Week two (December 6th - December 12th).

Sunday (12/6): 12 miles in 1:23.00 (6:55/mi)
2:00pm - Ran with Justin out to Limehollow where he ended up rolling his ankle real bad - not good. So we took it easy in the trails until we got to Mclean were it was safe to run at a normal pace again. I was planning on doing my long run but my quads were surprisingly fatigued (I guess last week caught up to me)...so I just chose to put it off until tomorrow. This run went by real quick.

Monday (12/7): 17 miles in 1:56.00 (6:49/mi)

2:30pm - Started off running alone, then met up with Eric, Kyle and Sterm at 40 minutes. I ran with them for about 50 minutes until they were done and then continued on my own again. I tried to incorporate a good amount of hills in to this run, I have been running on flat surfaces too often. Quads felt significantly better than yesterday, they never really got fatigued at all. It has been over 3 months since I've gotten a long run of this distance in, but this was a good sign (and just the beginning....). I did 5 strides within the run to get my legs moving. Protein shake after.

Tuesday (12/8): AM - 8.3 miles in 53:00 (6:23/mi) PM - 10 miles in 1:08.30 (6:51/mi)
9:30am - Just ran on my own this morning. I ended up running a little quicker than I have been. Good thing anyways since I want to increase my maintenance pace in general (in order to actually distinguish my recovery days from maintenance days). Legs feeling pretty good, and weather was awesome...made for a good run. Did 3 strides towards the end in the run.
2:30pm - Ran with Jerry, Kyle and Stermer to Limehollow. I was planning on 55-60 min but the guys were going a little longer and didn't want to turn around as soon - and I didn't want to turn around early and run alone. I was really enjoying the weather anyways so I kept going. Before heading home we stopped in Lusk and I did some hurdle drills. My previous 7 days have been 110.5 miles, a bit higher than I would like as it was a bit too fast of a progression.
Note: need more sleep (got 6 hrs last night due to working on a research proposal and 8pg paper...at least this will be over soon!)

Wednesday (12/9): AM - 6 miles in 43:00 (7:10/mi) PM - 9 miles in 1:01.00 (6:47/mi)
8:30am - Was planning on doing a workout this morning, but woke up to 5 inches of snow on the ground, freezing rain and wind of 25mph gusting to 40-45mph. I chose to push it back to tomorrow in hopes of the roads being a little better (if not I guess I'll be on the treadmill). I forgot how much it can suck running in the snow. I like how peaceful it can be during winter mornings, but I dislike the whole snow aspect take away my ability to do a decent workout. Although, of course, it is what you make of it. Towards the end of the run I did 8x10s hills sprints at Parti hill, then finished up the run home. Followed up the run with a session of core work and AI stretching.
3:15pm - Ran with Jerry and Josh to Limehollow. The first 40 minutes were a bit rough as my stomach was pretty full from a late lunch. Despite the slipper trails the run was real nice since it was almost 40* out. This run went by pretty fast.

Thursday (12/10): PRIMARY - 12.9 miles in 1:15.00 (5:49/mi)
2:30pm - Before the run I did form drills and some AI stretching. Started off with a 15 min warm up and a few strides, then started the workout. The plan was for a 50 minute progressive tempo starting a little slower than marathon effort, then getting down around half marathon goal pace. It started off well, although probably a little quicker than I had wanted, since it didn't allow for too much progression throughout the run. I had a flat 2 mile loop where I ran 5:27, 5:24. I then went to another loop which was around 3.5 miles and averaged 5:18/mi - which was pretty good considering there were a couple hills in there. I finished off running around the 2 mile loop a bit more with splits of 5:11, 5:21 and 5:06 (last half mile 2:27). It was a bit windy (~20mph at times) which made the stretches a little tough and caused some uneven splitting, but effort was the goal so that wasn't a big deal. I had to cut the workout short by 5 minutes due to a real upset stomach the last 5-10 min which I tried running through. Overall I'm pleased with the workout, it's a good start for the longer threshold workouts coming up. I hope to extending this workout to about 15 miles (25k), if I could start off a little slower than marathon effort then finish off with a couple miles at half GP (avg ~5:20/mi), then I would be pretty happy, I figure that's an ideal place to be coming in to the half. Finished off the run with a 14:30 minute cooldown which included 3x30s strides to get the legs turning over when fatigued. Thorough stretching after the run and protein shake.

Workout summary:
8.6 miles in 45:30 min (5:17/mi average)

Played basketball, soccer, and foursquare for a good 2.5 hrs at night. It's amazing how helpful a non-sedentary lifestyle can be in aiding recovery of tendons and muscles.

Friday (12/11): AM - 6 miles in 43:30 (7:15/mi) PM - 10.9 miles in 1:17.00 (7:04/mi)
10:30 am - My first true recovery run in awhile. I really needed it though as I got a bit beat up from yesterday. It felt good to run as slow as I wanted, but I really didn't go as slow as it felt. I checked the weather as I walked out the door and it said that it "felt like 2*". So I figured I was going to be pretty darn cold the whole time. Gladly this didn't happen, my face was the only part of me that was actually cold. This winter weather really isn't that bad to run in as long as you dress properly, I just don't like the slick roads...Both hips sore and tight, as is left calf - but those are all spoils of a long workout. Thorough stretching after.
4:00pm - Not a recovery run as planned, but it was great. Ran with Jerry, Kyle and Stermer up to Tower Rd. (highest point in Cortland). There are 3 pretty major climbs which are relatively long and pretty steep, all totaling up to a 1000ft climb (which isn't as bad as the last loop we did which was 3000ft). At the top it was an average of 7:40/mi. Once at the top we had a 2 mile stretch of just downhill which really took a toll on the quads. Last 4 miles were on flat ground and we were running a decent pace (~6:30-6:20) which felt pretty nice. Yet again only 2* out with 20-30mph winds, but it wasn't all that bad. Great run, thorough AI stretching after. Probably not doing the hill workout I planned tomorrow, it was just an easy secondary and I can allow myself to be flexible at this point.

Saturday (12/12): AM - 7 miles in 48:30 (6:44/mi) PM - 8.9 miles in 1:00.00 (6:44/mi)
9:30am - Ran downtown to Kinney then home. I really wasn't all that sore from yesterday which was a nice surprise. I started off easy and slowly progressed, was about 6:10/mi on the service road. It was really nice out, so it made the run much more enjoyable.

4:00am - Ran with Jerry to Kellogg, then to PER to do some form drills in the dance studio. I started off pretty sore before this run, but the whole running thing really helped to loosen up my legs. Great day to run...

Week Summary:

Another solid week leading in to the block. I'll follow this one up with one of similar volume next week and then a down week after that. It would have been nice if I got a secondary in, but not a big deal at the moment. The primary was a good start, next week I'll probably incorporate a longer one but make it a bit more progressive. This volume was very manageable even if it's the most I've run in an actual week, which is helpful on account that I'm looking at peaking around 115-120 mi.

108.2 miles

11:09 hrs

Primary: 45 min progressive tempo

Secondary: none 
11 runs 

 

Now to wrap this post up with a cliche quote: "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity" -Seneca