MON - AM: 59:15, 8 miles. Met up with Hodge and Greg Ward at the Rail Trail this morning, anticipating an ugly deathmarch in a humid hellhole but escaping with what equated to little more than a steamy stroll. I'll save my complaints for another day. PM: 5 miles. 2-mile joggy jog up to the turf field at Holy Cross, 3 sets of drills-n-strides, 2 miles back home. First foray into this little routine and wouldn't ya know there was a fairly attractive female making her way around the track as I was frog-hopping my way across the field. I think it's fair to say she was more amused than impressed.
TUES - AM: 34:40, 5 miles. Drove out to West Hill to get a few miles in with Driscoll and A-Ten before heading to Hopedale and attempting to conquer the Uncommon Common for brunch. Due to a number of extenuating circumstances, all three of us gave up before we started. This is unacceptable behavior and will not be tolerated in the future. PM: 11 miles. First track workout with the (Insert Sponser Here) Boston crew since way back in February and boy did it show. The black and white of it reads like this: 2,000 meters in 6:11; 1,200 meters in 3:31; 4 x 400 meters in 67, 66, 68, 66. 3-1/2 minutes recovery before and after the 12, 90 seconds between 4's. See this entry for a more complete rundown.
WEDS - AM: 83 minutes, 12 miles with Driscoll. Back to West Hill for the first, second, third, FOURTH day in a row! If it weren't for the world-class training partners and close proximity of quality post-run brunch spots, I'd have been sick of this place way back in April. PM: 44:50, 6 miles. 29 miles in the last 24 hours if I did my math correctly. Took this one nice-n-easy and did some serious thinking, which isn't too hard when you're running this slow.
THURS - AM: 55:20, 8 miles. West Boylston Rail Trail - where you're likely to find me running when I'm not traversing the trails at West Hill. Took it pretty easy this morning but finished up with 6 snappy strides and 4 hill charges to work on my form a little bit. PM: 35:45, 5 miles. A not-so-quick jaunt before heading into work. Legs had about as much life in them as the dead bird I saw in the middle of the road.
FRI - AM: 70:30, 11 miles. If you guessed West Hill as my run of choice this morning, then you guessed right. I was having A-Ten withdrawals and needed a third fix this week of no slower than a 6:30 per mile pace from the first click of the stopwatch. As usual, I wasn't disappointed. PM: 28:45, 4 miles. Managed to out-run the approaching monsoon, which is no easy task when moving along at the leisurely clip of 7:11 per mile.
SAT - AM: 12 miles. Met up with Brendan Prindiville at Fresh Pond for some longer strength work. My plan was for 3 miles @ 5:20-25; 2 miles @ 5:15-20; 1 mile @ 5-5:10 w/3 minutes recovery between all. However, a miscommunication between myself and Mr. Prindiville led my workout partner to believe that we were doing a straight 6-mile cutdown tempo, so needless to say when I stopped at 3 miles and he kept going, it threw us both for a loop, literally and figuratively. I blame the rain. Anywho, after hurdling canines and swimming through puddles at at a metronomic 5:18 clip over the first 3 miles, things went awry. Baffled, I jogged for two minutes before deciding to give chase to New Haven's next great oral surgeon, covering the last 1.7 miles of the loop in a quick 8:40. I ran through the finish line to the 1/2 mile mark and after a brief break, booked it back to the start/finish line in 2:26. A bit of a clusterfuck, but when all was said and done I still got in a touch over 5 miles worth of solid work.
WEEK SUMMARY: 103 miles, 12 runs. Very good week on the whole. Managed to mess up both workouts to a certain degree, but I guess as far as mistakes go they weren't all that bad. I'll be racing the 3K on the track at the High Performance Meet on Saturday night - my first outdoor track race in a little over two years - but more than anything I'm just pumped to toe a starting line again and finally let one rip. It's been a while.
Quote of the day:
I ran 29:06 for 10K and wasn't even the fastest guy on my street. None of us knew how good we were. None of us knew how bad we were. We just all thought, 'If he can make the Olympic team, so can I.'
- Steve Flanagan in a great article from last week's Denver Post
2 comments:
Nasty stuff Mario. Although, I've never seen someone so concerned that their speedwork was too easy. FYI - I'm in MA for a few weeks, perhaps I could find you for one of those leisurely 7:11 pace sessions.
Matty-
Not concerned with the effort, just that I couldn't hit pace. I'll get it down soon enough.
My schedule is pretty open most days, so just give me a shout and we can figure something out. Take it easy man.
MF
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