go harder on the thousands. Pat, Michael and Matt took off at the start and I wound up running solo, I had a pretty steady rhythm going and things felt really comfortable. I came through the mile around 5:04 on the first 2k and a little under 5:00 on the second, feeling really under control. Ely dropped back and ran most of the 3k with me, we got out aorund 4:58 and didn't get much faster on the second half. Pat let me lead the first thousand, I was feeling a little too fresh at the start and took us out in 33-34, then slowed way down to 71 at the quarter before somewhat getting us on pace. It was a real effort to hold on and run 2:58 though, and just as hard on the second one to stay on Pat's hip. Took the third one out in about 35 then told Pat to go around and he took off, I struggled to keep things together and held onto Ely for as long as I could. Tried to get out and run hard on the final kilometer but my legs were really heavy and I could not turn them over. Everybody else seemed to be feeling great as they went flying past, even LaRosa went sprinting by in the last 400m. Satisfied with how this workout went, 11k is a lot of work on the track and explains a bit of why I was slow at the end, plus I have done next to no speed work recently. Cooled down 2M around the outside of the track with Ely before calling it a day. 11 HARD AVG AVG TUE Highland Ave out and back. Got going around 6am this morning, felt okay but wound up running pretty slow. Made the turn in just under 30 minutes, which is about 2 minutes slower than usual and came in around 28. 8 EASY AVG AVG MON River with Terry, Bernie and Paul. The roads and sidewalks were completely iced over this morning and far too treacherous to run on. I waited until this afternoon and met Terry and Bernie at Mass and Mem at 6pm. Headed upriver, running into Paul at BU, then turned at Western Ave and came back on the Boston side. Crossed over the river at Mass Ave and went all the way down to Sloan, then the guys turned back and I headed home alone. Not very quick tonight, but it was good to have people to run with. 10 EASY AVG AVG SUN Marathon course. Today was a much needed shot in the arm, more excited to finish off these next two weeks well now. Met most of the usual suspects at Cleveland Circle (Terry, Lou, Bedoya, Ely) and headed out along Beacon to the course, meeting up with Wayne along the way. By the time we hit the course Ely had fallen away, but we kept it under control through Newton and Wellesley. Met up with Pat Moulton and Matt Pelletier between 13.5 and 14, we turned and headed back with them. That brought the eventual speed up and although it was still comfortable I was debating how hard I wanted to run this morning. Caught a break when some guys stopped for water and gu just after the turn ont Commonwealth, that let Wayne, Bedoya and myself build up a lead. Pat, Matt and Terry caught us at Center Street, Wayne dropped back but Bedoya and I latched on. It was pretty marked drop in pace, I really had to work for a little while to keep up. Ran 5:35-5:24 from 20-22, where Pat and Matt finished up. Dave, Terry and I kept rolling through Cleveland Circle to the 23 mile mark in 5:12. It was really Terry and Bedoya setting the pace while I just tried to hold on and counted down the seconds. Shuffled our way back from the 23, finishing up in 1:59. Really good run, though I was dead the rest of the day. 18 HARD GOOD GOOD Week 25 week25 2008-12-28 2009-01-03 A disappointing week, it's been a longer build up to Houston than I thought and it seems to be taking its toll. Had 2 decent runs in Milwaukee to finish off my vacation there, came back to Boston and put in a terribly slow workout on Wednesday, didn't have any speed or guts that day and ran considerably slower than I did when I was 19 years old. Took a day off after that workout and finished off the week with a mediocre effort, back to the grind 'em out workouts. SAT 10-5-10-5 at the Common. I slept in pretty late this morning and didn't head out the door until after 10:30. I knew the only place I could hope to find decent footing was the Common, which meant a fartlek without accurate distances. Jogged over to the Common along the usual route and stopped to stretch out a bit at Charles and Beacon. Ran a couple of strides and then got right into it, felt better than I was expecting to at the start. Got into a good rhythm and was running hard without straining, covered the first lap in 5:42 and finished up just past the Statehouse on the second lap. The 5:42 translates to about 5:10 pace, which I'd guess is pretty accurate. I kept the rest short, taking just enough time to get back to the start, a little over 2:00. Got out much harder for the "mile" interval, though I felt like I settled in a bit along Boylston. Worked the long downhill along Beacon to get back to Spruce Street as the watch hit 5:00. Just a minute rest before getting into it again, felt like I wasn't running nearly as fast, though I managed to cover the first lap in 5:45. I definitely slowed on the second lap and finished much closer to the Statehouse. Another easy jog back to the line trying to get myself psyched up for the last hard effort. Got out a little slow and it took awhile to get into it, was a couple seconds off at each marker I checked but managed to really cut loose down Beacon and hit Spruce in 4:58. Cooled down with an easy two miles and stretched out a bit when I got home. Felt decent right after the workout but the fatigue crept up on me throughout the day. 10 HARD AVG AVG FRI Fake Fresh backwards. Another cold morning, temperatures were in the teens, though after 15:00 or so I didn't feel too bad. Didn't have any problems with the footing, we didn't get a lot of snow on New Year's Eve and it was either cleared or packed down and runnable. Kept it easy the whole way, just stretching out my legs and trying to get the run over with. Was 6:50 along the river at the end, pretty much that speed/effort throughout. In a minor funk right now, ready for the race to get here and don't think there's much that I can do in the next 2 weeks to affect my time positively. It's either there or it isn't and I'm sick of waiting to find out. 10 EASY AVG AVG THU Day off. Woke up to 4 degree temps and even though it wasn't that bad when I took Midge out I had already made up my mind to wait. Then little things I haven't gotten around started piling up and before I knew it it was 4pm. Decided I felt so bad yesterday I could use a rest. What a great start to 2009. 0 NONE NONE NONE WED 6x800, 4x400 in 2:26, 23, 22, 24, 23, 25; 69, 67, 67, 69. Took my time getting going this morning, was out of bed around 5:30 but didn't hit the road until nearly 6:30, trying to wake up a little bit more. Felt okay on the warm up over to MIT and had some decent strides, but knew after the first 400m this was going to be a rough one. I got out in 34-35 but was 72-73 at the 400 and slowed a little more on the second lap. Felt like I was working hard, I just was not able to run fast. Took the 200m rest and was back on the line determined to get out hard and not slow down. Did a little better job, coming through in 71 and running the second lap hard, but things still weren't clicking. I somehow made it through the rest of the 800s though I felt really bad the whole way. Consistently got out in 34-35 and hit 400m at 71 before struggling on the second lap. Wasn't in it mentally, after the first couple I stopped thinking I'd be able to run fast and just tried to get through it. Was excited about the 400s, thinking maybe they'd be short enough that I could just get out hard and gut it out, but that didn't happen either. Was out in 33 on the first and didn't feel like I slowed, so I was surprised to look down and see 1:09 on the watch. By then I had given up on the workout enough to not even get mad anymore. Did a better job on the second and third ones, still getting out in 33 and didn't slow as much on the second 200. Not sure what happened on the final one, it felt the same as the earlier ones but was much slower over the last 200m. Glad when this one was over, just put my pants back on and jogged home. Didn't have any kind of a rhythm today, felt like I was forcing everything and had zero speed. My legs certainly aren't used to short and fast, but those times were horrendous. After Clubs I had started to make an effort to add strides at the end of my runs, but then the snow came and made everything too slippery and I abandoned that plan. Today really got me worried about the mile I'm running at Alumni next weekend; I need to find some speed somewhere. Pretty bad way to finish up 2008. 10 HARD BAD BAD TUE Castle-Bunker Hill. Got up at 5:30am and was too tired to get my shoes on. Decided to start work early and got out the door for an easy run in the afternoon. The 36 hours off after yesterday's run made my legs feel a lot better, wasn't running fast or hard but I didn't feel run-down, either. Nothing special about this one, a good hours run and put in the snow route ahead of tomorrow's snow. 9 EASY GOOD GOOD MON North on Lake. Took my time getting going this morning, I was running solo since Nick left for Ireland yesterday. Headed out north on Lake planning on my usual 16M route but after just 10 minutes I was thinking about cutting it short. I haven't been doing a good job of stretching while in Milwaukee, I haven't really been stretching at all, actually, and I think it's catching up to me. My legs were really heavy at the start and I wasn't really loosening up. I was still running okay, hitting 6:40-7:00 on some of the early miles, but I did not feel good at all. Decided I'd go at least 13 but there wasn't any point in pushing it. Ran on the shoulder of Lake Drive out in Fox Point because the path was too icy, there wasn't much traffic and the shoulder was pretty wide, so it went well. Made it to Santa Monica and took the first turn around after the Town Club, about 46:20 into the run, and headed home. Didn't feel like I sped up much on the way home, was running around 6:30s at the end. Finished up in 91 minutes, mapping it online puts the route at 13.5M, not really able to round that up. Flew back to Boston in the afternoon. 13 AVG GOOD GOOD SUN Parkway with Nick and Dom. Went out last night with friends from HS, though I thankfully didn't feel it this morning. Ran over to Nick's a bit after 9am and we headed over to Parkway and met Dom at his house. Ran out along the Parkway to Good Hope then turned around and ran home, dropping Dom off at Silver Spring. All the stuff that melted yesterday has frozen and the roads were fairly slick. Running in down the Parkway was probably the best option and the footing wasn't all that bad. Got back to the Schulte's and added on an extra block to get up over 90 minutes to make TPS happy. 13 EASY GOOD GOOD Week 24 week24 2008-12-21 2008-12-27 This turned out to be a decent week, despite the day off and two days in single digits. Wasn't too excited about dealing with the snow early in the week, then got to fly back to Milwaukee and deal with even more snow. Luckily I was able to put in Wednesday's workout inside at the Petit Center, and having Nick with me made it go a lot better, too. Came away from that one very excited about things, felt very comfortable running 5:00 pace and started having good thoughts about Houston. Being home and running with Nick is guaranteed to get my mileage up, and this week was no different. Seventeen miles on Saturday went by like nothing and having Nick around made backing out of the hard section impossible. I seem to have gotten into much better shape, though I can't point to any particular time when that happened. It seems like not that long ago that I was struggling with 8M tempos and now I'm running 4x2M at 10:00. SAT Hard long run. Nick came by the Schulte's again this morning, today we had temperatures in the 40s and the sidewalks were incredibly runnable, which made for a great morning. We headed north along Lake, past Klode and all the way out to Bartlett, we turned around at 45 minutes which got us to Bender at the hour mark. We took Bender down to the Parkway and headed out towards Good Hope to a spot that Nick said was 3M from the first bridge in Lincoln Park. We had been coasting early in the run and though I had started picking up the effort when we got to Bender I was still unsure of what to expect from the 3M hard section. Turned around and got right into it, more or less, Nick was going to build into it so I got a gap pretty early. Traffic wasn't a big deal, I didn't get stuck at the first intersection and there weren't many cars on the Parkway today. Nick said the first mile mark would be the railroad overpass, which I hit in 4:00, which was clearly short. Discussing it later we decided it's because of the detour we take up and over the sledding hill in the summer. Got across Bender without a hitch and tried to get into a rhythm heading back to Silver Spring. That's a longer stretch than it seems and I wasn't able to really hammer all that well, I felt like I was running hard but it wasn't anything near race pace. Had to sprint across Silver Spring since the light was yellow, made it to the far side of the intersection in 5:34 which left the final mile back to the bridge. Did a better job of staying calm and running fast instead of trying to force it, or at least that's how it felt. I finished up at the crosswalk just after the bridge in 4:54. Measuring it out on-line puts the stretch from the railroad overpass to the bridge at 1.97M, which I covered in 10:30ish. Not a bad solo effort but would have liked to have it at least feel a bit faster. Nick wound up not too far behind, it would have been nice to have some company on this one though. We regrouped and jogged home, and finished up right around 1:50 for the run. It started raining right as we turned onto Kensington, so I had to finish up the last 10 minutes in the cold rain, though Nick barely got wet. This one took a bit out of me and I was pretty tired the rest of the day. 17 HARD GOOD GOOD FRI Downtown. Nick came by the Schulte's and we headed south along Lake to the Art Museum. The county is running out of money and the path along the lake wasn't well plowed, so we were in and out of the street trying to find good footing and not get hit by cars. Instead of coming back along Prospect like we normally would, we headed down Wisconsin to the river, then crossed over at Michigan and took Kilbourn back for a bit. We made our way upriver for awhile then picked up Humboldt and took North back tothe Lake. Ran through Lake Park and up to Kensington, then down to Oakland and split up there. That bumped the run just over 90 minutes, feeling pretty good throughout. 13 EASY GOOD GOOD THU North on Lake. Pretty busy today trying to do 2 Christmases, so I only had a short window just before noon to duck out for a run. Headed up to Lake from the Schulte's and then headed north to Klode. Got to Klode in just under 20 and was trying to find a way to tack on another few minutes when I saw Nick running at me. We went back along Lake and I went a little past Lake Bluff to get up over 42:00. Was running 7:00 pace pretty consistently today, despite the uneven footing on the sidewalks. Not very sore after yesterday, which was good. 6 EASY GOOD GOOD WED 4x2M in 10:03, 10:01, 9:59, 10:01 at the Petit Center. I picked up Nick around 9am and we drove out to the Petit Center for this workout, since we agreed we'd be unable to put in any kind of decent effort on the barely plowed roads. Not quite sure what to expect, we got a 450m track that was 2 lanes around the outside of the speed skating rink, just a thin rubber/foam mat on a cold concrete floor. We jogged a 2M warm-up and I was happy to discover they had the mile and 2M marked, as were the 400s on the way to the mile. We took our time getting ready, which let the traffic on the track thin out slightly. Nick decided to do 4x(1600-800) running the first mile and last half of my 2M repeats. He took the lead at the start and we immediately ran into a traffic jam at the first turn, and accelerating out of there we got a bit caught up in things and hit 70 at the first quarter. I backed off from there but Nick kept hammering away, so I ran by myself most of the first mile, coming through in 2:25 and 3:42. I wasn't thinking clearly and thought I was still fast at 1200, though I had run run a 77, and hit the mile at 5:03. Nick stepped off there and I started working to get back on track. Nick rejoined with 800m left and helped pull me along and that got me to the 2M mark on time. Felt pretty good after that, the 2:00 rest went quickly but I was still fresh lining up. Did a better job of pacing on the second interval, getting out in 75-2:29 and hitting the mile in 5:01. Felt like I slowed a bit when I was out on my own, but without marks it was hard to tell. Nick jumped in for the final 800m and it felt like we picked things up slightly but I still came through in 5:00. The 2:00 rest went a bit quicker and it took a few steps to get loose and into a rhythm when we restarted. More or less the same story as the second interval, I led early and took us out in 73-74 but we got back to fairly even pacing after that, hitting the mile at 5:00-5:01, and then I did my best to keep it going on my own. Nick rejoined for the last 800 and this time I was pulling him along, I was feeling good and we closed fairly quickly. I was on my own at the start of the final interval, Nick took a longer rest and jumped in for my second and fourth half miles. I was struggling to keep on pace and it took a lot of focus to avoid slowing, they were also moving around bleachers and I was convinced I'd get cut off and forced to stop at some point. Actually, they were really good about moving them and waited until I had passed and got everything cleared before I made it back around. Hit the mile in 5:00 and though I had thought about trying to hammer the final mile decided I'd be happy to just gut out another mile at pace. Was really struggling before Nick joined in, he was out ahead enough to keep me rolling. Check the split on the "final quarter" (it was actually from 2750 to 3150) and it was a 71, so I was definitely slow early as it took a push to just hit 10:01. Really happy with how this turned out though, had a good rhythm throughout and did a good job of staying aggressive and not folding when things got tough. The Petit Center worked out well, although it was a bit cold, we didn't have to dodge the zamboni (there is a zamboni crossing) and they played pretty good music (Journey, Billy Joel and Hall and Oates during the final interval.) Wouldn't want to run there a lot as it's basically running on frozen concrete, but it was great for our purposes today. 12 HARD GOOD GOOD TUE 9 laps of the Common (7:40, 7:25, 7:22, 7:19, 7:20, 7:16, 7:05, 6:56, 6:58.) Got up this morning more determined to get in a meaningful run, as I've struggled since Saturday. The roads over to the Common were still a bit rough but once I got to the Common the paths were clear and salted and I was very happy to be on solid ground again. Started out easy, hitting just over 7:00 pace but quickly sped up, though I wasn't trying to. Worked my way down through 6:40s and finished up right around 6:30s for the last few laps. Felt really good out there, glad to be able to put in a decent run again. Flying home to Milwaukee tonight, leaving this snowy place for an even snowier place. 13 EASY AVG AVG MON 5 laps of the Common. Got going at the usual time this morning, headed over to the Common hoping for some good footing. It says a lot about the weekend we just had that the cracker jack facilities team couldn't get the Common cleared by this morning. Fairly slow going with a few clear patches, a few really bad patches and most of the path somewhat slick. Was running about 8:00 per lap, which is right around 7:30 pace and quicker than I was expecting. I stuck it out for as long as I could handle and headed home thinking I'd go to the gym with Kathryn later and put in some time on the treadmill. I got home to discover that Kathryn's school was cancelled again, so her schedule of going to the gym no longer matched mine. The snow got the best of me again. 