Still on Schedule

With today's run of 4.25 miles officially in the books, I can say that things are still on schedule to hit the 45 mile target goal. Hitting this goal will be another huge milestone, that's mostly mental. Mentally, it's hard to comprehend running 45 miles in 6 days of running. It's even harder to imagine that it's something that I've been able to get to in such a short time. When I look back at my training logs that go back to July and August, I really wasn't running a lot of miles. Maybe 15-20 per week. There definitely wasn't much quantity there, but there was quality. I was hitting most of the group workouts, which are for the most part speed sessions. Mentally I wasn't ready to accept long days, and basically would consider a long run 6 miles. Oh what a couple of months can do for your psyche. Now, when I look at my runs, if I'm doing 4 miles, it seems like a day off, and six miles is the norm. In fact, this week, I've taken my 6.5 miles to 7 and those are the strolls through the neighborhood. Weird. I actually enjoy going our for those long runs on Sunday.

So on todays schedule was a group speed session, with the workout being nothing out of the norm. It was 12x400m with a 45 second rest in between. Today's group was actually smaller then usual. Some of the regular faces weren't there, which was weird. Since I didn't go on Tuesday I don't know how people were feeling after Sundays workout. Perhaps there are some tired peepz in the group. I know that I'm tired, but my legs still had a little get up and go in them. I definitely didn't break any land speed records, but I wasn't a slacker either.....Well...except for that first set. I think that one was like 1:48.....We all seemed to be dogging a bit there. But we picked them up from there, and I would say the large majority were all around the 1:41-1:42 range. That's a nice 6:45ish pace per mile, and definiitly faster then what I was running several weeks ago. So, I can definitely say that progress is still being made. The nice thing is, I wasn't destroyed either. I still had some energy left in the tank. To me, that's pretty important. Sure, I probably could have run just a bit harder, but at what expense. To totally kill tomorrws run......Or even the time trial on Saturday. No way. You have to put the whole week in perspective. If you want to achieve your goals, and get theappropriate feedback, you sometimes have to just run consistent. I think that if I would have gone out harder, I probably would have blown up on the last two, and not run them in the fashion that I did. After that first set, once we settled into the pace, everythign was nice and even. So needless to say, I'm really looking forward to Saturday, so that I can see how far I've come. NO WAY NO HOW I'm missing that one!

But, there's still one more day to go before we get there, and I need to get those 5 miles in the books. Until then, train hard and LIVESTRONG!

41!

And who said 40 was a barrier?!?!?!?!?! If anything it was all mental, because this week I CRUSHED through that wall with an explosion! Saturday I set out on a session that was a 1 mile warm up, 3 sets of 5mins 10K pace, 5 mins HM pace and finished with a nice easy 1 mile cool down jog. Before the run, I had setup "goal" paces in my Garmin 305, and hoped to keep up the pace. I set up 7:30-7:45 for the 10K pace, and 7:45-8:15 for the HM pace. Needless to day, I BLEW those right out of the water. That added into the annoyance factor of the Garmin. If your going to fast, it incessantly beeps at you to tell you to slow down.....But my body was having none of that. And I knew it was going to be a fast day. I did my warm up jog at an 8:30 pace. But I felt good, and I wanted to get a QUALITY speed work session in, because I knew my group was running hard in the Oracle 10K, and the thought of them getting one on me, made me push even harder, especially towards the end of the run when it became more difficult to push that final pace. But the key was, I DID IT! And I did it so much, that by the end of my 1 mile cool down run, I was at the turnaround point of what I like to call "extra" credit time on the morning run with Paul. Adding in that little extra credit session allowed me to have a nice half mile jog back home afterwords. And the nice thing, another 6.5 miles in the book. That took me to 29.5 by the end of Saturday!

So starting Sunday, I was ready to run. I woke up BEFORE my alarm clock for the first time in a very long time. I was really looking forward to the solitude of a Sunday outing. I am becoming addicted to my Sunday runs. Knowing that 40 was well in reach, I decided to modify my long run from last week a bit, and add in a little challenge of going to the TOP of Wade road, instead of turning 1/4 of the way, and heading through Continental Reserve. Going to the top meant heading up one of the toughest hills in the area. It's STEEP! It looks like a wall as you approach it, but I have run up it many times before, and to put it mildly, we know each other pretty well. Once I got to the top, I could see that stop sign which has always signified the downhill is here! But I decided to modify the route a bit more, and take the HARD way out. Instead of making the usual left had turn, I turned right, and took the roller coaster adventure. Straight down, the straight back up. So much so, that you can see the marks on the road where cars bottom out as they scrape the pavement. Once the rollers are over, it's a nice easy downhill that ends up at a usual point and I'm back in Continental Reserve. In all, it added an nice and challenging two miles to the journey. 2 miles where I easily maintained a 9:15 pace. I continued on and continued clipping off the miles: 6, 7, then 8! In my head I kept doing a little mental countdown. I get to 11, I've got 40 in the books! And so my mental focused turned to Pat Tillman. The great number 40 that played for the Arizona Cardinals, and left his lucrative NFL contract to go fight for his country in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he was accidentally killed by friendly fire in an amazingly tragic accident of miscommunication. I kept saying to myself, what would Pat do! And from there, I kept increasing the pace.....9:00, 8:55, and then finally 8:40....And the miles kept clicking off at 9, 10, and finally I was on that home stretch towards 11. I made the right turn through the retirement community of Sunflower, and I was headed for home, and my legs just kept getting stronger and stronger. When finally my watch went off to signify the end of mile 11.

