Wow.....Talk about a break....I pretty much took a break from everything but running and training. I had a few goals I wanted to accomplish over the time off and I managed to log some pretty impressive miles (for me anyways). For me, this was the first time in a VERY long time that I could focus just on running. I was off from the day to day stresses of work and I didn't have to worry about our now closed business. I also had the ability to actually train as if I were a professional, which meant logging ridiculous amounts of miles!
My biggest goal of the Holiday season, break the 70 mile week barrier. I set the goal pretty lofty, and honestly, I didn't get off to a great start. Monday and Tuesday of X-mas week, I was totally knocked out with a massive head cold. Thankfully my previous training wasn't compromised andI was able to get back to running on Wednesday. On X-Mas, I didn't plan on running at all, it was my boys day and I was smoking a Turkey outside, so I needed to be home to man the fire. That was okay, my run on Wednesday almost put me out on a relapse, so the day off was nice. I started my 7 day 70 mile quest on the Friday after X-mas. Since I hadn't done a long mid week run, I set out on a 12 mile journey. That run went EXTREMELY well. I ran the 12 mile course in 1:39 minutes! To me, that was just going out and having a nice run. I didn't expect it to be fast, but there were some fast miles in there. That put a huge smile on my face! Day 1, felt AMAZING! Day 2 was a 60 minute tempo workout where we did 6 sets of 5mins at our 10K pace, and 5 minutes at our half marathon pace. I finished this workout at exactly 8 miles when the timer went off. I was tired from teh 12 miles the day before, but I managed to hold back on the early sets and ran a very paces of 7:15 for the 10K segments and and 7:45 for the half marathon segments.
Day three (Sunday) started my rediculous adnveture. During the O'Dark early run, I came up with the hair brained idea that if I did i12 miles on the remaining days I could hit 80 miles. So from there I did 12.5 miles on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday is where things start to get a little blurry. Okay...Not blurry, but I knew the onset of overtainning was rapidly approaching. My first sign is when I start to lose sleep at night. That actually started happening on Sunday night. I was tired from teh run, but I also was exhausted from my trip to Phoenix afterwards for the home finally of the Cardinals game. It was just a long day, no other way to put it. I did sleep in, but they weren't quality unintterrupted hours of sleep. By Tuesday, I was overtired. I woke up and headed out for my 12 miles, beaten and battered. At mile 10, I did the unthinkable, and WALKED for about 4 minutes. At that point, I did the 'ol gut check, and got them done. This is the point of the week where I realized, I'm not ready for 80, let's refocus back to 70. Two 7 mile days and your there. I knockedout the first 7 miler no problemo. My old running partner Paul was back in the game...well sort of...he dropped off at 3 miles, but I managed to get on through the run.
And this is where something amazing happened. It's New Years Eve and I get an email from my coach about either doing the workout on New Years, or the Egg nog Jog....The Egg Nog Jog is a 5K race that takes place about a mile from my house. I thought, why not. Forget the 70 miles, let's go out and do a speed workout instead. Honestly, It's not about the miles, it was more about performaing on really tired legs. I wanted that challenge more then going out and doing another 7 miels on the same roads I have run all week long. Oddly enough, there weren't a lot of peopel signed up. About 150 peopel from around the neighborhood, who made thier new years resolutions to exericse again. There were a few runners out there that I knew, but amazingly there weren't very many (if any) from my group or the Southern Arizona Roadrunners.
I was just hoping to get top 5 in my age group. So at 9am, when the gun went off, imagine my amazement when I'm running the race in second place....Okay...There's no chance for me to get first place, the guy in front is a 2 time Olympic Marathon Trials guy. So, his "18 or so" minute goal, waddunt even in the same state as my goal. Needless to say, my 6:50 first mile, he was still in sight....That was until we reached the hills....that was also the point at which I turned over 2nds and 3rd places....But once i crested the first hill, and made the right turn into the neighborhood, I looked back, and there wasn't anyone back there....except for the womans leader. And that's how it stayed. My 21:55 (new personal 5K best on a tough HILLY course) gave me a really nice way to start the new year. I wasn't just top 5 in my age group...I was 4th place OVERALL! I pretty much didn't see that coming....and neither did imy coach as she gave me a HUGE hug after the race.
I went back to the last 5K on a measured course that I ran, and I did 23:55. Now, that wasn't a race, it was one of our time trials on a very flat course, but that's 2 minutes cut off my 5K time since AUGUST! So with that, I ended my 7 day stretch with a grand total of 67 miles. hey...I didn't hit the 70 mile mark, but I did manage to break a new personal record with some MAJOR gusto! I can't wait until the 5K and 10K racing season which starts at the end of the month, when I'm racing on tapered and not tired legs!!!!
Should be a great 2009! LIVESTRONG and TRAIN HARD!
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