8 EASY AVG AVG SUN Day off. Really disappointed in myself, as I sat around watching boring football games instead of running this afternoon. Woke up around 8:30 after a long afternoon/evening of carousing and did not feel at all like running. Ate some breakfast and then found enough ways to avoid running that I never made it out. The fact that we got another few inches of snow and I knew the footing would be terrible made it easier to skip the run. 0 NONE NONE NONE Week 23 week23 2008-12-14 2008-12-20 This was a pretty good week, though the mileage turned out a bit low. Missing Sunday was unfortunate, but by the time I got home any run would have just been a token and I decided it would be easiest to scrap it. Didn't have any lingering soreness from the race, which was good, and put in two really good efforts this week. Would have preferred to stay off the track on Wednesday, but it really was my best option for a good workout given the snow/ice/slush on the ground that day. Felt great running 5:00 pace and having LaRosa there to help was huge. Had a good 14 miler the next day and then was fresh enough on Saturday to feel good on the track for 5 miles. Things seem to be coming together at the right time, which is good. SAT 5M time trial at Harvard in 25:10. Half mile splits: 2:35-2:33-2:31-2:31-2:30-2:30-2:30-2:29-2:30-2:28. Woke up around 6:30 and had a bowl of cereal before digging my car out and taking Midge outside. We got about 6 inches of snow overnight and I was very glad to have a good excuse to run inside today. Kathryn drove me over to Harvard and after waiting around for the other runners to show up I got all the sensors attached and warmed up 2M around the outside of the track. Stretched out and ran a few strides to get accustomed to the pack before toeing the line. I got off to a slow start, coming through in 40 but was able to speed up from there. Wanted to get out in 5:05-5:10 and speed up from there, holding 5:00s through the middle and then hopefully closing a bit quicker. Got down to 5:00 pace on the second mile and it felt really comfortable, had a good rhythm and once I got used to hearing 220 yard splits instead of 200m splits things were good. Tried picking things up over the final 2 miles but couldn't really get my legs turned over any quicker. Holding pace got a bit harder, but I couldn't tell if that was a result of trying to run faster or if I was getting more tired. Happy with how things finished up, it went pretty well for a solo effort. Cooled down 2M around the outside of the track and then ran another 3M or so to Terry and Carly's place for Ian Nurse's send off. 12 HARD AVG GOOD FRI Castle-Bunker Hill. Wanted to keep it easy in advance of tomorrow's time trial. Very relaxed this morning, my legs are still feeling good. A little on the cold side but the snow predicted for today hasn't started falling yet. Ran the obligatory route anyways. 9 EASY AVG GOOD THU Greenway to Summer/L to Old Ollie to New Ollie to Summer/L to Common to Commonwealth to river. Wanted to go a bit longer to compensate for missing Sunday's long run, so I got a slightly earlier start and took the long way home at the end. Felt much better than I was expecting to, couldn't really feel last night's workout, despite getting started 8-9 hours after leaving Reggie. Still kept things easy the whole way and was decently tired by the time I was finishing up. Hit 1:40 around BHCC so I ran a fes strides through Charlestown to get home. 14 EASY AVG GOOD WED 2M-1M-2M at Reggie in 10:09, 4:54, 10:05. Was going to do a progression on the river with Ian this morning, but when I woke up to an inch or so of snow/slush on the ground, Ian and I both agreed it wasn't worth it. Headed over to Reggie for the 8pm workout and it was just LaRosa and myself there. Felt good throughout this whole thing, Mark did a great job and lead the entire 2M to start things off, we got out in 5:06 and picked it up on the second mile to 5:03. We were 37-38 on each lap and the few times I tried going to the front to help out Mark wouldn't let me around. 10 HARD GOOD GOOD TUE Fake Fresh backwards. There was a little bit of rain when I got out the door this morning, and the temps were just cool enough to make it uncomfortable. Kept things easy and I wasn't feeling quite as good as yesterday, unfortunately. When I hit the river the rain turned to hail and the wind was in my face, but I just had to remind myself that it wasn't as bad as Spokane and I felt much better. Finished up with a 6:45 along river at end, plus a stride or two through Charlestown. 10 EASY AVG AVG MON Summit Ave. Wanted to go a bit longer to make up for skipping out on yesterday, felt really good from the start. Kept things under control but felt like my legs were finding a quicker rhythm naturally. Had a decent effort up the hill and then started speeding up on the way home, using the slight downhill of Beacon to get my legs going. Kept about the same effort along the river and clocked in at 6:15 from 2.5 to 3.5. Really good run this morning. 12 AVG GOOD GOOD SUN Day off. Left the hotel early in the morning, far too early to try and put in a run. Got to Logan around 4:30 in the afternoon and wasn't able to talk myself into even a short run. 0 NONE NONE NONE Week 22 week22 2008-12-07 2008-12-13 This was a planned easy week to try and get sharp-ish for Saturday's race, missing the run on Thursday made the total mileage lower than planned. Felt fine coming off of a hard effort the previous Saturday, kept things easy and just put in mileage early. Missed out on the BAA workout Tuesday night but working out solo on Wednesday wasn't too bad. Had to deal with the wind at MIT but it was a good reminder that I can't coast, everything's going to take a lot of effort won't always feel easy and relaxed. Saturday's race went alright, not poorly enough to be disappointed in but not well enough to get excited about. On the whole I felt much stronger over 10k than I have in past years and the weather made this one a race that I won't soon forget. SAT Club Nats, 73rd in 33:10. Drove over to the course around noon, had a little bit of time to sit in the van before warming up. The forecasted snow held off and the footing was pretty good, but it was cold, really cold out there. Hard to keep warm during the 2M jog and very glad I bought a second pair of gloves at Rite Aid this morning to wear under my usual gloves. Felt okay on the line, had a few strides and wasn't too cold after stripping down to shorts, singlet, hat and gloves. Got out conservatively, started in the back of our box, and was pretty far back at the first turn. Felt like I was just jogging along and started moving up but it was pretty crowded early. Hit the first mile in 5:22, my face was already cold and I knew my hands were going to give me problems the rest of the way. Started passing people slowly from mile one to two and then moved up a lot on the second loop. Wasn't as aggressive as I should have been on the fifth mile, I started thinking about getting warm, but had a fairly decent effort over the last kilometer or so. Once my hands warmed up I was feeling okay, sat in the van for a bit and then cooled down 2M back towards the hotel with Mark, Eric and Ric. Right into the hot tub when we got back and then a long shower. Nobody ran very fast today, so the time doesn't bother me, but I think I could have finished much better placewise. Happy with how I ran and dealt with the conditions, just started out way back and got lost in the fifth mile. As long as it's not this cold in Houston I'll be happy. 10 HARD AVG AVG FRI Club Nats course. Headed over to the course at noon, ran the full 10k keeping things very easy. The course isn't as fast as it looks, the ground is pretty soft and there's enough turns and undulations to make keeping a rhythm difficult. Felt less than great at the start, almost as if I spent 12 hours travelling yesterday and didn't run. Got into it a bit more as the run wore on and even felt snappy during strides. Stretched out once we got back to the hotel. 6 EASY BAD AVG THU Day off. Supposed to get into Spokane in the early afternoon but flight cancellations got us to the hotel around 5pm. Would have gone for an easy shakeout with the rest of the guys but my luggage was still in Seattle. Glad we travelled on Thursday. 0 NONE NONE NONE WED 3x(600-1000-600) in 1:54, 3:03, 1:48; 1:48, 3:01, 1:47; 1:46, 3:02, 1:47. Was expecting to workout at Reggie tonight, but didn't know that the BAA workout had been moved to Tuesday. Ran solo at MIT this morning instead, less than excited to wake up and hear the wind howling outside. On the warmup over to the track I was hoping it wouldn't be too bad, but the usual wind tunnel was up and running. The plan was to run straight 70s for everything and after how I felt last week was expecting it to be on the easy side. Got out pretty slowly on the first one, coming through 200 in 37-38, coasting way too much. Hit a really strong gust of wind at 300m and was 1:17 at 400m. Tried to pick it up over the final 200m but couldn't get going. That first interval was a good reality check and I started working a lot harder from there. Came through in 73-2:26 on the thousand and managed to get out in 35 high on the final interval of the first set. Pretty much repeated that pattern throughout the rest of the workout, getting out in 34-35 and hitting 400m in 71-72. My second lap was generally slower on the thousands, but I wasn't ever falling apart this morning. Pretty content with this one, the times aren't all that great but they were decent given the wind. Had to work pretty hard after being a bit too confident at the start. Just because I'm getting back in shape and running better workouts doesn't mean things get easier, they just get faster. Nice to be reminded of that before Saturday. 10 HARD AVG AVG TUE Castle-Bunker Hill. I think that I ran this route today, but I really can't remember. 9 EASY AVG AVG MON Greenway to Summer/L to Old Ollie to New Ollie to Summer/L to Greenway. Woke up to 14 degree temps, first time braving truly cold weather this winter. Headed out on a route I thought would get me 13-14M, though I came up a bit short. Felt alright throughout the run but am keeping things easy, per TPS' orders. The only "hard" day between now and Saturday is going to be Wednesday evening at Reggie, and that won't even be too taxing. Nice and easy climb up G Street, far too cold to think about taking in the view atop Telegraph Hill though. For the most part this route kept me out of the wind which kept it from being too cold, the only bad stretch was coming back from Castle Island right along the water with the wind in my face. Wound up being 85 minutes, probably should have tacked on some extra to get into the 13-14M mark, but the thought of getting warm proved too tempting. I've been pretty content with the training I've been putting in, but the one change I'm trying to make is to bump one of the 10ish mile runs into the 13-14M range. For future reference, coming back through the Common and down Commonwealth like at the end of Docks would push this to a long 14. 12 EASY AVG GOOD SUN Highland Ave. Slept a solid 8-9 hours last night and didn't feel too bad when I woke up. Didn't want to get out the door right away though, and then had some errands to run and the tree to put up. Finally got going around 4pm, headed out for just a short and easy run, surprisingly wasn't sore after yesterday. I was expecting to spend at least the first few miles creaking and loosening up, I wasn't running very fast but I felt fluid throughout. Not much to this one. 8 EASY AVG GOOD Week 21 week21 2008-11-30 2008-12-06 Altogether a decent week, pretty good mileage total and ran all 7 days, though I didn't get in a long run on Sunday. It took a few days to get over the effects of a big Thanksgiving weekend, but finished off the week feeling pretty good. Had a very encouraging workout at Reggie on Wednesday, felt loose and had a good rhythm then put together a good long run on Saturday to finish things off. Things seem to be coming together and I'm getting stronger, it would be nice to have something to compare this to as a guideline for what to expect in Houston, but that unknown is part of the first try at any distance, I guess. SAT Hard long run, 12 mile stretch along the river in 66:00 (5:58, 5:52, 5:36, 5:37, 5:34, 5:33, 5:21, 5:21, 5:21, 5:10, 5:17, 5:18.) Got going about 8:30am, the plan was to warm up over to the 4M mark and meet up with a group of guys doing a 12M progression. That would give me 2M at 6:00, 4M at 5:40, 4M at 5:20 with them, and then 2M at tempo pace solo. Got out the door a couple minutes behind schedule (grabbed some Gatorade out of the basement to put in the fridge) and was getting to the Mem Drive-Hwy 28 intersection as they were coming past the Sonesta, luckily there wasn't much traffic and I was able to get across the street and latch on, just wound up getting into things a little earlier than planned. Sat back with Terry and Carly early, running 6:00 pace as David Bedoya, La Rosa, Lou and Bernie were a few seconds ahead. Terry and I picked it up in the half mile leading up to the drop to 5:40s and we were all together at the 6.5. Felt good as we speeded up, wound up a little under the window, that stretch of 5:35s should have been 5:40s, but what are you going to do? I mainly sat in the back of the pack and was feeling good, so I didn't worry about it too much. We picked up Ian Nurse on the way out, he, TPS and I were up front after the drop to 5:20s and did a good job of keeping things steady and on pace. I was feeling pretty good at the 3.5 so I told them I was going to speed up there, Ian and Terry came with and helped out a lot on the first mile. Probably was a little too excited, put in a surge and hit 2:31 at the half, Ian kept pushing which was awesome as I was struggling to keep it together. Managed to calm down and got back on his shoulder, running through the line with him at 5:09, then turned around and headed back into the wind. Hadn't noticed the wind at all until that point, but it made things a little tougher on the way back. Had TPS with me for half a mile, hitting 2:34, and then was alone the rest of the way. I started getting mild side stitches and was breathing fairly shallowly, tried to just stay calm and run fast but wasn't too successful. Slowed a lot on the second half of the 11th mile, running 2:43 and then had to really focus to bring things back around. Hit 2:41 in front of the Museum and tried to put together a good finish but had very little left and even felt my legs starting to tie up slightly after the tennis courts. Took a couple minutes to regroup before shuffling home in 15 minutes. I think I really bungled the transition from 5:20s to the last 3M, the big surge and dropping to 2:31 felt like it left me in a bit of a hole. The last couple miles were much harder than the 5:20s, but not all that much faster. On the whole, though, this was a very solid effort and would have easily been a 72-73 minute half, although there's not a hill to be found along the river. Still, it's not bad for a cold Saturday morning in trainers. Didn't feel too bad in the immediate aftermath, the 3x3M was a lot worse, but after a couple of hours of walking around Christmas shopping I was ready to saw off my own legs. 16 HARD GOOD GOOD FRI Castle. Pretty low key run today, just putting in miles and running easy. Big workout on tap for tomorrow and Club Nats in a week so I'm resting up a little. 9 EASY GOOD GOOD THU Fake Fresh backwards. Though it took some effort to get out of bed when my alarm went off, I was out the door by 6am this morning. Working out at night always leaves me a little too wired to climb right into bed, so even though I'm tired I end up staying up late trying to wind down and last night went to bed at 12. Felt much, much better than I was anticipating today, not sore or tight at all, which is really surprising. We didn't get going too terribly fast last night, but I don't run 68s that often and was expecting to feel it at least a little. Just a standard run, nice enough weather and pretty quiet streets. Running about 6:50 along the river at the end, I like the way things feel right now. 10 EASY GOOD GOOD WED 2x(400-400-800), 2x1M at Reggie in 69-69-2:22; 68-68-2:18; 4:44-4:45. First indoor workout of the winter, didn't have any problems adjusting this time. Got to the track a bit early but renewing my membership took awhile, and we started warming up 5 to 10 minutes late. Only ran 2 strides and didn't feel terribly fast on those, but was confident I'd work it out. Matt Ely and I alternated the lead, I took the first interval and brought us through in 33 high before settling down. Pretty much the same for the second 400 following Matt, then I started the 800 off with a 34-71 before settling into a rhythm. We were taking 45 seconds rest after the 4s and 2:00 after the 8s, so we were pretty fresh lining up for the second set. Matt took the first and the pacing was about the same, with a bit quicker second lap. My turn up front went the same way, then Matt put together a really solid 800, getting us out in 68 high and it took some effort on my part to keep up. Felt pretty good starting the mile, Matt was working into them so I set out on my own, running 34-70-2:22 before getting caught by Matt around the 1000. Settled in behind him and hit 3:32 at 1200m before he sped up again and dusted me. Brendan went around me over the final 400 also, with the three of us finishing in 4:40-42-44. Had 2:30 rest which was more like 2:45 and for the first time I didn't feel totally recovered at the start. The plan was the same as the previous mile, but Ely got out right on my shoulder and after a first 400 in the 70-71 range he took off. Brendan was right with me the rest of the way, though, which made staying on pace a lot easier. We hit 800 at 2:22 with Matt a few seconds ahead, he would go on to close with a 2:16 and wasn't really a factor. Brendan and I kept our final 800 evenly paced, although I did try to kick over the final 400m and had nothing there. It was a mixture of not having the speed to shift gears and not wanting to work as hard as needed. All in all a really good workout, the kind I've been waiting awhile to see. Very comfortable and almost controlled throughout, I really would not have expect mid 4:40s to feel as good as they did tonight. Cooled down with 2 laps of the usual loop with Ely, LaRosa and Lou, it was only 26:30, but I'll be generous and round it up to an even 4. 10 HARD GOOD GOOD WED Charlestown Loop. Took my time getting out of bed this morning as I only had a short one on tap. Finally got started around 6:30 and felt pretty good stretching out my legs. 4 EASY AVG AVG TUE Ollie. Felt alright this morning, back to reality with temps at 30 when I started. Nothing too remarkable about this run, a lot better conditions than last week. Running around 7:00s, nice and easy not pushing anything. 11 EASY AVG AVG MON Summit Ave. Got going a little before 6am this morning, really great weather given that it's now December. Mid 40s with just a little bit of rain, very comfortable in a tshirt and gloves. Kept it easy at the start and gradually put in a little more effort but didn't ever work hard. Felt okay going up Summit and was running 6:30-6:40 along the river at the end. 12 AVG AVG AVG SUN Highland Ave out and back. No good reason for not going long today, I was lazy when I woke up and then the sleet starting falling and my motivation to get going dropped. Knew I couldn't post a zero so I got out around 3pm for an easy eight, once I was in it I felt alright and probably could have convinced myself to go longer. As much as I like watching the Pats lose, had I known the game would be so boring I would have tacked on a couple extra miles. 