At this point I stopped and took a little break. I wasn't home, but I knew that I had completed something that I figured mentally would have broken me. But my mind stayed strong, and I only got stronger as I finished! I took the moment to enjoy the victory, polish off that last bit of water I had, and get back running and jog it back in, nice and easy, with a HUGE smile on my face. That was the best half mile I think I've ever run. I was pumped for the entire DAY. Even a Cardinals loss in Carolina couldn't take that grin off my face! I was so pumped up!

Needless to say, my legs earned their rest week. Today was a complete day of rest. No running. I got to sleep in until 6am, and give the motor the day off. I plan on cutting back the miles to about 30 this week. 2 FULL days off, today and Friday. But the workouts are going to target speed. Short, but fast! I'll get in at least 2 six and a half milers with Paul, a group workout....And then Saturday is a TIME TRIAL! It's that 30 minute tempo that I use to gauge my success. 3.9 miles is the distance to beat. I want to go out and absolutely CRUSH it!

Until tomorrow, LIVESTRONG and Train Hard!

Yesterday a No-Go...Today a Go-Go!

So yesterday was called due to work getting in the way. It was a group session run, but my normal 6am telecon got trumped and was replaced with a 5.5 hour version that started at 5:30am. See that's the joy of outsourcing! I manage a team member who's in Bangalore India. Along with that comes a 12.5 hour time difference. So, to make it easier on each of us, we've adjusted our schedules accordingly. I actually don't mind the early meetings. It just mean my day ends sooner....Well.....accept for yesterday, but that's a different story. :) By the time we were done, it was almost midnight for him, so I figure, I had it easy. As I was still able to finish up with my last meeting by 4pm. What's a 10 hour day when you enjoy what your doing? It's all cream cheese.

So, seeing as yesterday got washed out, I was antsy to get out there this morning and really let my legs go. And did they ever! It was the normal meet Paul at 5am Wednesday. We are both really making great strides by running together. As I've said before, having a training partner with similar goals really does a body good. And, it turns out he took yesterday off too. his legs were tired, and he needed a day off. No need in getting injured. That's just bad joo joo. Anyways, we met up at the normal location and headed off on our 5.7 mile course. The first mile was pretty pedestrian as we worked our way into stride. But by the time mile 2 came around, I could tell we were clipping along at a nice pace. We were at that point where you could converse, but just needed to suck air every now and then. A little faster then conversational, but not sprinting by any means. As we ran, the mile alarm beeped, and I hit the lap to try and record mile splits.....About mile 4 I decided to see where we were, and BAM...just as I thought, we ran a 8:40....Then mile 5.....BAM...another 8:40.....consistency, consistency, consistency.....We came around by my house, and I was feeling GREAT....So I made the command decision that I wanted a little extra credit and added an extra mile onto my normal run. And whats funny, was Paul was going to "cut it short", but he too was feeling good, so he did the extra credit as well.

I'm really enjoying my running life right now. My goal of 38.5 miles this week is ABSOLUTELY attainable. I've got 12.2 in the books, and already have Thurs, Friday, and Saturday workouts planned. From there, I will see how many I need on Sunday, and just go out for a nice stroll through the neighborhood. This is when the schedule gets fun! I love the ramping up of the miles. I'm doing everything the body needs. Getting quality hours of sleep in, not running beyond my abilities, and I have a training partner that's a huge part of keeping my focus. This is a BIG week, and hitting my goal will be a HUGE accomplishment. Next week is the planned "rest" week. Basically it's a cut back to about 30 miles. Part of my philosophy is taking strides forward, but taking a step backwards to allow the body to recover. The thing that's crucial about next week. SPEED SPEED SPEED. Sure, I wont run as many miles. But they are going to be at a higher then normal tempo so that the engine room inside your body gets a boost!

So, for all those out there keeping track of this blog: TRAIN HARD, KEEP FOCUSED, and LIVESTRONG!

Sluggish, but complete!

The title says it all. Today, my legs were had that traditional dead feeling about them. In latin, it's called Elegusbetiredus. And that they were. Mostly from the above threshold workout from yesterday. Those 16x400m were a killer. And I knew they would be too. So I fully expected todays run, whihc was scheulded as the same as Mondays, to be slower. And that it was. And thank goodness for running partners. Otherwise I wouldn't have been there. Having that guilt hang over your head that you were at home sleeping while your training partner is out there getting stronger is not a good feeling. I'll get that one on him tomorrow, since he has to go into work early and can't make the group session. I'll be grindin out those 800m repeats! All eight of them. Seems crazy that we put our bodies through this motion. But there one thing I can honestly say is, I've never met a runner who hasn't been goal oriented. We're a strange breed. And now that my Coffee Shop nightmare is over, I suddenly have all this extra time that I can dedicate to the sport that I love, and stay trim and fit along the way! That's the greatest part. Getting out there and exercising an hour a day, it means you care about yoursself. That's probably the main reason that you can find yourself blend into a running group so well. It's like minded people that have similar goals and care about themselves.

That was actually one of the many topics we covered in our run today. Surprisingly, we weren't a whole lot slower then Monday. About 15 seconds per mile difference which equated to a little 2 mins overall. Not too shabby considering my legs didn't have the getup and go they had on Monday! And not too bad considering we beat our time from two weeks ago. I can always find the silver lining and make it into a positive. I guess that's my gift. I'm a glass half full kinda guy. There's always an oppertunity in somthing.

And with that, I'll end this post. It's time for a little post run relaxer of Green Tea and some breakfast. Throw in a side dish of my compex on my back, and my morning is SET. If only I could take a little nap.... HA! I wish!

Train Hard and LIVESTRONG!