5:39

Got myself to the Feb 11 meeting of the NYRR's Thursday Night at the Races at the Armory in NYC. Was planning on trying an 800m but got there earlier in the program than I expected and so opted for the mile rather than hanging around for 2 hours or so. It was still 45 minutes plus of standing around and trying to stay loose without wasting energy. Back when I had planned on one of these indoor meets to be the end of a 6-month "season" I had hoped to put up a 5:30 mile or the equivalent around this time. But I was sick between Thanksgiving and Christmas and so spent January getting back on my feet and so I'm really just at the beginning of a base building phase. And I had been in all-day meetings for 3 straight days. And had just come down with a bad case of some sort of stomach virus or something. And I swear the sun got in my eyes even though it was indoors at night. And how that rock got onto the Mondo track surface I'll never know. The splits were something like 43,43,43,42,42,42,42,41+1 for each 200m lap with that 1 through in for the last 9 meters or whatever. I wasted a bit of energy trying to get into position early to run 41s but the guys in front of my would just speed up if I tried to pass so that was a waste for all of us. So all consider 5:39 wasn't too bad. Last year at this time I ran 5:42... for 1500m. So that's a pretty good year-over-year improvement. Should be able to go quite a bit faster outdoors in June at the business end of this training cycle.

Two Solid Weeks

Got in two solid weeks of training since the 10k trail run. Last week I did 6 out of 7 days, leaving out Tuesday's MP run. This week I've done...

• Sun 7 miles on the trails
• Mon 4.75 Recovery on TM in 46 Min with 2% incline and 6.5 mph top speed
• Tue 4 with 2.5 MP, didn't feel that great
• Wed 5.75 easy on snowy technical trails that took over an hour
• Thu 4.25 MP on TM in 35 Min top speed 8.4 (7:08)
• Fri 4.75 Recovery on TM in 44 Min with 2% incline and 6.8 mph top speed

So that's 30.5 this week with tomorrow to go. Already my biggest week ever. The plan is to get outside and do 3 or 4 easy with some 10-second leg speed accelerations but it's suppose to snow tonight so that may not be possible.

I'm going to start enforcing a 70% week every third week so this coming week will be one of those. Plan for the coming week...

• Sun 5.75 Easy on trails
• Mon 3 MP
• Tue 4 Recovery on TM
• Wed Rest
• Thu NYRR Thursday Night at the Races at the Armory, 800m + 4
• Fri 4 Recovery on TM
• Sat 3 Easy with leg speed accelerations

Goal for the 800m is 38,38,38,?. I final 36 for 2:30 would be nice. We shall see.

I'm also down to 155 lbs. Trying to get to 150 come Memorial day. Haven't been below 154 or so in many, many years.

NJ Winter Trail Series 10K

Ran the 10k at the 1st NJ Winter Trail Series event this weekend in Lewis Morris Park in Morristown. It was two loops of a 5k (really, 3-mile) course. A ran the first loop fairly hard and then waited for a friend and ran 2 miles with him and then ran the last (downhill) mile as hard as possible. Held off a 26-year old over the last 100 yards to the finish. Felt good to run hard again.

Watchung Winter (Not Quite) Ultra

A little over one year ago I came across the 1st Annual Watchung Winter Ultra (WWU) trail run while searching for trail races in New Jersey. Never having done a trail race I wanted to give it a try. The WWU came in two flavors: marathon and 50k. Both option way too long for me but they were both based on a main 10-mile loop course through the Watchung Reservation near where I grew up and that sounded like it would be within my range. When the day came, however, it had snowed a good amount the night before, was really cold and windy, and not having pre-registered or arranged to go with anybody else I opted to stay in bed.

This year I convinced a couple others to come along with me and do one loop of the course and so despite the snow and cold I got myself up around 5:00 a.m. and headed out to meet up with my group. The run had grown tremendously from the 1st year and there were something like 170 or so people registered. From the results page it looks like around 125 made it to the starting line... it was a pretty big group for 8:00 a.m. and 19 degrees on a Saturday morning in January in New Jersey.

The course started with a long downhill section over icy "steps" and other icy terrain. The first mile or so was pretty slow going. After that, though, the footing was much better, though still snowy trail going up and down quite frequently. The 10-mile loop turned out to be around 10.7. One of my friends had it at around 1,300 feet of up and down on his 705. I held things together pretty good for 8 miles running just behind one of my friends. After that, though I was good and bonked. Had to stop to stretch and recover several times in the last 2 miles and finished in 1:57 or so. I was guessing it would be between 1:50 and 2 hours. So I was pretty happy with the time given that I was sick between Thanksgiving and Xmas and didn't run at all and had just a couple of weeks of very easy running under my belt since then.

Overall it was a great experience. My fingers were quite cold for the first mile or so but then warmed up fine. At the end I took off my knit cap to find that it was encrusted with what seemed like a pound of ice -- but I hadn't even noticed that while running. I had so much fun, in fact, that yesterday I went out for 8 miles through the trails near my house. I've lived in the same place for 10 years and had never run those trails before. I guess I've got the trail bug now.

And I should mention that 10.7 miles is the furthest I've ever run. Ever. Maybe next year I'll be ready to do the whole Ultra thing. We'll see.

Back To It

After 4 weeks of colds, sinus infections, and hamstring issues I got back to some running this past week. I finally figured out that the hamstring thing was not a strain but spasms. I've been doing certain stretches as described on the Younger LEgs blog both pre- and post-running and it has helped reduce the problem. A couple more weeks of just "running" and I should be ready to get back to "training".

Downtime

After successful base-building and hill/resistance periods where I steadily progressed from the slow end of my training ranges to the fast end I began the anaerobic/sharpening phase. After my first tempo run I ended up with a sore quad during the following day's recovery run. A couple days of ice fixed that up. After the next week's tempo effort I came down with a cold. For a week. Coincidence? Now that the cold is over I tried an easy jog and my left hamstring tightened up. I need ot take next week off for other reasons so it's no going to be almost a month long or longer break at the least. I had planned on running a 5k on Thanksgiving morning but that was right in the middle of my week-long cold so I had to skip that. Based on my training and other factors I was hoping to run about 19:10. Hopefully I'll get back to some running mid-December and be able to start a new training cycle with the New year.

49th

With the return of Standard Time and light before 6:00 a.m. it was a lot easier than it has been to get out of bed and out for an early morning run. Did my recent standard 6.5 mile long run with a 0.7 mile hill just after mile 2. Pushed it pretty good and was appropriately leg heavy by the end.

Last week I did one session of hill springing that seemed to go very well. No issues with my feet. The workout itself was one of the more tiring things I've done in a while. It exhausts every muscle involved in running: calves, quads, hamstrings, and, perhaps most importantly, hip flexors. I ended up doing 3 circuits of my hill course. I only got in one session as we had torrential rains on the day I was going to first try this and springing up wet leave-covered pavement did not seem sensible, at least not for an initial attempt. This week I'll try to get in 2 sessions of 4 repetitions.