8 EASY AVG AVG Week 20 week20 2008-11-23 2008-11-29 This was a pretty good week, despite the laziness on Monday. Had a pretty good long run to start off the week, wasn't falling apart at the end like I have been recently. The two workouts went decently, didn't hit the times I wanted but I still managed to put in good efforts. Having a break from work gave me a chance to put in some higher mileage days and recover from missing Monday. Another step in the right direction, I'm happy with how things are going, but it would be nice to see some tangible evidence of increased fitness. SAT Home from Toureen. The plane landed at 11 and we picked Midge up from the kennel a little after noon. The kennel is on the river in Watertown, so Kathryn drove home and I ran home along the river. Felt pretty good but wasn't too excited about the run, just trying to get home. My legs were pretty tired from the past few days, but I wound up running in the 6:30s. 11 EASY AVG AVG FRI 3x3M along Lake Drive in 16:03 (5:19, 5:19, 5:26), 15:34 (5:18, 5:09, 5:07), 16:04 (5:17, 5:21, 5:24). I was exhausted last night after a lot of turkey and a long drive home from Green Bay. Slept 8 or 9 hours and really had to drag myself out of bed in the morning. Thankfully Nick was planning on a morning workout, otherwise I would have pushed this back. Picked up Nick at 9:30 and we warmed up from my house to Lake Park, with a quick pitstop before strides at Lake and Kenwood. Pretty nice weather, in the upper 30s, and I was comfortable in a long sleeve shirt and gloves. The plan was 5:15s on the first, 5:10s on the second and 5:05 on the third. Got out really well, but wasn't that comfortable and worried about making it 3M. Came through in 2:31 which explained a bit, then relaxed way too much on the second half mile. Got the paced figured out a bit better on the second mile, splitting 2:38/2:41, but started the third mile with just a 2:42. I started pulling away from Nick here, with the long, slightly uphill stretch through Palisades. We were calling the fire hydrant 3M, but that seemed a bit long as I didn't feel like I slowed much over the final half. Took 4:45 to regroup and was feeling decent when we lined up for the second one. Pretty much dropped Nick from the gun, came through the half around 2:38 and really started working after hitting 5:18 at the mile. Right on pace at 5:08 for the second mile, but starting the third things got pretty tough. Didn't feel very smooth and really forcing things on the 2:37 first half. Really buckled down and hammered the final half, surprised to see it was a 2:30, didn't think I was feeling that good. Nick called it a day after the second one, so I was solo on the last one and tried to psych myself up for it. Got out well, hitting 2:31 at the half, which I now think might be short, came through the mile in 5:17 and just was unable to get my legs moving like I needed. Hitting roughly 2:40s throughout, working on pushing and running hard despite being tired. Once it was clear that 5:05s weren't going to happen I tried to just run as hard as I was able to and stay aggressive. Cooled down back home, about 2M at 7:30 pace, really glad to finally get off my feet. Ate a big breakfast/lunch, took a shower and then spent the next hour or two lying in bed trying to feel better. The times weren't what I was hoping for, but all in all this was a really good, hard workout and I probably shouldn't have gone 16 miles yesterday. Got a bit caught up in how I was feeling yesterday and didn't think about staying somewhat fresh for today. 13 HARD AVG AVG THU Out and back on the Parkway with Nick. Got going about 8am this morning, headed over to Nick's house and we did the standard out and back route through Lincoln and along the Parkway. Got to Good Hope in around 47, which is the usual turnaround, but we were feeling good and tacked on some extra in the neighborhood on the other side of Good Hope. Turned around at 55 minutes and followed the same route back. We kept things pretty easy throughout, spent the time catching up. Nick turned around and headed home at Beverly and Oakland, the last couple minutes were rough, but I wasn't really falling apart, I just wanted to get home and go eat turkey. Worked up a pretty good appetite, which I needed since we did 2 Thanksgivings this year, one with Kathryn's family and one with mine. 16 AVG GOOD AVG WED 8M tempo in 6:14, 6:05, 5:51, 5:50, 5:39, 5:34, 5:18, 5:17. Started warming up around 5:30 and was toeing the line at 5:55. The usual out-and-back, starting at the 3.5M mark and heading out to the 7.5M mark. The plan was to use the first 4M to get into the workout, moving from 6:00 down to 5:30 but without having to hit any specific times. Started out okay, hitting 3:04 at the half but then relaxed too much and was slow at the first mile. Started to work harder from there, the second mile went better, but still didn't feel like I was in the middle of a workout. The temporary bridge by the Storrow overpass was frosted and slick, which surprised me and slowed me down a bit. Got moving alright on the stretch out to BU, and was about 2:47 from 6.5 to 7. Hit the death bridge under BU and thought for a second it wasn't too bad, then my foot slipped and I almost fell. The bridge was pretty icy and I had to shuffle across then try to pick things back up. Not the greatest first half to the workout, but I thought I could still salvage a decent workout. Slow on the first half, which was mainly from traversing the death bridge again, the second half of the fifth mile was a 2:45, right on pace. Felt good shifting gears, but I hit that temporary bridge and slowed again. Was just over 2:47 at the half, but did not get back on pace and only managed another 2:47. Tried to really hammer the final two miles but just couldn't maintain the hard pace. Split the seventh mile about even, then was 2:42 halfway through the final mile and had to really push just to finish with a 2:35. Disappointing workout, maybe the free-flowing pace for the first four miles isn't the best idea when I'm working out solo. Never really felt like I got into it, but I was a bit rushed, trying to get this taken care of as early as possible because of the flight to Milwaukee this evening. 12 HARD BAD BAD TUE Ollie course. Got going just before 6am in the rain. Warm enough to go in just a tshirt but probably should have gone shirtless, as I eventually had to tuck it in since it was swinging around too much and starting to chafe. Pretty bad wind on the way out to Castle Island, a little bit better on the way back. Not a very enjoyable run, glad when this one was over. Running just a bit slower than 7:00s. 11 EASY AVG AVG MON Didn't run. Got up on time but didn't get out the door. Planned on going later, but didn't get the chance. 0 NONE NONE NONE SUN 2+ laps of JP. The usual Sunday route, out the door at 9am and into the cold weather again. Wasn't too bad on my block, but once the wind hit I was glad I chose to wear pants today. Kept it easy on the way out, didn't feel like pushing things and it wound up staying slow the whole way. Not much to write about, got tired over the final 20 minutes, but I think that was boredom more than fatigue. A little under 2 hours when I finished up. 16 AVG AVG AVG Week 19 week19 2008-11-16 2008-11-22 This week was a bit of a step back after a few good weeks of training in a row. My first 6 day week in a month, just not quite as excited about things this week. Not sure why, I think the enormity of what's left is starting to hit me. It's not just put together a couple of good weeks, it's put together a couple of good months. Had an alright run on Sunday, 16M isn't so terribly exhausting anymore. After missing Monday I wasn't able to get the mileage back up the rest of the week, no doubles and nothing over 10M. Two workouts, both were adequate but not remarkable. My head wasn't really in them and I wasn't running as aggressive as I need to be. SAT Fartlek at Franklin Park. Warmed up 2M with Lou at 9am this morning, another cold, blustery day. Was feeling okay, not really in the mood for a workout though. It looked like I'd be running solo, Lou was just there for a shakeout. As I was stripping down to shorts Brendan showed up and decided he'd start the workout with me, sans warm up. The plan was to just run the 10k course with predefined sections being run hard. Easy off the line, easing into things, we went hard from the asphalt path behind the stadium back to the 1M mark, covering the first mile in 5:42. I wasn't really sure what to time, I didn't time the hard sections since they were unknown distance, I just got our mile splits. Regrouped with Brendan and then ran hard from the base of Bearcage back to the finish line. Felt pretty good on the first two hard sections, but like Wednesday this felt more like tempo effort, holding a fast yet comfortable pace. Was 6:41 for the second mile, but that included some waiting around while Brendan ditched his jacket. Went hard again through the Wilderness up to the 4M mark and then had a short rest as we went from the first backstop all the way back to the start of the wilderness. In the middle we hit the 3M in 18:29, a 6:05 mile. I started feeling it at the end of that effort, but we had the entire Wilderness to recover. Went hard from the end of the Wilderness back to the 4M mark, a short hard effort up the little incline. Ran the fourth mile in 6:17 and headed over to Bearcage, where we went hard up and down, had a good climb and a rocky descent. Took it easy back to the line, hitting 8k in 31:01, and then launched into the final hard effort which covered the entire last "2k." Got started well, running hard into the Wilderness, but started coasting a bit along that long backstretch and didn't really get back into it until leaving the Wilderness. Finished up with a hard charge around the field, splitting the final effort in 6:03, covering the course in 37:04. I had originally thought the last 2k was accurate, but there's no way I was running 3:00 kilos. Put my pants back on and then coold down about 3M with Brendan, then headed home to stretch out and warm up. A decent workout, got my legs stretched out, but definitely could have gone harder. 11 HARD AVG AVG FRI Fake Fresh backwards. Out the door at 6am again, still dragging a bit in the mornings. Kept it easy early and never really got going any quicker. Still cold, there was even some ice on the river, near the bank. Was around 6:40 at the end. 10 EASY AVG AVG THU Docks. Out the door around 6am, not too sore from yesterday. Nothing special about this one, still cold but I'm adjusting. I was around 6:50 along the river, just a regular run. 9 EASY AVG AVG WED 5x(800-400) around the field at Harvard, in 2:30-70, 2:26-72, 2:27-70, 2:28-70, 2:30-71. This was the first really cold day, with temps solidly below 30, I was a wimp and stayed in my car with the heater blasting until the last possible minute. Headed out for the usual river loop with Ely, Lou and TPS, it wasn't as bad as I was anticipating. Felt decent on the warm up, got to the field and stretched out a bit before stripping down to shorts, running a few strides and jumping into the workout. Just Ely, Lou, Andreas and myself for this one, Ely built into the workout so I started out in front. Tough to get a feel for where I was distance wise, I'm used to judging how hard to work by where I am on the track and I couldn't do that tonight. Didn't feel like I was able to get moving tonight, I was pushing but my legs weren't cooperating and it wound up being more of a tempo-ish effort. My head wasn't really in it today, wasn't able to sustain a hard effort. Cooled down along the river again before seeking refuge in the heated car. It really wasn't terribly cold, but it came out of nowhere and caught me unprepared. I guess it's time to accept the fact that the next 3 to 4 months are going to be cold. 9 HARD AVG AVG TUE Fake Fresh backwards. Got started after 6am this morning, taking my time to get out the door. It was getting light out when I started but the thermometer said 30 and this was my first run of the winter in a hat. Wasn't too cold, felt pretty comfortable and maybe could have braved the elements with an uncovered scalp. Kept it easy early and kept meaning to build into something faster, but never really did. Got down to 6:40 along the river, but that was only the last mile or two, everything else was probably around 7:00s. 10 EASY GOOD GOOD MON No running. Lots of excuses today, none of them good. The first time in awhile that I was really tired in the morning, resigned myself to getting up but fell back asleep after turning off the alarm. Was going to run later but work piled up, the kitchen sink clogged, it was my turn to cook dinner, and it's pitch black and cold at 5:30pm now. Lazy day after 4 straight 7 day weeks. 0 NONE NONE NONE SUN 2+ laps of JP. The usual Sunday route continues, I had thoughts of meeting the group at Fresh Pond this morning, but decided to sleep in instead. Got going around 9am and kept it relaxed on the way out to JP. It must have poured overnight as the ground was pretty soggy the whole way and I was dodging puddles. My legs felt fine throughout, wound up not picking up the pace at the end, which I had been debating earlier in the run. Just let my legs do what they wanted and was happy to not be falling apart like two weeks ago. 16 AVG GOOD GOOD Week 18 week18 2008-11-09 2008-11-15 Pretty decent week, was able to keep the recent momentum going and got near 80M on singles without a long run. Had an alright race on Sunday to start things off, wasn't as fast as I would have liked but did a better job of holding on when things got rough. Came back with a very solid 2x4M on Wednesday, running 5:11s on the track for the second one. Friday morning was another good workout, going a full 10M progression, the first 8M with TPS and finishing up with 5:15-5:11 solo. Happy with how things are coming around, looking to string together a few more weeks like this leading up to Clubs. I guess now is as a good a time as any to put this in writing, the race I'm focusing on now is the US Half Marathon Champs in Houston on Jan 18. I won't taper as much for Club Nats as I have in the past and then get right back into it with half specific work afterwards. SAT Greenway to L to the Ocean. Got going around 10am after sleeping in this morning. Felt pretty good at the start, kept it easy and headed out along the Greenway. Turned at South Station and took Summer/L all the way to beach. From there I just followed the ocean, went out on the breakers and around the back of Fort Independence. I took Broadway back to L and then came home the same way I went out. Pretty good run, nice weather and fresh enough legs. Not too sore from yesterday which was surprising. In the low 60s with mist/rain and probably should have gone without the shirt as it was just hanging there by the end. 76 minutes today, which I'm calling a long eleven. 11 EASY GOOD GOOD FRI 10M progression run in 55:11, splits were 5:48, 5:51, 5:41, 5:45, 5:32, 5:26, 5:22, 5:15, 5:15, 5:11. The plan was to start at 5:50 and drop 10s every 2M, which we pretty much did. Met Terry Shea and Mike Brown Dowling at the 4.5M mark, they had done 2M at 6:00 and I jumped in with them. A little quick to start, 2:50 for the first half and then we settled down. Felt good early, able to settle into the pace and was really jogging along at 5:50s. MBD dropped off after 2M, TPS and I shifted gears pretty well and wer actually a little quick at the half. There was a lot of traffic under the BU Bridge but we got through it unscathed and found a good rhythm out to the 7.5M mark. Terry settled in behind me after the turn, but I brought us through the half a little slow, about 2:55. We got back on pace and ran 2:50 for the next half, and then sped up to 5:30s pretty easily. After working together to bring the pace down, hitting 5:32, TPS tucked in again and we came through in 2:45. Terry started feeling his oats there, apparently, as we started rolling and hit 2:41 to run 5:26. Held it steady through the next mile, running 5:22 and then hit 2:41 before hammering down to Mass Ave. That was the end of Terry's workout and he didn't realize I was going longer. Got right on pace, coming through in 2:35 but was working really hard and worried I wouldn't be able to hold on. Slowed a bit going under Longfellow and was 2:40 for that half. Did my best to stay relaxed and just let my legs go, managed to put together back to back 2:35s to finish up. Pretty exhausted at the end, really happy with how things went today though. Handled the increases in speed well and had a good rhythm the whole way, even when things were getting rough. Cooled down 2M back home, wasn't falling apart nearly as much as I would have expected. 14 HARD GOOD GOOD THU Castle-Bunker Hill. Took a little time to get started this morning, couldn't decide about how far to go or where to go. Haven't run Castle in awhile, it was nice to get a change of scenery. Felt pretty good throughout, kept it easy the whole way but wasn't feeling yesterday's workout at all. 9 EASY GOOD GOOD WED 2x4M in 21:55 (5:39, 26, 24, 24) and 20:45 (5:11, 13, 10, 09.) Did the first 4M on the river, finished at Mass Ave and did the second 4M on the track. The plan was 5:20-5:30 pace on the first one and 5:10-5:20 on the second. Warmed up over to the 4.5 mark (almost exactly fourteen minutes,) but the mark was covered in leaves. Spent half my time kicking leaves around looking for the mark and half my time stretching out and running a few strides. Found the mark right as I was just going to estimate it, for the record it's 9 paces upriver from lightpost #160. Got out well and was feeling really comfortable, approaching the half mile I was thinking there was a chance I'd see 3:00 on the watch. Hit 2:45 which was great, but got me too complacent for the next half. Slowed way too much, all the way to 2:54, the ease of the first half had me thinking the pace would be a jog. Sped up from there, dropped down to 2:47 and then kept speeding up, running a 2:39 to get to 5:26. Kept the effort steady from there, tried not to get too caught up in hammering this first one. The final two miles were split roughly 2:45/2:39 and 2:42/2:42. I wanted 4:00 rest and the jog over to the starting line on the track took almost exactly that. Wasn't really sure what to expect on the second one, my legs felt pretty fresh, I more or less cruised through the river miles, not working too hard. Decided I couldn't afford to carrry the weight of my t-shirt and it was warm enough to run barechested, have to take advantage of these days while we still have them. Right after starting I asked myself why I chose to do the second one on the track, 16 laps didn't seem like such a good idea anymore. The track was definitely much faster though, a lot easier to get into a rhythm and hold pace. Came through in a comfortable 2:35 at 800 and just tried to hold it right there the rest of the way. I was 5:11 and then ran another 2:35, I felt great through 1.5M and was excited about how things were going. Things started catching up to me though and I let the pace slip on the enext half without really realizing it. Seeing 5:13 on the watch got my attention and I worked on speeding back up. My legs were starting to get tired but I managed to get back on pace and it didn't take a whole lot of effort to hold it there. Back to back 2:35s on the third mile, really just grinding it out and trying to hold things together. Overall I was feeling good, but I was having trouble remembering which lap I was on. Came through the 5k in 16:13 and did my best to stay under control over the final mile. I was feeling good enough where I could have worked harder and maybe gotten down to 5:00, but I wanted to finish up feeling like I had more left. Was 2:34 at the half, felt like I slowed slightly on the third lap and then brought it back around on the last one. I was glad to be done, but I wasn't grabbing my knees or wishing I was dead, this was a solid workout that I managed well. Would have been interesting to see what the second set would have been had I run it along the river. Much easier to focus on the track and a lot easier to maintain pace, or so it felt. Cooled down back home, ran into TPS as he was getting ready for a tempo with Ian. 13 HARD GOOD GOOD TUE Fake Fresh backwards. A little tough getting out of bed this morning but I was out the door by 6am. About 35 degrees at the start and initially worried I'd regret not wearing a hat. Warmed up pretty quickly though and had a great run, comfortable throughout and kept the pace relaxed. Sped up slightly along the river but only split 6:45 at the end. 10 AVG GOOD AVG MON Summit Ave. Out the door before 6am and not feeling too bad. Wasn't terribly sore or anything, kept it easy early while waking up and got into it more as the run wore on. My right knee was sore for a little bit at the start but loosened up after a mile or so and wasn't an issue the rest of the way. Had some stomach issues and had to stop at the Holiday Inn, but got right back into things after that. Finished up with a 6:30 along the river, without really pushing things. I made a decision to speed up but just let my legs dictate how fast. With Clubs 5 weeks away there's not a lot to think about right now and this morning was pretty boring. 12 AVG GOOD AVG SUN New Englands. Ran 31:45ish for xxth place. Felt okay on the warm up and strides but never found a good rhythm during the race, felt like I was forcing things the whole way. Then plan was to start out a few seconds back and then run aggressively over the final four miles. Got out in 4:55ish, the lead pack was gone but I was just off the back of the chase pack. Basically hung around there the rest of the way, slowly making my way up but never switching gears, making big moves and running guys down. A step in the right direction, though, as my legs were tired from about 2.5M on and I managed to keep working at it. Cooled down a long 2M and called it a day. Not terribly exhausted the rest of the day, didn't even have to take a nap. 10 HARD AVG GOOD Week 17 week17 2008-11-02 2008-11-08 Another good week, another step forward. Got in a good long run on Sunday even though I was dead by the end of it. I think my body is adjusting to the step up in mileage as my legs weren't too bad the rest of the week. Surprisingly I never had to convince myself to get out of bed, I was up and somewhat excited every day. Had a good session on Wednesday, my first fast stuff in a long time, and it didn't seem to affect my legs the rest of the week. Even with dropping mileage at the end of the week the total was near 80, I think this is the blueprint for how I'll get to 80-90MPW. SAT Charlestown Loop, plus some extra with Midge. Waited until 5pm or so to start this one, ran with Midge to the Y, where she stopped and refused to run any further. We turned back and I got her to trot home but we were going pretty slow. Wound up being 7 minutes with her, then went out and ran the standard loop, then got Midge and went around the Monument once and came home. Running pretty slow the whole way, felt okay throughout but my legs felt dead on theway up Sackville. Hoping for a good one tomorrow. 