Weekly Summary – 146 Miles in 14 runs. A HUGE step in the right direction with a GREAT workout on Wednesday and then a good workout/race at the Shamrock Half Marathon on Sunday. Very excited!

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Lunes, 16 de Marzo, 2015 – 10am: Easy run on Key Bridge loop. Felt good. Nice day already. Great airplane views as flights were landing from the north – very low! Total run 11M+ in 1’20.

5pm: Ran to the airport park and met Matt for part of his long run. Ran South of the airport and then back. Felt good. Super nice – close to 70F. Total run 7M+ in 50’.

XT: Hips.

Martes, 17 de Marzo, 2015 – 10am: Big workout today with a Special Block. Goal was two sessions of 20km total with just a couple hours rest between (and little carbohydrate replenishment). I had one cup of black coffee and a half bagel before heading out.

The morning session was to feature 10km mod (~90% of MP) and 10km ~ MP.

I warmed up 1km very easy to the bike path, stopped and did drills, and then went into the 10km mod.

This didn’t feel so good. Took a few miles to really warm up, but that was okay and I was expecting it. Overall, it was just time to get through. No problem. Split 17’19 (headwind) 17’04 (tailwind) for a pretty constant effort (34’23 total).

Took 3 min jog and then started the 10km at MP. Goal was to run around 3’10/km (~5’06/M). This was quite consistent and though much tougher leg-wise, I actually felt quite good aerobically. Never doubted I’d be able to finish this one and actually ran a bit faster than I’d planned (31’32 – 5’04.5/M, 3’09.2/km).

Finished feeling tired, but not all-spent. Tried not to think about the afternoon.

Total run 13M+

Splits:
10km Mod
5km 0’17’19 (17’19)
10km 0’34’23 (17’04)

3min jog

10km @ MP: 31’32.7 (3’09.2/km, 5’04/M)
1km 03’07.6 (3’07.6)
2km 06’17.8 (3’10.2)
3km 09’26.3 (3’08.5)
4km 12’36.8 (3’10.5)
5km 15’45.7 (3’08.9)
6km 18’55.8 (3’10.1)
7km 22’04.5 (3’08.7)
8km 25’13.1 (3’08.6)
9km 28’24.1 (3’11.0)
10km 31’32.7 (3’08.6)

2:30pm: Started workout #2 two and a half hours after the end of workout #1. Very limited carb intake between sessions – some veggies, lots of water, and about a dozen pretzels (240 kCal, 40g CHO).

The afternoon’s workout would be similar, with 10km moderate to start (~90% of MP or ~3’30/km) and then 10km of faster running – this time, instead of 10km continuous, it would be 10x 1km at faster than marathon pace (~105%) with 400m jog recovery.

I started with 1km very easy warm-up again to the bike path and then started the moderate 10k. It was out and back and I actually felt no worse than the morning and ran very similar splits (a bit quicker on the way back with a tailwind): 34’26 overall. Still, the last couple minutes, I could tell that my body was getting tired muscularly and I was starting to feel a bit hungry, which was not a great sign.

I took 3min jog again and then started the 1km reps, running 1km out, jogging, and then 1km back. These felt pretty much immediately quite hard and it took a lot of focus to get through each one. I was still running quite quickly, though – right where I wanted to be at around 3’00/km. But I was starting to feel quite weak by about #5, so I took an extra 400m of jog recovery time to see if that would help.

It helped a bit and I felt better on #6, but it was clear that the extra recovery was not all that helpful because the overall muscular weakness returned very quickly and I was slowing down significantly on the next two. On #7, I made it through about halfway on pace but then slowed down a lot. On #8, I ran maybe 300m on pace but then really started to slow and felt like I was crawling the last 200m. I actually tried to start #9, but I just had no gas left. I started running very slowly after about 100m, so I decided to call it quits after 8x.

Overall, the average of the 1000s was 3’00.3 and if you eliminate the last two slower reps, the first 6x were 2’58.4.

In total for the day, it was 38km (23.6M) of fast running (over 90% of MP).

I was a bit disappointed to not finish the whole workout, but in the context of being injured less than 3 weeks ago, I think it’s not bad. To finish this workout on pace would have been a very hard day even with a few months of solid training under me in the fall, so to come this close to finishing I think is very good.

Total run 15M+.

Splits
10km mod:
5km 0’17’18 (17’18)
10km 0’34’26 (17’08)

8x 1km (3’00.3 avg), 400m jog
1000m (3’00.1)
400m (1’58.1)
1000m (2’58.2)
400m (1’53.0)
1000m (2’57.2)
400m (1’54.5)
1000m (2’58.8)
400m (1’49.7)
1000m (2’58.3)
800m (3’55.4)
1000m (2’57.9)
400m (1’49.6)
1000m (3’03.6)
400m (1’56.2)
1000m (3’08.2)

Miercoles, 18 de Marzo, 2015 – 10am: Slept very poorly last night. Super achy and couldn’t fall asleep. Woke up and ran outside – very windy! 20+ MPH. Ran very easy/slow. Legs didn’t feel too too awful. Total run 7M+ in 54’.

4:30pm: Ran solo again, same route just a bit farther. Still super windy ugh. Out 31’ back in 29’. Total run 8M+ in 60’.

XT: Core, 12’.

Jueves, 19 de Marzo, 2015 – 9am: Ran with Mariana before she left for work. Didn’t have my coffee so felt like I was about to die. Awful. Tacked on. So bad. Total run 5M+, very slow.

2pm: Easy run around Potomac Park. Felt much better than this morning. Nice day – wind finally died down. Total run 10M+ in 74’.

7pm: Ran again because the morning was so short. Nice night – down around the turf fields. Total run 4M in 27’.