5 EASY AVG AVG FRI Highland Ave out and back. Got up to take Midge out at 3:30am and my knee was really tight, but when I got started at 6:15am things were feeling okay. Kept it pretty easy early but started speeding up heading out on Highland. Decided I didn't want 3 slow days in a row before Sunday, so I ran a little harder than normal, but didn't go nuts. Made the turn at 28:30 and came back in 27:15. On the whole, things are feeling pretty good. 8 EASY AVG AVG THU Ollie course. Woke up feeling decent, thought I'd be much more tired after last night. Once I started I felt like I expected to, though. Not running very fast at all, covered the course in 38:30 and wasn't any faster afterward. I didn't feel too sore, just fatigued and put in as little effort as I could. My right knee started hurting over the final few miles, nothing terrible but enough to be bothersome. At least I remembered to ice when I got home. 11 EASY BAD AVG WED BAA Workout at Harvard. 4x(1000-400) in ~3:10, 68; 3:07, 70; 3:07, 70; 3:06, 66, with 2:00 after the 1000 and 1:30 after the 400s. The original plan was to run the 1200 on grass and the 400 on the track, but with the time change and the lights off the track was far too dark to run on. MP wheeled out a course around the perimeter of some lit fields, 530m long with a lot of sharp turns on it. Running out front most of the workout, which made taking the turns a little easier, though the intervals were more like fartleks, running hard on the straights, slowing through the turn and then trying to accelerate again. Felt good throughout, we ran past the finish without knowing it on the first one, so 3:10 is just a guess, though we were 75 at the quarter. Ran the quarter pretty hard, felt relatively easy and had a good rhythm tonight. Got out a little harder on the second set, came through in 72, felt like we kept it aggressive but must have slowed since we were just 3:07. Not quite as quick for the quarter and the workout was starting to catch up to me. The third set was pretty much the same as the second, though it was getting a little tougher to finish the 1000 well. Matt Ely took the fourth set out hard and pulled away with Andrew Hill and Michael Chettle. I wound up yo-yo'ing off the back of Terry on the second lap and generally feeling bad. Surprised to see 3:06 at the line, thought it would be over 3:10 for sure. Managed to refocus and really hammered the final 400, pushed all the way through the line, finished the workout off well. Cooled down with Ely and Terry along the river, not feeling too great and glad when things were done. Spent some time chatting and stretching out before heading home. Had pretty bad stomach pain the rest of the night, not very fun. 9 HARD GOOD GOOD WED CTown Loop. Back to back doubles as I was out on the streets by 5:45 for an easy morning run ahead of tonight's workout. Kept it really easy and things didn't hurt too much. 4 EASY AVG AVG TUE To MIT and back. The Pizza Relays were tonight, so I took off at 5:40 and made it to the track just in time for the gun. Stood around for the 15 minutes the race took and then headed back home along the river. Was running slow, about 7:30s, but I didn't really care. Amazing weather, mid 50s with little wind, great night to be out. 6 EASY AVG AVG TUE Docks. Another day without a problem getting up, things are a lot easier when you're not dragging yourself out of bed. I chose this route thinking it was going to be eight miles, but it took 65 minutes and looking back I've always called it 9. Kept it easy and slow pretty much the whole way, my legs seem to be coming around as I wasn't too tired this morning. Ran 3:30 for the first half along the river and then picked it up to 3:15 in order to drop a guy who decided to pick it up right after I passed him. The only real excitement was horribly mistiming the light while crossing 28 and having to sprint across to avoid getting hit by cars. For most of the run my right quad was really, really sore, my right hip flexor and IT have been giving me issues lately and I think it's related to that. Maybe one of these days I'll remember to ice. 9 EASY AVG AVG MON Fake Fresh backwards. Felt surprisingly decent this morning. Didn't have much trouble getting out of bed and was out the door at 5:45. My legs were a little sore and tight and I was running slow early but things loosened up and I felt fine heading home along the river. Just running 7:00s but after yesterday I'll take it. 10 EASY AVG AVG SUN Took the usual route out to JP around 9am this morning, running pretty easy and feeling decent at the start. I got to the Pond and was feeling good so I decided to go around another time to bump up the mileage. The loop wound up taking just under 10 minutes, so I had to add on another few minutes to get it up to 14 and an even 2M. As I was heading home I started feeling worse and worse, it became harder and harder just to maintain my form, all I wanted to do was lie down. From the time I hit Comm Ave my right hip flexor really started aching, and my right IT band too. I was very happy when this one ended, it was just over 1:55 and I wanted to shoot myself by the time it was over. The step up in mileage is clearly catching up to me, and yesterday's workout wasn't helping anything either. 16 EASY AVG BAD Week 16 week16 2008-10-26 2008-11-01 Another seven day week with every day in double digits even. I didn't have the smartest approach to Sunday's race and that led to just an average race. Hard to be disappointed in running 25:37 given the amount of running I've been doing, but I thought I'd be able to gut out something a bit faster. Having Nick around throughout the week made getting out the door much easier, we even doubled on Tuesday. Had an alright progression on Wednesday morning though I seem to keep getting stuck at 5:10-5:15 on those. Saturday's workout was decent though I'm still not running aggressively enough during workouts. I think that's what's keeping me from getting down to 5:00 during the progression runs, I'm not able to get down to a pace that isn't comfortable for any length of time. Hopefully that's something that will come back as I put together more weeks like this one. SAT Mile 1, Mile 2, 4xWilderness, Mile 5 at Franklin in 4:51, 5:11, 2:34, 2:32, 2:34, 2:35, 4:40. Drove out to Franklin Park at 8am this morning to get in a workout before watching the NEWMAC race. Warmed up 2M and then put in the usual stretching and strides before lining up. Got out well, though it was strange to be running alone and I kept thinking Nick would show up. Kind of soft in the middle though and I really had to hammer from the backstop to the mark to save a decent time. Took 3 minutes rest and was feeling good lining up for the next one. Same as the first mile I got out decently but relaxed in the middle and had to really push from the backstop through the 2M mark. My legs were feeling fine, I wasn't too tired, I just wasn't able to force a hard pace this morning. Another 3 minutes rest then moved onto the Wilderness loops. Same story as the first two miles, I was feeling good and running quick but wasn't able to really hammer the pace, I kept easing up. All four repeats were about the same, I just didn't have an aggressive mindset. I was a bit frustrated and decided I wouldn't pull back on the reins during the final mile, I got out hard, ran up Bearcage decently and then hammered the rest of the way to the line. I officially cooled down 3M and then ran some strides and stretched out. I wound up running all over the place during both races but aren't counting that as mileage. I was pretty wiped out when I got home and spent most of the rest of the day on the couch. This is a workout I ran senior year, though I didn't run the fifth mile then. My splits in 2004 were: 4:45-5:05-2:29-2:28-2:32-2:29. 10 HARD AVG AVG FRI Ollie with Nick. Up and at it early again this morning, out the door just a little after 5:30. Running pretty easy the whole way, covered the course in 35 minutes. Nothing special about this one, my legs aren't too tired but I was just generally tired when we got back, been doing a lot of running this week. 11 EASY GOOD GOOD THU Olmsted with Nick and JMark. Nick's conference was only half a day, so we decided to sleep in and run when the sun was shining. Went around 3:30, met Jared on the river and then crossed over at Mass Ave, heading up to Boylston and then into the Fens. Felt decent despite yesterday's workout, having people to talk with makes things seem easier, too. We started picking it up at some point and ran 6:25 (3:10/3:15) along the river on the way back. 12 AVG GOOD GOOD WED 6M tempo along the river with the Nick in 5:53-5:37-5:33-5:14-5:16-5:11. Warmed up 2M over to the 3.5M mark, took a couple minutes to get loose and then got into it. Took it easy at the start, hit the first half in 3:00 and then picked it up to 2:53 the second half. Was feeling pretty good and able to sit a step behind Nick and let him set the pace early. We dropped it down easily after the first mile and the 5:37 felt comfortable and controlled. A little too controlled at the start of the third mile, hitting 2:48 before picking things up on the second half. Got a little too excited after the turnaround and ran the first half in 2:35 before pulling back on the reins a bit. Heading into the four mile mark I started pulling ahead of Nick and tried to keep him on my hip so I wouldn't be solo the final two miles. Was 2:38 at the half and kept it there the next half mile. Nick dropped off at 5 miles and I took off on my own trying to run five flat for the sixth mile. I missed the split at halfway, there were too many cars and people and I was trying not to get killed. I finished pretty hard, not sprinting past the Sonesta but running hard and into the wind, finishing in 5:11. I'd believe anything between 2:35 and 2:40 for the first half of that last mile. Cooled down another 2M back home with Nick, my right knee was pretty achy and I was glad to get home. Not a bad workout this morning, we did a good job of dropping the pace and I had a good rhythm early on, I'm just not comfortable running in the low 5:00s yet. 10 HARD AVG GOOD TUE Longfellow-Staniford-Locks. Took off at 7pm and headed over to the river with Nick. Crossed over Longfellow and headed up Cambridge to Anna's. Stopped and bought dinner, which took longer than expected because of a long line, and then finished up the run carrying our burritos home. Pretty crowded at the Garden because the Celtics were opening their season, pretty much the only excitement of the run. Glad when this one was over, carrying a burrito a mile and a half isn't very easy on the wrists. 4 EASY AVG AVG TUE Comm Ave to Harvard to Beacon with Nick and JMark. Met up with Jared just after Longfellow, crossed the river at Mass Ave and headed out on Commonwealth. Decided we didn't have time to make it to Summit so we took Harvard over to Beacon and then headed home. After a quick stop at Dunkin for Nick we started speeding up and hit 6:30 along the river. Jared turned off at the Sonesta and Nick and I finished up back to Prospect. 11 AVG GOOD GOOD MON Fake Fresh backwards with Nick. Not surprisingly Nick started pushing the pace before we even got to BHCC. Managed to settle in at an easy pace through Harvard Square and then hit the river and slowly started building into it. It felt like were running a bit faster than the watch said, we were just 6:55 along the river. My legs weren't terribly sore, so it didn't feel like we were working too hard, it just seemed like we were covering ground quickly. Guess I was wrong. 10 EASY AVG AVG SUN Mayor's Cup, 40th place in 25:37. Felt good during the warm up and strides, got off the line well, maybe too hard. Got too caught up in the first thousand and worked much more than I wanted to, came through the mile in 4:48, but it wasn't an even effort and it started catching up to me after climbing Bearcage. The middle two miles were really slow, about 10:36, and really killed the race. Wasn't able to hang on over the final mile and gave back a couple of places. Cooled down about three miles, mainly with the BAA guys. 10 EASY AVG AVG Week 15 week15 2008-10-19 2008-10-25 A fairly solid week. Finally managed to run all seven days and even doubled on Friday. Had a couple of low mileage days, but something is better than nothing I guess. Really focused on Mayor's Cup tomorrow, hoping I'll be able to put together a good race. Tuesday's workout went pretty well, it was a hard effort but the kind of work I need to start doing. Got my legs tired early and did a decent job of pushing all the way through. SAT Docks-Greenway. Got an early start this morning and headed out on my new favorite short route. Feeling pretty good and looking forward to the race tomorrow. The only interesting part was seeing Ralph Nader speaking in front of the Federal Reserve building. 6 EASY AVG AVG FRI Charlestown Loop. Got out for an easy shakeout tonight and felt alright. Nothing special. 4 EASY AVG AVG FRI Run to Remember course. Not much going on this morning, just an easy run and some race planning for this weekend. 7 EASY AVG AVG THU Charlestown Loop. Out for an easy four this morning, just stretching out my legs and felt decent. I took Midge out this morning and didn't feel that cold, so I went out in tshirt and gloves and felt pretty comfortable. Surprised to get home and see the thermometer at 38 degrees. Planned to run again in the afternoon but didn't have time. Guess I'll be rested for Mayor's Cup. 4 EASY AVG AVG WED Fake Fresh backwards. A little surprised I made it out of bed this morning after yesterday's workout but I felt much better than I was expecting throughout this one. Not terribly stiff or sore, though I wasn't running very fast. At the end of the workout last night Coach was stressing that today needed to be an easy day and I took that advice to heart, turning in a 7:30 along the river for what was probably my fastest mile of the run. 10 EASY AVG AVG TUE 9xWilderness at Franklin Park in 2:41, 2:34, 2:31, 2:36, 2:32, 2:33, 2:34, 2:35, 2:37, window was 2:32-2:34. Warmed up 2M around the park and then ran a few strides but didn't feel all that fast before the start. Worked with Hemu and Yermie today, got out in front on the first one but neither of them was coming with me so I backed off a bit and wound up keeping it too easy on the first one. Buckled down after that and really had to work hard to keep it around the window today. All the intervals started blending together, but it was basically get out a step behind Yermie, push up the small hill, hammer down the 'backstretch' and get a step or two on Yermie, lose the lead at the hairpin turn and then run hard back to the line. It took a lot of effort to stay with Yermie on this one and the flat straightaway in the middle of the loop was killing me, but hammering there was the only way I could hang. Glad when this workout was over, it was a painful blend of speed and strength work, as each interval was fairly short but they really added up. We were taking between 2:00 and 2:15 on the rest, which was enough to get my HR down, but my legs were dying by the end. Cooled down 3M and then put in a couple of strides before jumping in the van and driving home. 10 HARD AVG AVG MON Docks-Greenway. Worked from home and had planned on going at least 10 at some point during the day. Got caught up in stuff and managed to get out at 6pm and this was all I had time for. The stretch on the Greenway is only 8 minutes, but it's the best part of the run. 6 EASY GOOD GOOD SUN Jamaica Pond. This is becoming my go-to Sunday run, had hoped to squeeze in another lap around the Pond but got started a little too late and needed to get home so I kept it at 14 today. Same as the past few times, came in right under 100 minutes today, going easy the whole way. 14 EASY GOOD GOOD Week 14 week14 2008-10-12 2008-10-18 Pretty good week from a mileage standpoint, 75 in six days is the best I've done in a long time, though the two workouts didn't go as I expected they would. Started off with a couple comfortable long runs and then ran my first double in a long time on Tuesday. Was a little too aggressive with the rest during Tuesday's workout and the times were slow because of that. Still, that was my first time running hard on tired legs in awhile and I was satisfied with how things went. Travelling back to Milwaukee killed Wednesday but I managed to put in a good run on Thursday before a long day. My legs just never felt right during Saturday's workout and the times show that. I don't know if that's because of waking up early or if my legs can't handle the mileage, but I was forcing things at the start and never felt like I was settled in and running well. Hopefully I can keep up the mileage and my legs will come around. SAT 8M tempo on the river in 6:12, 5:57, 5:48, 5:52, 5:33, 5:25, 5:18, 5:16. Like the one I attempted a few weeks ago, I wanted to run 5:40-6:00 for the first four, then 5:30-:20-:10-:00 on the way back. Midge woke me up around 7:30 this morning, much earlier than I wanted to get up. After walking her and wasting some time I was out the door at 8:30, warming up over to the 3.5 mile mark. Very cool this morning, actually dug out a pair of gloves, and it's only going to get worse. Didn't feel that great on the jog over to the start, legs were heavy and tired and I just wasn't loose. Made an effort to keep it easy at the start, the first few miles were just about getting into the pace and I didn't want to dig myself into a hole. Was 3:06 at the half and didn't pick it up much the next half. That should have been an indication things weren't going to go well, just running six flat was an effort. Focused on smoothly speeding up from there and got my legs moving decently over the next few miles but wasn't very focused on working hard, I was just going through the motions. Made the turn and tried to start running aggressively, wanting to really nail the last four miles. Did a good job of focusing half mile to half mile, instead of thinking about how much more was left and whether I'd be able to hold pace. Was 2:46 to start things off and relaxed a little bit on the next half. Put more effort into the start of mile six and came through in 2:42 though I slowed a bit after that. At this point I was really working hard and didn't have the kind of relaxed speed I'd expect at 5:20 pace. The half mile to the Hatch Shell felt really long, the effort of the previous six miles was wearing on me and it took a lot of effort just to hit 2:38. Basically the same story on the next half mile, working really hard without much to show for it and hitting 5:18. Tried to stay aggressive on the last mile but with the workout going so poorly I lost focus and was 2:44 at the half. That shocked me enough to get me moving for the final half and I ran hard down the long straight behind the Sonesta, finishing with a 2:32. That effort was not sustainable though, there's no way I could have run like that for a full mile, especially not if the earlier miles had been on pace. I don't think this workout is that hard, I ought to be able to do something like this, maybe I'm not in the shape I think I am. Cooled down back home with two slow, easy miles. 12 HARD BAD BAD FRI Ollie. Stayed up late last night watching the Sox' improbable comeback and didn't get out of bed until after 7am this morning. Actually made it out the door though, getting started a little after 4pm. Wasn't sure how far I wanted to go, but wound up doing the full course. Pretty sore early on, especially my calves which was strange, but gradually loosened up and was feeling decent by the time I was out at Castle Island. Kept the pace easy throughout, kept it at whatever felt easy which wound up being 7:00s, covering the course in just under 35 minutes. 11 EASY BAD AVG THU Extended Art Museum. Slept about nine hours last night, got up just after 7am and headed out along the Lakefront. Pretty nice weather this morning, cool without being too cold, perfectly comfortable in shorts and a tshirt. Around 7:00 at the start, followed the lake down to the Art Museum, then extended out behind the museum to the new park behind the Summerfest grounds and then out along the pier by the Art Museum. Not quite as long as I was expecting so I tacked on a couple extra minutes out and back to get to 28:00 before resuming the Art Museum route. Heading back on top of the bluff I started picking it up for no real reason, though I didn't feel like I was running too quick. Really surprised when I saw 3:10 for the Kenwood to Edgewood split, was expecting maybe 3:20 if that fast. The start of a long day, though, the funeral during the day and then flew back to Boston at night, getting home at 10:30pm. 12 EASY AVG AVG WED Travelling back to WI, got up early to catch the flight and just took a nap when I got to my parents house before the wake. 0 NONE NONE NONE TUE 5xMile at Franklin Park in 4:45, 5:14, 5:03, 5:07, 4:54. Drove out the Franklin with the MIT guys, started warming up at 4:45 and started the workout at 5:10. Had planned on running with Jake and Hemu today, but neither of them made the vans so I went solo and cut the rest to 2:30 instead of 3:00. The plan today was for a fast first mile and then back to the usual pace, shooting for 4:40-5:10-5:00-5:10-4:45. Got out hard across the field and wanted to settle in heading past the stadium. The fast start really hit my legs and even though I did a decent job of hammering I never felt like I had that good of a rhythm. Still feeling the first mile at the end of the rest and that was in my head throughout the second mile. Didn't run nearly hard enough, trying to just coast and cover ground and barely made it in the window. Started feeling better after this one though, got my head on straight and did a good job of hammering through the Wilderness and holding it around the field. Pretty much the same on number four and was feeling good as I crossed the line. Held back too much on the final mile though, was cautious leading up to the hill, climbed the hill decently and then cruised back to the finish, did not run as aggressively as I should have. The fast first mile and short rest really got to me throughout the workout, this was the first time in awhile that I was running on tired legs. Guess I'm not quite where I hoped to be, though all in all this was an okay solo workout. I feel like if Jake and/or Hemu had been there we would have really nailed the workout, the extra rest and having company would have made this a bit easier. Cooled down 20 minutes wandering around the course, my legs were pretty tired by the time I finished up. 10 HARD AVG AVG TUE Charlestown Loop. Got out the door at 6am for an easy shakeout. A little surprised I actually got out the door, I'm working out with the MIT guys tonight so this will be my first double in a very long time. Felt okay throughout, running pretty easy though. 4 EASY AVG AVG MON Summit Ave. Got started just after 5:45 this morning, still really nice weather for running. Took the usual route over the locks to the Back Bay and then headed out on Comm Ave. The streets were even more deserted this morning, must be because today's Columbus Day. Didn't feel that great early, hit the BU Bridge at half an hour and couldn't believe how tired I was. Actually got better as the run went on and that was the worst I felt throughout. Not much going on, felt good to get in a little longer than normal run this morning. Hit 6:40 along the river, but had picked it up a bit because I was timing it and catching people. I'd guess most of the run was 7:00 pace or a bit slower. 12 EASY GOOD GOOD SUN Jamaica Pond. Got started a little after 9am, headed through the Back Bay and picked up the Fens/Riverway. Got to the Fens as the BAA Half was finishing up, which meant there was no traffic to deal with. Kept it pretty easy on the way out and put in a little more effort on the way back but I doubt I was much under 7:00. Felt a lot better throughout this one than I did a few weeks ago, felt easy and under control the whole way. Great weather, mid 50s and sunny, maybe I should have gone around the pond a second time. 14 EASY GOOD GOOD Week 14 week14 2008-10-05 2008-10-11 Good start to the week with a 53:31 out in Harvard and a seventeen mile day. That left me feeling like death on Monday but I managed to recover eventually and put together a decent workout on Wednesday. Haven't had a knock-down, drag-out workout yet, everything's been conservative and within myself or I've fallen apart in the middle. Missed the last two days of the week, need to start getting out the door more often. SAT Didn't feel like running right when I woke up and then got caught up in running errands and watching Midge and the day slipped away from me. 0 NONE NONE NONE FRI Didn't run. Dead tired when my alarm went off and it was hard enough getting up at 6:30am. 0 NONE NONE NONE THU Murphy's Law. Not feeling too bad this morning, yesterday's workout isn't affecting my legs too much. Standard early morning run, not too fast, just stretching out my legs and trying to wake up. Nothing special about this one. Would have liked to go a bit longer this morning but had to be at an early meeting today. 8 EASY AVG AVG WED 3x(600-1200-600) in 1:49, 3:38, 1:48; 1:47, 3:35, 1:46; 1:49, 3:36, 1:48. First time at Harvard with the BAA guys in a long time. Got there early so decided I'd take 45 minutes for the warmup, ran the usual river loop solo. Got started with Carter and a new guy Andreas, shooting for roughly 72s. Not sure what to expect out of this one, just wanted to put in a good effort. Ran pretty evenly behind Carter on the first 600, I led the 1200 and after getting out slowly in 74 managed to pick it up over the next two laps, hitting 2:27 and then 3:38. Carter finished off the first set with an evenly paced 600. I started off the next set with a 71 before relaxing on the final 200. Carter took us out hard for the 1200, coming through in 71-2:23 and I was really working hard to stick with him. I took the last 600 of the second set and kept the pace hard, getting us out in 70-high before cruising the final 200 a little too much. Carter led off the third set with another 71ish quarter but we both slacked too much and finished a bit slow. I told Carter I'd do my best to get us 72s for the 1200, got out a bit slow in 73-2:25 then Carter came up on my shoulder and we really pushed the next 200m. I slowed into the curve and did what I could to keep Matt close over the final 200m. Since I was ending my workout and Carter had another set I took the final 600, more of the same. We were 71-high at the quarter and then cruised to the line. I stretched out a bit and talked with MP as Carter finished up his last set and then we cooled down with the standard river loop. All in all a decent workout, felt pretty smooth today though this is the fastest I've run in awhile by far. 9 HARD GOOD GOOD TUE Run to Remember. Felt much, much better this morning. Pretty nice weather for running, kept the pace easy, just stretching out my legs. Wanted to double today but wasn't able to get out the door a second time. 7 EASY AVG AVG MON Fake Fresh backwards. Felt worse than terrible, this was a really long, painful run. Not surprisingly I wasn't too recovered following yesterday's race and I'm a little surprised that I even made it out the door. I kept waiting for my legs to loosen up, but there were maybe 2 decent minutes along the river. My legs were tight and heavy from the start, not cutting this short was a decent accomplishment for me. Didn't feel much better throughout the rest of the day. 10 EASY BAD BAD SUN Apple Harvest Ramble 10 miler, 53:31 for third. Headed out to Harvard this morning not really sure what to expect. This race has had a good field in the past but it's not a Grand Prix race this year and the field reflected that. Warmed up 2M on the course before stretching out and heading to the line. Ran a couple strides and we wound up standing around a bit waiting for them to get the roads clear. Off the line in the lead, at the mile it was Titus, Ben Ndaya and myself. Titus kept surging and eventually got 10-20m on Ben and myself. At 4M Ben made a big move and I didn't respond, thinking I'd cruise until 6M and then try to pull them back. Didn't have a lot in my legs after six miles and got caught from behind by Joe Hegarty at eight miles. We went right into a long downhill and I was able to use that to hold him off and eventually pulled away. Cooled down five miles afterwards, feeling pretty loopy by the end. I took a detour onto some trails, that would have been decent for a normal run but were way too rough after a ten mile race. Stuck around to get my half gallon of cider and then sleepily drove home. Got right into the tub when I got back and then spent the next few hours lying on the couch feeling like crap. 17 2008 Apple Harvest Ramble HARD AVG GOOD Week 13 week13 2008-09-28 2008-10-04 A decent week, though I'm still stuck on six days. The day after a workout seems to be my biggest problem, I'm too tired in the morning and not motivated enough to drag myself out of bed. Had a good start to the week out at Walden and then ran a solid workout on Tuesday at Franklin Park. The mileage is still slowly creeping up and my legs are feeling fine. Wound up at just 65 miles though I was shooting for 80. SAT Ollie course. Got an early start for a Saturday and headed over to Southie. Kept it easy the whole way, trying to avoid cutting back on mileage while still keeping my legs somewhat fresh for tomorrow. Covered the course in 35 minutes, the whole run was 77. 11 EASY AVG AVG FRI Run to Remember course. Out the door early this morning, feeling decent but running pretty slow. Nothing special, just an average run today. The plan was to double in the afternoon, but work wound up taking too long. 7 EASY AVG AVG THU Eliot. Out the door around 6:15 into the cold rain. Wasn't too excited about running this morning but thankfully the rain stopped and as the sun came up I started feeling better. The plan had been another faster than normal run along the river like last Saturday, but I wasn't sure how I'd feel after not running yesterday. Pretty sore at the start and the first mile along the river was rough and just 7:10. I took my time speeding up and gradually worked my way through the tightness but never really got moving fast. The pace just stayed in limbo between what I'd run on an easy day and actually trying to run hard, without any mile marks my best guess is 6:30-6:45. Pretty much the same on the way back, not working too hard but running faster than just a jog. 3:13 from 7.5 to 7 and then 6:20-6:25 for the next 3 miles back to Museum of Science. Felt decent today, not too surprising that as the run went on and my legs got loosened up I started feeling better. My heel was hurting for part of the run and when I got back my right plantar was tight, need to keep that under control going forward. Felt good to get in twelve miles to start off the day. 12 AVG BAD AVG WED Was going to try and run in the middle of the day but work piled up and didn't get out the door. Should have gone short late in the day, but was lazy. Need to start realizing that 4M is better than 0M on days like these. 0 NONE NONE NONE TUE 5xMile at Franklin Park in 5:00, 5:16, 5:07, 5:10, 4:55. Drove a van out to FP with the team at 4pm today, ran with Group A this week, which was the same group as Group B last time. Warmed up 2M around the course and did a little stretching and a few strides before getting into it at 5:10. My right hip was bothering me a little bit during the warmup but I didn't feel it once we got going, which was good. The ground was a wet and muddy in places and my foot actually slipped at the start, so I probably ran the field a little too hard to compensate. Was out front running next to Yermie, the pace felt fast at first but as we were rounding the stadium I started to settle in and felt more relaxed. Came through right at 5:00 and didn't feel like we were working too hard. That was the top of the window, we were shooting for 4:55-5:00 so we could have run a little bit harder. Hung in the back of the pack at the start of mile two but put in a good effort up Bearcage and then cruised the rest of the interval. We had Dan Harper lead the third but Yermie went into the lead up the hill in the Wilderness. Slowly moved up behind him and Paul Welle and we finished within a second of each other in 5:07, right in the middle of the window. Hemu lead number four and did a great job of holding a steady pace, felt fast early as the workout was starting to catch up to us, but we had a solid pack all the way through the Wilderness and finished 5 seconds under the window. I was feeling great here, surprised the workout was almost over and I still hadn't been working too hard. Kept the fifth mile under control, Yermie and Paul charged up Bearcage and stayed a few seconds ahead, Hemu caught me at the backstop and Harp came flying up to us just before the finish. Cooled down 3M wandering around the course, the first two with a big pack of guys and then tacked on an extra mile with Paul, Jake and Hemu. Only ran a couple of half hearted strides before stretching out and heading home. I felt so easy and relaxed today that I can't understand why it was such an effort to run low 5s on the track last week. Finished off the day with an Anna's burrito and a Dr Pepper. 10 HARD GOOD GOOD MON Fake Fresh backwards. Out the door a bit before 6am for another run in the rain. Shoes were still a little damp from yesterday, but the rain started picking up as soon as I headed over to Cambridge. Kept it easy throughout, just stretching out the legs and putting in my time. I think I've figured out a schedule that will get me to 80mpw this week, provided I can stick to it. I'm pretty much settled on running the Apple Harvest Ramble 10 Miler this coming Sunday without backing off of my training much. My thinking is that resting up won't get me to 50-flat for this one, so I'm willing to sacrifice fresh legs on race day for long term development. We'll see how that one works out. 10 EASY AVG AVG SUN Walden with Jake, Hemu and Jack. Picked the guys up a bit after 8:30 and we were out on the trails by maybe 9:15. Just wandering around, mainly in Lincoln Woods, trying in vain to avoid the big mud puddles from the rainy weekend. Did a little leading at times but mostly hung back and listened to Hemu talk about snipers. We got back to the car at 90 but everybody was up for 2 miles more so we headed back on the trails to bump it up to 1:43 and a solid fifteen miles. After all that time in the rain the warm shower and nap on the couch felt great. A good way to start off the week, got to keep it going. 15 AVG GOOD AVG Week 12 week12 2008-09-21 2008-09-27 Another six day week. I'm taking small steps towards getting in shape but the mileage won't get where it needs to go if I keep sleeping through one run a week. Finally got in a decently long run on Sunday and Thursday workout was solid for where I'm at but I need to cut 10 seconds off those splits soon. Finished up with a good run on Saturday, a little quicker than my normal distance runs. SAT 8-10M quick along the river. Finished with 3:00, 6:03, 6:06, 6:09 from 7.5 to 4. Not sure what to call this run, as it wasn't a tempo or anything formal, I was just looking to run low 6:00s for the middle part of this twelve miler. Got out the door decently early for a Saturday with temps in the low 60s and a light rain. Took it easy over to the river and slowly started speeding up as I headed up river on the Cambridge side. Was just a bit under 7:00 from 3.5 to 2.5 and kept gradually speeding up from there. I ran into Fidkowski just before Eliot so I stopped for a few minutes to say hi. He's at U of M now, so bumping into him was unexpected. Felt like I had gotten a bit carried away before stopping so I took my time getting back into it and made an effor to avoid working too hard. Pretty much cruised back to BU and then started paying too much attention to the watch and working too hard. Kept it in the low 6s though I was gradually slowing. All in all not too bad this morning though I would have liked to have felt a bit smoother at the end and have those 6:00 miles come a bit easier. Easy jog back home, 70 minutes total. 12 HARD AVG AVG FRI Run to Remember course. Just a quick and easy run run this morning, trying to loosen up from yesterday. Fairly sore and running pretty slow. 7 EASY BAD AVG THU 5xMile in 5:02, :02, :06, :03, :04. Got a little later start than planned because Midge needed to go out twice this morning. Out the door at 7:15 and toeing the line by 7:45. Wasn't sure what to expect from this one, was shooting for a 5x5:00 performance, running fast but comfortable throughout. Felt good early, came through in 74-2:30 but lost focus on the third lap and was 3:47ish, leaving me some work to do on the final lap. Managed to close decently though and was feeling good about things. Took a 400m jog and then got back into it, the second one going more or less the same. A little slower early, hitting 2:31, a slower third lap and then had to push the last one. Decided to take a pre-emptive pit stop which made the break between 2 and 3 about 8 minutes instead of 3. Got out really slow to start the third, around 78-2:35 and really had to pick things up on the second half. By now I was starting to feel the workout and things were going quite as smoothly as I had hoped. Got back on pace to start off the fourth, 75-2:31 but had another slow third lap and had to push the fourth. More of the same on the final interval, despite getting out in 74-2:30 I slowed to 3:49ish before gutting out a 75 to finish up. Not really the workout I was hoping for, still not able to push hard when fatigued. Trying not to get too down on myself, as this was still a step in the right direction and a decent solo effort before 8am. Cooled down back home and was working before 10am. 11 HARD AVG AVG WED Fake Fresh backwards. Slept until 6:30 this morning but was out the door at 7am. Luckily I'm working from home today so I was still able to get to work by 9am. Felt pretty good today and kept the pace a little bit quicker than a normal run. I've decided that I need to make a decision about distance and route the night before, that way I'm committed and will get out of bed on time (in theory.) Started picking up the pace around Magazine Beach to pass a guy running with a backpack, figured I'd get past him and then back off but he hung around and I wound up getting down to 6:00s without dropping him. The mile from 2.5 to 3.5 was 6:09, but it was split 2:56/3:13 as the guy turned off around Sloan. Felt good enough but didn't want to go nuts this morning. 10 AVG AVG AVG TUE Day off. Just dead tired again this morning, then too much going on with work, errands and taking care of Midge. 0 NONE NONE NONE MON Highland Ave out and back. Out the door around 6am for a basic, boring eight miler. Made the turn in just over 28 and made it back in just under 28. Felt decent throughout and was just running easy. Wasn't feeling too sore following yesterday's long run, which was a nice surprise. 8 EASY AVG AVG SUN Jamaica. Got going a little after 9am this morning, looking forward to a solid long run. I feel like those have really been lacking recently and I need to start working my way up in distance. Kept it controlled early, though my legs felt much better than I was expecting them to. Headed down Commonwealth to the Fens and took the usual Fens-Riverway route to JP. Picked this route mainly for amount of time spent on dirt and trails to give my legs a little bit of a break. Felt like I was running a bit quicker than normal early, but things started getting rough on the way back as I crossed the hour mark. I probably slowed over the final five miles or so, just trying to get through it and hold things together. Nothing special today, put in a solid 1:38 with a few strides at the end. Just about everything felt tight and sore during the strides, I feel like an old man. 14 AVG AVG AVG Week 11 week11 2008-09-14 2008-09-20 Aside from skipping Friday's run, this was a pretty decent week. Not terribly far on Sunday but did most of it at a good clip with Carly and that got me excited about the rest of the week. Put in a decent workout on Tuesday, didn't have to work too hard to hit the windows, which I was surprised about. From there it was just mileage and dealing with work the rest of the week, leading up to an average workout on Saturday. Didn't post very blazing times, but put in a good effort and was feeling it at the end. There's a mental component that I'm clearly lacking right now, I was running hard at the end but wasn't dealing with pain as well as I needed to be. Finishing up with 3 miles in the low 5:20s isn't astounding but it's a step in the right direction. SAT 8M tempo in 45:21. Warmed up over to the 3.5 mile mark this morning, the plan was eight miles, the first four between 5:40 and 6:00 and then 5:30-20-10-00. I wasn't entirely convinced that I could get down to 5:00 or even 5:10 at the end, but was going to give it a shot. Just a couple of plyos before getting started, had I not been concerned about y knee I would have just jumped right in. I still have no clue about pace and got out in 2:45 despite telling myself to keep it easy. Slowed down after seeing that split and was 5:49 at the first mile, I missed the second mile mark but two and three were 11:56, with a first half mile of 3:02 and a last half mile of 2:54. So not quite as quick as I was hoping for but feeling good and still relaxed, knowing the meat of the workout was still in front of me. Hit 5:48 to the turnaround, I wasn't quite sure where the mark was and was maybe too focused on finding it. 6 seconds for the turnaround and then started working hard. Hit 2:45 for the first half and was encouraged, but relaxed a little too much from there and was 5:35 at the mark. From there I had problems dropping the pace, low 2:40s at the half but then I missed the mark again, hit 8:06 for the mile and a half, then managed just a 2:40 for the stretch from the 5 mile mark to the 4.5. According to the plan that would have been a 2:35. More of the same on the last mile, running hard but could tell I wasn't running fast and felt like I had more, splitting just 5:22 to finish. Cooled down with 2 slow miles back home. Not the workout I was hoping for, but I had a feeling this would happen. The plan was probably too ambitious, I don't have the fitness right now to really hammer for eight miles. I don't think starting out too fast for the first half had much of an effect, though it may have made me too cautious through the turnaround and then dropping down to 5:30 pace was more drastic than it should have been. Going to have to deal with a few more tough workouts like this as I work my way back. 12 HARD AVG AVG FRI None. Dead tired when my alarm went off and too much work during the day. 0 NONE NONE NONE THU Docks to the Greenway. Pretty tired this morning when I woke up, so I decided to put today's run off. Finally got out the door around 5pm, went over the locks and headed out along the Harborwalk. Ran the usual Docks route until I got to South Station, then turned and followed the Greenway back to the locks. Wasn't too excited about the run at the start but as the run wore on I started feeling better. Was running short on time, hence the shortcut, but after I got into it I started wishing I could have gone longer. I liked the stretch down the Greenway, even with all the cross streets, should run there more often. 6 EASY AVG AVG WED Docks. Took my time getting up this morning, partly because I was tired from the workout and partly because I had no idea where I wanted to run. Settled on Docks and got out the door around 6am, much less sore than I was expecting. Didn't do a great job of stretching out last night and my right quad/adductor was sore but that loosened up as the run wore on. Just going through the motions this morning, not working too hard. I started feeling worse as I crossed the Mass Ave bridge, though the mile along the river was a 6:48 (2:21/2:27) without feeling like I was running very hard. Finished up in 63 minutes, a nice, easy run to start off the day. 9 EASY AVG AVG TUE 5xMile at Franklin Park with Group B. 5:12, 5:17, 5:11, 5:07, 4:53, windows were 5:00-05, 5:20-25, 5:10-15, 5:20-25, 4:55-5:00. Drove one of the vans out to Franklin a little after 4pm, got there at 4:40 and warmed up with Group B, everybody toed the line and took off at 5:15. Felt okay on the warmup but my knee was a little tight which had me worried. I thought the pace would be hard enough to give me a good workout without killing me and had been planning on running with B even before I found out that Jake was hurt. I had no idea about pace on the first interval, it's been so long since I've done any kind of workout, much less one so cross specific, that I was kind of running blind. Kept it hard without being too aggressive, Yermie got a bit of a gap and I ran in a pack with Hemu, Gihan and Dan Harper. These were all supposed to be the same effort, the course just results in different times, so we knew we'd have to work a bit harder on number two. Got out a bit faster and stayed with Yermie this time, worked hard going up Bear Cage and then settled down a little. Yermie pulled away a bit over the last quarter mile but I was content to cruise in. Hemu led the third mile and did a good job of pacing, I started in the back to try and keep the pack together, we got strung out and I spent the Wilderness working with Harper trying to get him to close the gap up to Hemu and Yermie. Broke away from Dan leaving the Wilderness and kept the front two close through the line. We had Harp lead the fourth and we stayed with him until we hit Wilderness. Then Yermie and Hemu went around him and started pulling away again. I hung in between Dan and the leaders trying to help him bridge the gap again. Left him again leaving Wilderness and was well under the window. I was feeling really good at this point, I knew the workout was well in hand and it didn't feel like it had been that hard. Got out conservatively to start the final mile, let Yermie take off and tried to keep Dan, Hemu and myself together. Really pushed going up Bear Cage, that was the most tired my legs got, and kept it steady the rest of the way. Dan and Hemu both had big surges at the end and we all finished pretty much together. Cooled down 2M with Harp and Group C, then another mile and strides with Hemu. Really happy with how today felt, I kept things under control and always felt like I could have run faster had I needed to. This was really about feeling out where I'm at fitness wise and went much better than I had anticipated. Aside from the slow first mile where we were feeling things out we were at or under the window and had this been on a track I'm confident we'd have been 5:00-5:05 the whole way. To feel as comfortable as I did running at that effort is very encouraging. Got home around 7:30 and didn't really feel the workout until I took Midge out for a short walk around 9pm. Went to bed not long after that. 10 HARD AVG GOOD MON Fake Fresh backwards. Out of bed around 5:10 and out the door by 5:50 this morning. It's pretty dark when I get started now and it's only going to get worse, which I'm not excited about. Felt decent early heading across the bridge and up Mass Ave. Nothing special this morning, just putting in mileage, and started feeling wiped out at Magazine Beach, about 45 minutes into this one. Felt like I was falling apart and struggling to get home, but I guess I held it together alright because I was 6:31 along the river (3:13/3:18.) Really tired when I got home, dripping with sweat and a little out of it, not good for after a basic ten miler. Maybe I need to drink more water during the day. I took Midge out but we just walked around the park, I didn't really have the energy for any plyos this morning. Pretended to stretch in front of Sportscenter for a little while after we went inside. 10 AVG AVG AVG SUN Spot Pond with Carly. Drove out to the usual meeting spot for the loop around the Pond this morning in cool and rainy weather. Had a little time to talk with Terry before heading out backwards along the loop to meet Carly. She was doing a 20 miler with the last 10M around marathon pace, which made this a good way for me to get in a faster than normal run, knowing it wouldn't get out of hand. Met Carly and Brett Ely just before the 2 (start and finish at the 3, just the way the marks are) and that's about where Carly started picking it up. The exact splits aren't too important but we were 6:15-6:30 for the next 9 miles on this hilly loop. The one flat mile is from 2 to 3 and we hit 6:12 at the end of the first lap, I'd guess we were that effort throughout. Spent the first lap on Carly's shoulder or a bit behind, but she started to get tired on the second lap and I did a little more pace setting and blocked the wind for her when it was blowing. We got back to the 1 and Carly decided to call it a day, we jogged in the last two miles together. Felt pretty good out there, a little bit longer than 12 miles with a really solid middle. Didn't feel my knee at all and didn't do much stretching before I started. A little stretching and a few plyos while talking with Carly, TPS and LaRosa before heading home for a shower and waffles. Wound up a little more tired than I was expecting, fell asleep on the couch watching the early games. It's good to be exhausted on the couch watching football again. 12 HARD GOOD GOOD Week 10 week10 2008-09-07 2008-09-13 Not quite the week I was hoping for, but good enough to get me excited about training again. Had to take it easy early because my feet were torn up, but the easy mileage felt pretty good. Dead tired for no good reason near the end of the week, probably ought to eat a little better and sleep a little more in my old age. This week was just dipping my toe in the waters though, next week I'm buying in. SAT BU Bridge loop. Didn't have a firm idea about where I wanted to go this morning and that led to me taking my time getting started. Despite waking up at 7:30 to take Midge out I didn't get running until after 9am. Kept it simple and ran along the river, out on the Cambridge side and back on the Boston side. Nothing special, just running about 7:00 pace and feeling okay. 8 EASY GOOD GOOD FRI Identical to yesterday, dead tired in the morning. Should have gone during the day since I worked from home and the weather was great, but was just lazy. 0 NONE NONE NONE THU I was dead tired when my alarm went off and opted to stay in bed. Had a tough time dragging myself out of bed when I finally did get up at 6:30. Planned on running after work, but wound up working late and skipped the run. 0 NONE NONE NONE WED Docks. Less than excited to get started, but once I got out the door and going I felt pretty good. Kept it quick early and felt like I slowed to a more reasonable pace as the run wore on. My feet are finally back to normal and don't hurt as I run anymore. Ran a 6:50ish mile along the river which I felt was pretty accurate for my average pace this morning. Feels good to be getting back into the routine and seeing my mileage slowly start to climb. Shooting for a "60" mile week this week, or what would be 60 had I run Sunday, and then looking to get over 70 next week. 9 EASY GOOD GOOD TUE Castle-Bunker Hill. Felt a lot better this morning and didn't even bother taping up my feet. Ran the usual route and probably wasn't moving too fast. The bottom of the fourth toe on my left foot is really raw and still hurts to push off of it, so I was shuffling through most of the run this morning. Really enjoyed being out there in the morning though, felt great to put in almost an hour without my knee bothering me at all. 8 EASY AVG AVG MON Run to Remember course. Taped up my feet and was out the door early to hobble through an easy seven miles. The bottoms of my feet are still pretty raw so I wasn't running very fast and pushing off on my toes hurt a decent amount. Glad when this one ended. 7 EASY AVG AVG SUN Day off. Had planned on an early run, but once my feet hit the floor I could tell it wouldn't be worth it. The open wounds from yesterday's blisters are still hurting. Spent a few hours on my feet helping a friend move and my feet didn't feel too bad. 0 NONE NONE NONE Week 09 week09 2008-08-31 2008-09-06 Pretty bad week. Had a good run on Sunday with Fivos, went a little further than I had planned but my knee held up decently. Just coasted through the week without any serious mileage or hard work, the planned tempo effort on Wednesday kind of fizzled. Felt good on the line for Alumni but didn't have the legs to last five miles. The plan was to wait until after 3M to make a serious move, but the situation dictated moving just after 2M and I couldn't hang on. Did my part to help the Has Beens win, though, so that's nice. It's going to take a lot of work to get back in shape, but that race has got me motivated to do the work. SAT Alumni Meet, 27:49 for 6th. Spent most of the day sitting around, headed over to Franklin Park just before 3pm. It was insanely humid and always seemed to be just about to rain. Warmed up 2M around the course with Fivos, not a lot of talking about strategy, pretty quiet just figuring out how our legs feel. Slow off the line but nobody went out hard, which let Fivos and I lead to the mile mark in 5:20. Dropped back a bit on the second mile, then made a move with Khatch and tried to hang on over the second half of the race. Really fell apart badly over the last mile. Wound up with pretty bad blisters when it was over, but nothing compared to the carnage of 2002. Slapped a couple of wet band aids on them for the cool down, didn't seem to help much. Cooled down 2M with Fivos, didn't feel very good. The rain started coming down harder and my feet were slipping around in my shoes so I called it a day after one stride. Not much stretching, just drove back to MIT for dinner then went home for a much needed shower. Starting out in 5:20 doesn't set things up for a great time, but this wound up being 19 seconds slower than my previous slowest time on this course. Really felt bad over the last mile, got caught by a freshman, Jeff Paterno and Joe Roy-Mayhew, had no fight left in my legs, just wanted to get to the finish line. I'm shocked, shocked, that four miles a day through August didn't get me in shape for a five mile cross race. I've got a lot of work to do, but the upside is that I didn't feel my knee at all today. In fact, I didn't even think about it from the time the gun went off until Fivos asked about it halfway through the cooldown. Time to draw a line around this one and move on. 9 2008 Alumni Cross HARD BAD BAD FRI Charlestown Loop. Slept in a bit and got going around 6:30 this morning. Kept it easy the whole way and was feeling good. Not much of an issue with my knee, which is encouraging. Nothing special today, felt good enough on the pick up at the end. Doesn't really feel like I'm racing tomorrow, hopefully I'll get that adrenaline rush before the gun. 4 EASY AVG GOOD THU Day off. Wasn't really in the mood at 5am and figured I'd wait and run after work. Throughout the day my knee was sore when I was walking Midge and decided a day off might be for the best. I've been slacking a bit with treating my knee, given how well the weekend went I figured I was over the hump. Today's just part of the taper to prepare for Alumni. 0 NONE NONE NONE WED Back Bay loop. Wanted a few hard/fast miles in the middle again, one last effort before Alumni. Felt good at the start without any knee pain. Kept it as easy as I could early but I was ready to get going. Built into it once I hit Commonwealth and felt like I was moving pretty well down Mass Ave. I had been shooting for 5:10ish along the river, but got too distracted and didn't hammer like I wanted to. Before I knew it I was 2:47 at the half and it was too late. Didn't pick it up too much the rest of the way, was just 5:32 or so. Disappointed in how this one went, didn't focus very much and wound up just cruising. Can't make that mistake on Saturday. 6 HARD AVG BAD TUE Highland Ave out and back. I misset the alarm last night so I didn't get started until 6:15 this morning. My knee was a little sore at the start but by the time I hit Sullivan Square it was pretty loose and felt okay. My adductor was still sore, but that only hurt off and on, for the most part this was a painfree run. Kept the pace really slow and easy the whole way, but today was another encouraging day. Stretching and ice afterwards. 8 EASY AVG GOOD MON CTown loop. Spent most of the day sitting around but wasn't too diligent about icing and stretching today. I was a little wary about how I'd feel, but aside from a few minutes at the start I barely felt my knee. I ran the beginning with Kathryn, she turned off at Eden St park when her knee started hurting, but I kept the pace easy the rest of the way. The usual stuff when I got back, really happy with how today went and hoping things keep getting better. It really seems to be that adductor, it was sore at times during the run and it still feels pretty tight when I stretch it. 4 EASY AVG GOOD SUN Reservoir, Beacon St to Marathon Course, back to Cleveland Circle. Drove out to Cleveland Circle this morning to meet Fivos, we got started about 9:45am, not too long after Fivos' flight landed. Went around the Reservoir then picked up Beacon by BC. All the way out to the marathon course at Washington Street, then followed the course back to Cleveland Circle. Felt significantly better than I was expecting to and hung in the whole way without much pain in my knee. We kept things easy the whole way, just talking and catching up. My knee didn't give me any trouble until we got to Heartbreak Hill. I felt it tightening up but didn't have many options and we were close to the finish anyways. Did an okay job of stretching out afterwards, but still had to drive home which didn't help things much. Going to take things easy the next few days to compensate for this weekend. Not quite sure about the distance on this one, but we were out there for 85 minutes, so 12 seems about right. 12 AVG AVG GOOD Week 08 week08 2008-08-24 2008-08-30 A better week than the past few. Just an average workout on Sunday, but the first one in awhile. The times were slower than I had hoped, but I think that stretch along the river is a bit slow, especially compared to the track. My knee was still a lingering concern but continues to improve gradually. Carly gave me a good stretch for my adductor which seems to be making a big difference. Finished up with a 5k in 15:46 which went as well as I could have hoped. Wound up running alone the final 2M, which made things tough, and didn't come into it expectig to run very aggressively. It gave me a good idea of what I'm capable of at this point. SAT 5k Time Trial, 15:46 for fourth. Earlier start than I remember for this one, the gun was 8:30 this morning. Got up at 6:15 and walked Midge, got over to MIT by 7:40, just enough time to tape my arches and warm up with the guys. Put in most of the warm up loop with Yuval, which helped keep my mind off the upcoming effort. Had bee getting antsy all morning and had an unexpected rush of adrenaline leaving the house in the morning. My knee was feeling good when I woke up and didn't bother me on the warm up. Did the usual stretching and plyos to get loose and only a couple strides, not wanting to push it too much. Lined up on the outside and after an awkward start worked my way up front. We were out slow which put me closer to the leaders than I expected, but I stayed passive and tucked in. Something like 77-2:33 to start and then we picked it up a bit, hitting the first mile in 5:00. I was tucked behind a freshman Mike, letting him break the wind on the backstretch and pretty much just riding him. Stayed behind him a bit too long and the first lap of the second mile was a 77. Went around into fourth and stayed there, about 30m behind Jake, the rest of the way. Was 5:05 for the second mile, tried to make a move during the third but couldn't get my legs into it. Was 5:05 for the final mile and closed with a 36, not a good final kick, but not much of an effort. The plan was to get an idea of where I'm at and how my knee would react to running hard and did a good job on both counts. With the leaders getting out slow I probably could have hung with them and finished 10-20 seconds faster, but that would have been a big leap of faith just a mile into the race. Cooled down with a couple of grass loops, then ran a couple good strides and finished with the usual plyos and stretching. Encouraging morning, my knee didn't give me too many problems at all today. 8 HARD AVG GOOD FRI CTown Loop. Took my time this morning and didn't get out the door until 6:20 or so. My knee was kind of tight, which I was expecting after working with Carly last night, but I feel like the adductor stretches she gave me were helping. Took it easy the whole way and actually felt pretty good. My knee wasn't ever too bad which is encouraging. The usual plyos in the park but I couldn't get Midge interested in running strides afterwards. Stretching and icing, we'll see how it goes tomorrow. 4 EASY AVG AVG THU River to Mass Ave to Comm Ave to Broadway to Prospect to Cambridge. Headed out this morning at 5:50 without a firm route in mind. I wanted to head out towards Fresh Pond and see how much I could get in without getting my knee overly aggravated. Felt good early, my left hamstring is vastly improved and though my knee was sore from the beginning it didn't get bad. Was 7:00 along the river and when I hit Mass Ave decided to go check out the progress on MIT's track. On my way over I ran into Aaron Wippold on Mass Ave and decided to run with him for a bit. We headed across the river and took Commonwealth through the Garden and then Charles to Longfellow. I enjoyed having company this morning and didn't really notice my knee at all. Ran together back to Windsor and by then I was over 50 minutes in with no real problems. Started noticing it was tight on the way home, but that might have been just because I was alone and paying a lot of attention to it. Overall the pace was slow today, 72 minutes for about 9.25 miles, but I was happy to just put in that much time on my feet without my knee hurting too much. No strides at the end but a fair bit of plyos in the park with Midge and then the usual icing and stretching. Looking forward to another session with Carly tonight. 9 EASY AVG AVG WED Back Bay loop. Got started just after 6am and my legs felt pretty good at the start. My right knee had been tight since I woke up and it was achy the whole way, but my left hamstring wasn't feeling too bad. Had the usual plan of running fast in the middle but managed to keep it easy early. Hit Commonwealth and started easing into it but never really got going that fast. With all the different aches and pains I was too distracted to really focus on turning my legs over. When I hit Mass Ave I noticed how relaxed the pace was and started speeding up, but even that wasn't very much. Along the river was 2:50 to the half and then made a concerted effort to drop the hammer on the second half. Worked a little harder than in the past, and harder than I would have liked, hit 2:37 to make the mile a 5:27. Pretty disappointed, wanted a better session with easier turnover, and jogged the mile plus back home with some pain in my knee. Without much of a chance to legitimately get in shape for Alumni I need these runs to build my confidence with easy speed and good rhythm, didn't have that today. Did some plyos afterwards, but Midge was in an exploring mood and I was distracted with keeping her in line. 6 AVG AVG BAD TUE Run to Remember course. Felt pretty good this morning, out the door right at 6am in comfortably cool temps. My left hamstring is still pretty tight and that was painful right out of the gate and took a long time to get loosened up. My best guess is that it's a compensation thing from Sunday's workout. My knee felt pretty good throughout, but maybe the tight hamstring was just distracting me. Kept the pace slow throughout but my legs were feeling fresh, not at all tired from Sunday's effort. Just as usual, though, my right knee started tightening up at 40 minutes and was bothering me the rest of the way home. Hard to say for sure, but I think it didn't hurt as bad as some of the earlier runs. Stretching and icing afterwards, then a 15 or 20 minute walk with Midge. 7 EASY AVG AVG MON Charlestown Loop. Slept through my alarm by about half an hour and was predictably sore when I finally got out of bed. My right knee was tight, nothing new, but my left hamstring had a sore spot in it that I'm chalking up to the workout yesterday. Out the door around 6:15 and shuffled through the four mile loop with my knee hurting more or less from the start. Today was more of a patellar tendon pain and not as bad as it's been in the past. Given what I did yesterday I was okay with how things felt today. Not a lot of time for plyos afterwards, but I did get in the usual stretching and icing. 4 EASY AVG AVG SUN 4xMile in ?, 5:09, 5:01, 5:14. Midge woke me up around 7am and we went for a half an hour walk, then I killed some time before heading out just after 8:30. Drove over to MIT thinking I'd run this one on the track, only to discover it's still under construction. I wound up running these from the 2.5 mark to the 3.5 mark along the river. Took a good, long warm up to make sure my knee was loose and really didn't have any issues. After a Building 2 pit stop I did a fair bit of plyos and a few strides then started in. Felt like I got out hard and was chasing a guy on a bike through the first half mile. Looked down at my watch only to realize it hadn't started, I'd inadvertently switched over to the timer mode. That threw me off a bit, though I told myself the first one was free I wasn't really able to get back a good rhythm and felt like I cruised the second half too much. Took about 3:00 rest in between intervals and was working hard at the start of number two. I think the stretch from 3 to 3.5 is worse than 2.5 to 3 and was encouraged to see 2:34 on the watch at halfway. Tried to pick things up on the long, flat, straight stretch but couldn't get my legs going any better and was 5:09 at the end. Threw in a few plyos during the rest to keep my hip and knee loose and was still feeling good at the start of number three. Didn't want to save a lot for the final one, wanting to work hard the whole way I really threw myself at the start and came through in 2:28 feeling pretty good. Tightened up a bit and ran into some traffic over the second half but didn't give back too much time and managed to run a 5:01. That really killed me though and I had a tough time gearing up mentally for the last interval. It took a full minute of the rest just to stop feeling sorry for myself, and by the time I lined up I thought I'd be ready to finish it off well. Right off the line, though, I could tell I was spent and just tried to manage things through the first half mile. At the time I was pleased to see 2:38, I thought I'd have a chance to keep it around 5:10 but just was unable to maintain a hard pace over the final half. I'd have a stretch of 20-30s where I was running aggressively and then find myself just coasting along. Didn't fall apart though, finishing in 5:14, so there's something to build on. Coming into this one I knew it would be tough, trying to maintain a hard effort after 2 months of sloth is a tall order and I came up short. But it's good to get this one out of the way and start working myself back into things. Cooled down west on Mem Drive to Next House then over to Vassar and back to my car, just over 10 minutes. A couple more plyos before driving home and stretching out fully before finally eating breakfast. 7 HARD BAD BAD Week 07 week07 2008-08-17 2008-08-23 A so-so week. My knee is gradually getting better, I hope, but still giving me issues when I try to go longer than 40 minutes. GOt in two "hard" days, really just up-tempo, sub 6:00 sections on Monday and Thursday, which showed me that I have a lot of work to do still. Working hard and running fast but clearly am uncomfortable pushing myself, it's been a long time without hard work. SAT Day off. Slept in and then wound up running errands most of the day. My knee was aching a bit so I just iced and stretched instead of squeezing in a short run before the Olympic marathon. Didn't do a great job of icing yesterday so tried to make up for it today. 0 NONE NONE NONE FRI Highland Ave out and back. Felt great early, had just a little twinge in my quad and then no pain on the way out. After turning around my knee slowly started to tighten though, and just like Tuesday it was bad at 35-40 minutes and stayed painful the rest of the way. A little discouraging to see no real improvement, yesterday was just like Monday and today was just like Tuesday. No plyos afterwards because Kathryn had Midge out on a walk, so just icing and stretching. 8 AVG BAD AVG THU Back Bay loop. Same general idea as Monday, started speeding up when I got to Commonwealth and turned in a good mile along the river. My knee felt great early, I'm not even sure I would have noticed it hurting if I hadn't been paying attention to it. After 15 minutes or so it was tight, but not as bad as it's been the past few days. Probably only got down to low 6:00s before I hit the bridge, I wasn't entirely focused on running fast. Sped up over the bridge and hit 5:22 along the river, splitting 2:41/2:41. Not as smooth as I would have liked and I was expecting to see something more like 5:40. I was happy with the time given that I didn't feel like I was working very hard. My knee tightened up a little bit more after I slowed down, though a couple easy strides at the end got it somewhat loose. Plyos and stretching in the park with Midge and then more stretching, leg lifts and icing afterwards. Pretty happy with how things felt today, though unsure about how I'll be feeling tomorrow. Two weeks before Alumni and I'd like to do at least a little bit of hard stuff, I can tell that I'm just unaccustomed to going beyond a certain level of comfort right now. 6 AVG GOOD AVG WED CTown Loop. Saw Carly last night and my knee was a little sore when I got going this morning. I was expecting that after Monday and Tuesday's run and then the massage last night and planned on an easy four today. Kept things slow and even though my knee was pretty tight at the beginning it really loosened up as the run wore on, which is the opposite of how things have been going. After climbing up Sackville I was feeling good and was tempted to tack on some more mileage but thought better of it. Got home and did some plyos in the park as Midge ran around, then stretched out inside and iced while eating breakfast. Too early to make any guesses about progress, will have to wait until tomorrow's run. 4 EASY AVG AVG TUE Murphy's Law. Got started a little before 6am and was feeling okay at the start. Pretty good weather recently, not nearly as bad as August can be, and that's made getting out the door enjoyable. Made it out to the turn around in just under 26:00, must have been moving quick though I wasn't specifically trying to. On the way back my knee started to tighten up, right around half an hour, and was giving me problems the rest of the way. Not really painful or something that felt like I shouldn't be running on it, but more of an ache and an annoyance. I decided to go a bit longer today since I'm going back to Carly tonight and figure she can smooth out anything that's aggravated. Felt decent on an easy stride near the end, and after icing things seemed to feel better. Trying to remind myself to not expect a miracle fix and things were likely to be sore today after running a bit harder yesterday. 8 EASY AVG AVG MON Back Bay Loop. Got a late start because I mistakenly slept in, but I still wanted to get in some distance so I headed over the locks and into the city. Felt great at the start, it took a few minutes for my knee to tighten up slightly but it never got bad. Decided to push it slightly and see how things felt, so when I hit the Comm Ave mall after approx 18 minutes I started slowly speeding up. Hard to get into a rhythm at first because I kept hitting lights but by the time I hit Mass Ave I had gotten up to a decent pace, probably low 6s. Honestly, I had expected either my knee or my legs to prevent me from going too far or too hard, but I was hoping to get in the mile along the river before shutting things down. Felt good across the bridge, where I saw Will Dobbie and Liam, then picked it up one more time at the starting mark. Since I didn't decide to run hard until 6:30 this morning I didn't know what to expect and I didn't know how hard to push things. I settled into a controlled fast pace, I was running hard but not trying to get every bit of speed out of every step, and things felt okay. I was really working and the mile seemed much longer than I remembered, but it was a good effort and after coming through in 2:44 I was able to stay focused and hit a 2:42 which made the mile a 5:26. Pretty content with that, felt somewhat smooth though I could tell it had been awhile, but I was worried that I'd struggle to run a 5:45 or something. Going to have a lot of rust to bust and not a lot of time, since Alumni is coming up in 2.5 weeks. Going to see Carly tomorrow night, the rough plan is another fast bit on Thursday and then hopefully a tempo or fartlek on Sunday, provided my knee keeps feeling good. It was a little bit tight as I jogged home, but that's no big surprise after the fast running and a couple of easy strides helped to loosen it up. Took my time stretching and icing when I got back. 6 HARD GOOD AVG SUN Day off. Ran a bunch of errands which involed walking around and my knee was a little irritated by the time those were over. After icing I felt better but it was late in the day and I figured a little bit of rest couldn't hurt. 0 NONE NONE NONE Week 07 week07 2008-08-10 2008-08-16 It feels like the tide is turning. Was running four miles without much of a problem early and then saw Carly on Wednesday night and things started picking up. She loosened some areas up and gave me tips on places to ice that I'd been unaware of. The rest of the week went great, a couple more four milers without a lot of knee pain, just tightness in my IT, and I even managed to bump up the mileage on Saturday. SAT Inman Square. Started around 10am, took some time to ice and stretch a bit after waking up. Felt okay on the way out, ran over Bunker Hill to Sullivan Square and then out to Castle and didn't have any knee issues. Picked up Prospect, ran to Inman and then took Cambridge back to the Museum of Science and headed home. The stretch down Cambridge was really good, could barely feel my knee, and got me pretty excited. A fair bit of stretching and icing when I got home. 5 EASY AVG AVG FRI Charlestown Loop. My knee/IT was a little tight when I woke up but foam rolling seemed to help before I started running. Kept it slow at first and my knee wasn't too bad; I could still feel it but the pain was fairly slight. It was mainly on the outside where the IT attaches again, though at times I could feel my quad on the inside. Got better as the run progressed and at the base of Sackville I realized I wasn't feeling any pain in my knee. Pushed the hill a little too hard as I reacted to that realization and my knee was a little tight heading down Bunker Hill. Still, I'm really happy with how much things have improved these past two days and am planning on increasing the mileage this weekend. The timing's great as I'll be able to treat it round the clock. There's at least one more session with Carly the miracle worker on tap, also. 4 EASY AVG AVG THU Charlestown Loop. Back to the old standby this morning, out the door at 6am sharp. Saw Carly last night and she helped loosen up a couple of tight areas, and I could really tell this morning. The quad issue that has been bugging me of late was non-existent, though my right IT band was pretty tight and borderline painful. There were a couple adhesions or what not that she found last night and it was sore afterwards, so I wasn't too surprised. Trying to stay cautious and not declare Carly a miracle worker, but I was very happy at the end of the run. My knee was still tight and I'm not all the way back, but I've dealt with IT issues before and know they're treatable. Need to stay calm over the next few days and make sure I don't screw things up by jumping into things too quickly. Stretched out well afterwards and iced as usual. Started icing the hip, too, where some muscle who's name escapes me attaches and is sore. That muscle runs from the hip to the knee and, according to Carly, gets angry easily because is crosses two joints. Icing my hip seems to be helping, it makes things feel better. 4 EASY AVG AVG WED Cambridge-Longfellow. Wanted something new this morning so I headed over the locks to Causeway and up Staniford. Felt painfree for the first few minutes which was great, but my knee gradually started aching again. Took Cambridge down to Longfellow, was planning on a quicker half mile along the river to see how things are, but the west sidewalk was closed and I didn't feel like backtracking after getting off on the east side of the bridge. Tried to speed up down Main Street on the way home but after a few steps it was clear that my knee was getting worse the faster I went, so I had to just trot back home. Stretching and ice afterwards. Looking forward to seeing Carly tonight, hopefully she can fix it. 4 EASY AVG AVG TUE Charlestown Loop. Getting bored with this route and with running just 4 miles but can't seem to make any headway on the injury. Noticably cooler this morning, overnight rain dropped the temps down to just 60 degrees; a lesser man would consider it nearly gloves weather. Pain this morning was mainly in my quad, though it got worse when I tried to speed up down Main Street. Built into it and was "cruising" along nicely for a few blocks then had a sharp twinge just above my knee and went back to the slow jog. My knee didn't get any worse the rest of the run and the climb up Sackville wasn't too bad. Usual icing and stretching afterwards. 4 EASY AVG AVG MON Didn't have the luxury of waiting a few hours before running to let things loosen up now that the weekend is over. Got the door just before 6am and still felt decent. Could feel tightness throughout the run, but it didn't get worse as the run wore on and never migrated beyond my quad. Felt a little worse climbing Sackville, but I'm pretty encouraged. Had a little time to get stretched out and then iced while eating breakfast. Will have to put in a little extra effort after work, but hopefully I've got this thing on the run. 4 EASY AVG AVG SUN CTown Loop. Same story as yesterday. Ran in the middle of the day, nothing terrible in my knee, quad is still sore. More ice and stretching throughout the day, really been working this weekend. I'm probably getting ahead of myself, but I like the way things are progressing, hopefully I can start to build this week. 4 EASY AVG AVG Week 06 week06 2008-08-03 2008-08-09 Pretty disappointing week. Had to take a couple of days off trying to let my knee heal up and that's never fun. Really wish this was behind me and I could dive into training as I'm really excited to start working hard again. Saturday seemed to be a step in the right direction, at least the pain is more isolated now, although I won't always be able to devote the whole day to taking care of my knee. SAT Charlestown Loop. Felt alright throughout this one, a little more encouraged. Ran around noon and kept it easy the whole way, the cool weather has passed and it felt like a typical August day. My knee was okay for the first few minutes, though I felt it start to tighten by the HarborView condos about 5:00 into the run. Things didn't get much worse though, which was good. It was all in my quad today, no pain at all by the patella. Climbing up Sackville I could feel tightness from my hip to my knee deep in my quad. Not sure how to describe it, almost like a taut tendon "below" my quad. Really put on the full court press today, a lot of ice, stretching and started doing some strengthening thing I made up. Lying on my back I lift my right leg up and down with my toe pointed straight ahead and then pointed to the side. After 10 or 15 reps I can feel it in my quad, hopefully that's helping. 4 EASY AVG AVG FRI Day off. Woke up and could feel that my knee was already tight. Opted against what I felt like would be a discouraging run. Just iced, stretched and went to work. 0 NONE NONE NONE THU Schrafft's. The plan was to run Inman Square, but by the time I got to Sullivan I knew that wasn't going to happen. My knee was a little tight when I woke up and after just 2 minutes of running I felt it starting to get worse. Ran 3 laps on the dirt path around the fields behind Schrafft's and then headed home. Didn't do a good job of icing last night, which I'm sure contributed to this morning's discomfort. The 3 laps took about 8 minutes and it was 8 minutes each way to get there, so just 24 minutes of uncomfortable running this morning. Iced, stretched, etc. when I got home. 3 EASY AVG BAD WED Back Bay loop. Originally planning on just 4M and playing it safe, but decided I was bored with the Charlestown loop and wanted to avoid the hill as it bothered my knee yesterday. Felt okay playing with Midge last night and didn't feel my knee at all early in the run. After crossing the locks I could feel it start to tighten, but I got in 5 pain free minutes which were great. Felt fine as it was tightening, but right at Staniford and Cambridge felt a bad twinge. From there on my quad was sore just above the knee, but that wasn't too bad and I was happy that it was just muscular. Stuck to the grass down Commonwealth, but as I was heading over the bridge about 23 minutes into the run, my quad stopped hurting and my patellar tendon started. That was discouraging as it felt more "structural," for lack of a better phrase. Able to get along without too much pain, but it was obvious my knee isn't better. Was 3:30 for the first half and then picked it up to 3:20 for the second half to get past a few guys. Felt okay over a short stride when I got back, I hope things are moving in the right direction. A little less stressed since I found out Alumni is actually September 6, not August 30th as I had assumed it was. That extra week will be a big help, though I'll have to miss Ollie now. Best thing I've read in awhile, from TPS' log: "transition from 'active recovery' into what might legitimately be considered base-training for Cross." Cross! 6 EASY AVG AVG TUE CTown. Up this morning to a pain-free knee and out the door before 6am to test it out. Hyper-aware of how it was feeling, though I tried to stay relaxed and ignore the transient sensations that are common to every run. Felt great through the Navy Yard, but it started to tighten up going past the Constitution. One bad pang in the patellar tendon near Sullivan then it got pretty tight after climbing up Sackville. The stairs by the Monument got it aggravated as well and it was pretty sore over the last few blocks, especially the lower part of my quad. Able to throw in a short stride without being hobbled by pain, which felt good, and took my time slowing down. Solid job of icing, stretching and foam rolling afterwards. 4 EASY AVG AVG MON Another day off. I woke up this morning and could feel that my knee was still a bit tight so opted for one more day of rest. Did a decent job icing and found a couple sore spots using the foam roller. The typical tight IT band is acting up, along with the inside of my hamstring and where my quad attaches to the inside of the knee. Going to keep icing and try to get those loosened up, as I get back into running. Running around a little bit with Midge I couldn't feel anything, but those were just 20m jogs. 0 NONE NONE NONE SUN Another day off, though I didn't feel quite as good as yesterday. I spent most of the day golfing, I played 18 and even though we were using carts by the time I finished my knee was aching. Really disappointed in that, going to have to redouble the "rehab" efforts. I also think I'm done walking around in sandals for awhile. I got in the habit of wearing them during the honeymoon, but I think the stability of a shoe can't hurt right now. 0 NONE NONE NONE Week 05 week05 2008-07-27 2008-08-02 Tried, and failed, to get started back up this week. A decent twelve miler in the rain on Sunday left my legs sore for my first few days back at work. Once the soreness faded I was left with just a lingering pain in my right knee which didn't go away and didn't get loosened up as runs progressed. Wound up shutting it down for the last two days, trying to recuperate. SAT I felt okay throughout the day today, hopefully that's a good sign. Walked Midge a bit but didn't do any real exercise. Trying not to get frustrated, the clock keeps ticking and I feel like I need to be training, not sitting around. 0 NONE NONE NONE FRI My knee didn't feel much better this morning and I decided that taking a few days rest might be a good idea. Didn't do a great job of icing last night but did a little better today. Noticed that my Ibuprofen was a few months expired, so I picked up a new bottle, hopefully it works better. 0 NONE NONE NONE THU Charlestown Loop. Had been hoping to get in 10M today but it was apparent that my knee is no better and I'm starting to think the smart approach is to take it easy for a few days. Really sore the first few minutes and though it loosened up in the middle it started to hurt again near the end of the run. Pretty frustrating as I feel like my legs are back under me, there really was very little lingering soreness today. Hopefully it's just a matter of time before this knee pain goes away as I'm ready to start getting in shape. When I got back from the run Midge was bouncing off the walls and I had to eat breakfast on the move, which didn't give me a good chance to ice my knee. Going to try and be extra diligent tonight. 4 EASY AVG AVG WED Run to Remember course. Another step in the right direction, my quads were noticably less sore this morning and for the most part my legs felt good throughout. However, my right knee continues to bother me and was hurting more or less the whole way. I've found that it's just one spot on the kneecap that's causing the trouble, the part of the kneecap that's furthest left. It feels almost like it's bruised, but there's no discoloration and I can't remember banging it recently, plus it didn't hurt until I started running. Today's run wasn't nearly as enjoyable as it should have been since my knee hurt the whole time. It's frustrating to have just one little area screw everything up. I'll try to keep running through this, I'm not worried about making the knee worse, but I am afraid I'll try to adjust my stride and screw up something else. Have to just keep icing it and get along as best I can right now. 7 EASY AVG AVG TUE Murphy's Law. This was a definite step up from yesterday and it was apparent in the first few steps. The stretching and self massage from yesterday loosened up the sore groin and I didn't feel it at all this morning, the only pain was two very sore quads. I can tell that's just fatigue and will be taken care of in due time though, which had me excited at the start; all the fatalistic thoughts from yesterday disappeared. Ran over the locks to check out the path that just opened beneath the N. Washington Street bridge and stayed close to the Harbor, behind the rink, after that. Met up with the usual route at the bocce courts and it was routine after that. Felt like I was running a bit quicker today than Sunday and Monday and that felt good. Unfortunately my right knee started hurting again about 10 minutes into the run. It doesn't feel like anything serious, but I need to be diligent about it over the next few days. The run itself was uneventful, 28ish on the way out but the new started added about 2:00, as it was 8:30 to the bocce courts at the beginning, but only 6:00 from the bocce courts back home at the end. If it weren't for the sore knee I'd think about getting in a fast slash hard effort this weekend, but for now I'm going to keep everything easy until the knee works itself out. So for now it's just ice, drugs and mileage. 8 EASY BAD AVG MON Back Bay Loop. Up at 5:15 and out the door before 5:50 this morning, after 3 steps I could tell it was not going to be fun. Really should have stretched last night as I was insanely sore, especially the right side of my groin. Told myself that I would loosen up and to some extent that was true, but I never felt good this morning. After a few minutes decided to keep it short and opted for the six mile route. At times my right hip and the inside of my right knee were hurting; the hip I know is just the IT because I haven't foam rolled in weeks, but the knee is something new, hopefully just related to the tight groin. I was 7:24 along the river and just happy it wasn't 8:00. It's going to take some time to retrain my body as there's a lot of rust to bust. Getting my legs used to the motion is going to be the biggest thing, I think, as my lungs have felt okay so far. Had decided I was going to run a stride at the end, which did not go well. Picked it up a little bit on Park and when the traffic cleared and I hit the street for a serious sprint my knee started to really hurt and I had to shut it down. Climbing up the stairs to the condo wasn't any fun, but I spent some time stretching out and foam rolling, hopefully that helps. There's nothing yet that's discouraged me from running through this, I'm thinking that it's only a matter of time before my legs get back under me. 6 EASY BAD BAD SUN Olmsted with Craig. Wildman and I met on Commonwealth at 5:15 this evening and headed out through the Fens and Riverway to the turnaround at Olmsted. I was feeling okay early, though it was clear that my body was not accustomed to running. As the run wore on I became increasingly sore and the inside of my right quad started to hurt. It started raining about halfway through and we were pretty well soaked on the way home. Came back more or less the same way, cutting corners in a few places as Craig wanted to see Midge but then had to run back to Brookline. Got home in 84 and was much more tired than I was hoping to be. Got in the shower without stretching and then had a frozen pizza and sald for dinner. 12 EASY AVG AVG Week 04 week04 2008-07-20 2008-07-26 Still nothing. I keep putting off the first run until tomorrow, but I do want to get started back up again. It's been a nice long lay off which won't make the first week much fun, but sometimes you need to step back for awhile. SAT Wanted to get in something short and easy but the dog took up a lot of time and I was lazy. Starting up full bore tomorrow. 0 NONE NONE NONE FRI Drove out to Sterling this morning and came home with Midge. The rest of the day was errands and dog watching. 0 NONE NONE NONE THU Had a couple errands to run and a lot to do just organizing the place and getting situated again. Strange to be back in Boston after a couple weeks away. Storms off and on throughout the day eliminated any desire to run. I've decided that I'm jumping back in with both feet starting this weekend. 0 NONE NONE NONE WED Tying up a bunch of things in Milwaukee this morning before trying to fly back to Boston. Supposed to leave a 4:30 but the flight got pushed back to after 7pm. Made it home around 11:30. 0 NONE NONE NONE TUE Had to leave the resort at 11:30 this morning to head back to the real world, unfortunately. Went to the sauna this morning and then bounced back and forth between the hot and cold whirlpools for a few minutes. Too bad I only discovered these as the trip was ending. Took one last dip in the ocean before packing up. 0 NONE NONE NONE MON Last full day in St Lucia. Swam around a little and sat in the steam room for maybe 10 minutes. 0 NONE NONE NONE SUN Again no running, but we did go snorkelling so I spent 30-45 minutes swimming around, though I had fins on. 0 NONE NONE NONE Week 03 week03 2008-07-13 2008-07-19 Had no goals of running while in St Lucia and I don't really count that short bit on the treadmill as anything. Just hoping that I'm not packing on too many pounds, since we're staying at an all inclusive we've been drinking and eating more than normal. SAT Kathryn and I got up this morning and set out to run a little at the Pigeon Island national park where we khiked yesterday. Looked like a good place though small, with two serious hills. We got there around 8:15 but were told they didn't open until 9am, so we just went back to the gym. Wound up being five minutes of running, I couldn't bear to get on the treadmill again so I just lifted while Kathryn ran. 0 NONE NONE NONE FRI Another lazy day of sitting on the beach. We did take a short hike up to Fort Rodney on Pigeon Island, which was really cool but not exactly serious exercise. 0 NONE NONE NONE THU After overeating for a few days I felt like I needed to work out. Woke up early thinking about running but decided I didn't really want to leave the resort, so I went to the gym with Kathryn. Ran three miles on the treadmill, starting out a little over 7:00 pace and eventually working down to 6:30s just to get it over with. Original plan was to go 4M but I couldn't take it anymore after 20 minutes. Had to go outside and pour water on my head to try and cool down, I won't be getting back on the treadmill anymore. 3 EASY AVG BAD WED Thought about doing something like swimming this morning, but the ocean was closed when I got there. Wound up just eating breakfast and then sitting on the beach and reading. 0 NONE NONE NONE TUE First full day in St Lucia, the closest thing to exercise I did today was swim in the ocean to cool off. 0 NONE NONE NONE MON Spent the majority of the day travelling to St Lucia. Left the hotel at 4:30am Central and got to the resort at 4pm Eastern. 0 NONE NONE NONE SUN A lot of errands to run and things to organize today as we're leaving ass early tomorrow for the honeymoon. No time to run, and no real desire to run today. 0 NONE NONE NONE Week 02 week02 2008-07-06 2008-07-12 Hard to stay motivated this week knowing that the honeymoon is going to kill training for a while. The few times I did get out I felt pretty good, surprised at how easily I picked up the pace on Monday's run and Saturday was great to be able to run with all the guys again. SAT Snake Hill. Honestly wasn't planning to run today given all the stuff going on. But nobody was going to let my final hours single pass by without a run, so after I got back from playing 9 holes this morning a huge group of us headed out from my parents place. It was Brewer up front, obviously, Sean Nolan, Nick End, Steve Maltas, Fivos, Carlos and myself, which is the largest group I've run with in a long time. We kept things easy until the base of the hill where I joked about a prem at the top. Brewer took a couple quick steps and then we were off, it wound up being Fivos, Carlos and myself and I was not able to shake them. We called it a tie as we each leaned at different lines. Headed south a bit further, looping around the lighthouse, then headed back. Hit the stoplight and some of us took off again for the final half mile. I hung back at the start but once Maltas went flying past I had t get it in gear. Caught up to Brewer, Carlos and Steve and Carlos and I kept it going. Despite all the goofing around we were a bit under 2:35 which felt much easier than the 2:30 I ran at the end on Monday. All the sprinting around really killed me and I felt a little wobbly at the altar later in the day. Wound up being close to half an hour which is a pretty safe four miles given the couple of fast stretches. 4 NONE NONE NONE FRI Wasn't in any shape to run until the rehearsal started late in the afternoon. 0 NONE NONE NONE THU Spent the day tailgating, watching the Brewers then went to Mo's Steakhouse and some of Milwaukee's finest establishments. 0 NONE NONE NONE WED Last day of working before everything starts up, had a lot to do and a concall early in the morning so no running. 0 NONE NONE NONE TUE As good as yesterday was, it's really hard to get motivated when I know I won't be running for the 8 days I'm on my honeymoon. Just worked today. 0 NONE NONE NONE MON Shortened Bender. Rolled over when the alarm went off but wasn't able to fall back asleep so I got up and ran. Out the door a bit before 6:30 and feeling pretty good. I guess taking 3 days off leaves you feeling fresh. Felt like I was moving well, but I think that I'm just unaccustomed to running as I was 20:30 at the approximate 3M mark. Going through Lincoln the bridge before the soccer fields is under construction and I had to head up to Green Bay to get across the river. Able to head back to the path at the railroad tracks, but started thinking about cutting it short because of the detour. Wound up taking Silver Spring up to Lake, which made it nearly 9 miles with the detour. Hit Lake drive in 42:47, right at the 2.5M mark and started picking it up. Felt relaxed and was thinking maybe I didn't get going that well, but hit the half mile in 3:00 and picked it up from there. Didn't have a firm plan for what I was doing, just felt like running hard and decided to pick it up each half. The next half was 2:52, though those marks are a bit nebulous. From there the marks are dead on, though from Big Bay to 4676 is a tough one as it's uphill and possibly a tad long. Hit that in 2:48 and then really started to work. Got to Lake Bluff in 2:38 and then dropped the hammer. I was feeling really good and flying for the first 400m or so, then I started to get too excited, pushed too much and lost the rhythm. Got back to feeling good before too long and had a good stretch along Atwater Park to finish it off. Carried it maybe a bit past the mark and hit 2:30, which was good to see. There's still something there, despite the long layoff. Covered the last 2.5M in 13:49, averaging 5:30 pace. Total time was 56:36, the first 42:47 was probably just over 6M so rounding up a little to call it 9. I'll compensate later in the week, I'm sure. 9 AVG GOOD GOOD SUN Didn't feel like running when I woke up today, and then drove the 5 hours back to Milwaukee in the afternoon. 0 NONE NONE NONE Week 01 week01 2008-06-29 2008-07-05 Not a lot going on this week. Leading up to the wedding I'm not overly motivated to get the miles in so I'm just running when the mood strikes me. Been lazy most mornings, but the afternoon is an option now that I'm working from Wisconsin for a few days. SAT Another day off. Couldn't make it through the end of the trials coverage last night and slept until noon today. That really killed the day, went to the driving range and sat on the dock some more. TPS style beer report: High Life (naturally,) Leinie's Red and Sam Summer. 0 NONE NONE NONE FRI No running. Left the house at 6am and drove up to Kathryn's parents' cabin in Northern Wisconsin. After five hours in the car I didn't feel like running in the mid-day heat, just sat on the dock and drank beer. 0 NONE NONE NONE THU Bell Rd out and back. Got back to Milwaukee late last night thanks to a delayed flight. My legs were aching when I woke up so I decided not to run in the morning and just started working. A little after 3pm I felt like running so I took a break and was out the door before 4pm. Wasn't sure how far I felt like going, just headed north on Lake running easy. The first mile was 6:40 and decided not to check the watch much after that. I got more and more into the run and probably would have kept going had I not been concerned about getting back at a reasonable time, plus I wasn't excited about possibly falling apart. Felt good throughout, though, the majority of the run was easy though I felt myself starting to struggle the last mile and a half. Finished up with a 6:30 without really increasing the effort, so I was happy with that. Probably a bit long today as I extended it a bit to get to a good turnaround landmark, wound up at 70 minutes total. 10 EASY AVG AVG WED Fake Fresh backwards. Had to get in a run on my last day in Boston as a single guy (though one could argue I haven't really been single in a long time.) Actually got up with the alarm at 5:15 and was out the door by 5:45. The standard route, Central Square is unusually quiet before 6am. Didn't feel great but didn't feel too bad, started to tire over the final few miles though. Clocked the mile along the river right at 6:50, don't think I was running much faster or slower throughout. 10 EASY AVG AVG TUE Too much going on today trying to get ready to leave town tomorrow. 0 NONE NONE NONE MON Back Bay Loop. Out the door by 6:10 this morning, breaking in a new pair of shorts. Wasn't sure where I felt like going or how far so I headed over the Locks and wound up on Commonwealth. Wanted to get to work early so I cut the run short this morning. The mile along the river was 6:50 felt like it was a good representation of how I was running the whole way. Finished with a good stride down Prospect, haven't turned the legs over in awhile. Very humid out and I was dripping wet when I finished, even inside it was muggy and uncomfortable. 6 EASY AVG AVG SUN Should have run today but didn't get out the door. I was lazy when I woke up and then spent most of the rest of the day running errands. 0 NONE NONE NONE Week 00 week00 2008-06-22 2008-06-28 SAT CTown Loop. Wasn't planning on running because I was golfing at 10am, but woke up at 6am unable to sleep so I put in an easy four miles. Felt decent throughout, spent some time stretching when I got home. 4 EASY AVG AVG FRI Really tired when I woke up so another off day. 0 NONE NONE NONE THU CTown loop. Finally got in the Mt Washington cool down. Short and sweet first day back, there's no real reason to go nuts with the 8 day honeymoon around the corner. Felt fine the whole way, running slow but nothing was sore and actually pushed the climb up Sackville. The Mt Washington race is sneaky, once you forget how painful it was you start thinking about how much faster you could have run and how much climbing a mountain on foot makes you feel like a bad ass. Luckily, I promised myself I'm not running it again and I'm keeping that promise. 4 EASY AVG AVG WED Was planning on running this morning but didn't get out the door. The juices are flowing though, and I'm done with taking time off. 0 NONE NONE NONE TUE Another day off. Going to start back up in a day or two. Ready to go again. 0 NONE NONE NONE MON Day off. Slept in and actually felt good today, legs weren't sore at all, which was surprising. 0 NONE NONE NONE SUN Day off. Not as much sleep as I would have liked last night as we hit the road early heading back home. Legs felt surprisingly good, not very sore. 0 NONE NONE NONE