XT: Upper body circuit. 5 sets of [20x pushup, 30x flutter (x2), 20x dips]

Viernes, 20 de Marzo, 2015 – 9am: Happy first day of Spring! Snowing this morning! What?? Gross day. Legs felt good though. Ran 12M mod in 1’15 and then stopped and did 5x short hills with full recover. Jogged a few minutes and then finished with 3km at MP with the last 500m faster. Splits were: 3’10.9, 3’10.6, 2’59.3 (last 500m ~1’25) for 9’20.8. Finished with short jog to the gym for legs. Total run 15M+.

XT: Legs at the gym. 3 sets of [15x each leg step ups, 20x overhead lunge (10lb), 24x static lunge (20 lb), 12x squat (bar)].

4pm: Easy run before driving down to VA beach. Total run 5M in 33’.

Sabado, 21 de Marzo, 2015 – 8am: Some running around during Matt’s race to and to watch to pros and then ran his cool-down with Mariana for about 1M before running solo on the half course. Got out more than half way on the lolipop course and then was told I couldn’t keep going because apparently we run through a military base. Oops. Ran back the same way, so missed about 3-4M of the course but ended up running longer than I’d planned. Total run 15M in 1’40.

4pm: Napped this afternoon and relaxed. Ran easy around VA Beach and finished with drills and some long strides on the finishing straight. Very windy! Total run 5M+.

XT: Hips

Domingo, 22 de Marzo, 2015 – 7am: Woke up at 4am for 7am gun for Shamrock Half Marathon. Black coffee and half a bagel and then hung around in the lobby doing some work. Jogged over to the start around 6:10am, got oriented and then ran 3M warm up easy, did some drills and strides, and waited around for the start.

Really no idea what to expect from this one. Goal was to run about marathon pace, but it was so windy that I knew it would screw my pacing up big time. Jon had told me to try to find a pack in the first 5km (which would have the strongest headwind) and just tuck in and not worry about pace.

Pretty quickly at the gun, it separated into a lead pack which was going ~5’00/M or just under and then a big pack behind it going much slower (including the lead women). I started out in between but there were only like two of us and it quickly strung out, so I fell back to the big pack. This was basically jogging as we were running like 3’30-40/km, but I just kept cool and figured I’d run the last 10M hard once we got out of the wind. First 5km was 17’39.

Just before 5km, we duck into the woods and get out of the wind and I was feeling really antsy so I kind of took off. This was my bad because I ended up running way too fast to catch up with the group in front of me (2’58-3’08 next few km). I passed a few guys who had already gotten spit out the back of the front pack but was just too aggressive (15’16 for the second 5k).

Around the 10k mark, we were in a much more exposed and windy area and I started to feel really tired. I was alone now and isolated and just really struggling. Slowed down a ton (3’15-24/km through 15km), but hoped that having a tailwind the last 5km would help.

I passed 15k in 49’33 (16’37 3rd 5k) and really tried to pick up the pace for the last few miles. The tail-wind didn’t feel anywhere near as strong as I’d hoped or expected based on how brutal it had felt in the other direction (it always seems like that, doesn’t it?) and between that and just being tired, I was really just struggling to stay in it mentally. I had two guys that were 20-30 sec up and a guy behind me, but I wasn’t really in contact with anyone enough to feel pushed.

Around 20km, I could hear the guy behind me catching up, which woke me up a bit and I found a bit of energy left to close well in the last kilometer. The wind was really almost entirely from the east, which explains why I hadn’t felt as much of a tailwind as I’d expected, and the penultimate turn before heading down the 800m stretch to the finish was super brutal. Still, I felt okay closing and the last kilometer was 3’03, which was not bad given that I’d been running more like 3’10-20 the last few.

I finished in 69’30 (3’17.7/km, 5’18/M) for 13th place.

The last 16.1km (after the very slow first 5km) were 51’24 (3’11.5/km, 5’08/M). This is actually right on pace for what I wanted to run for the whole race. Obviously it was run very poorly and unevenly, but still nice to know.

I had said before the race that running goal marathon pace (~67’20-30) for the whole race would have been a great day, so having averaged that pace for 10 miles is not too bad. I have to take this race in the context that I had a pretty serious injury 3 weeks ago and could barely walk and couldn’t run for an entire week after that. I also take this in the context of having run 140+ miles this week.

Most importantly, I finished this run with no problems in the left hamstring and even now (a day later), I am generally a bit sore, but no acute problems. Being able to go from no running at all to injury-free and running 20+ miles per day is a huge step in the right direction.

So, all in all, despite being a very slow time, this was not so bad. Maybe a “B/B+” workout.

I felt pretty much fine after the race and did a long cooldown with Matt and Mariana (10km in 48’).

Total run was 23M+.

Splits (from garmin):

1 km (3’22.4) 03’22.4
2 km (3’33.5) 06’55.9
3 km (3’41.0) 10’36.9
4 km (3’36.5) 14’13.4
5 km (3’26.1) 17’39.5 – (17’39.5)
6 km (3’05.9) 20’45.4
7 km (3’08.5) 23’53.9
8 km (2’58.0) 26’51.9
9 km (3’03.1) 29’55.0
10 km (3’01.0) 32’56.0 – (15’16.5)
11 km (3’17.2) 36’13.2
12 km (3’24.4) 39’37.6
13 km (3’22.6) 43’00.2
14 km (3’16.3) 46’16.5
15 km (3’17.0) 49’33.5 – (16’37.5)
16 km (3’19.5) 52’53.0
17 km (3’13.4) 56’06.4
18 km (3’11.5) 59’17.9
19 km (3’19.2) 02’37.1
20 km (3’22.9) 06’00.0 – (16’26.5)
21 km (3’03.9) 09’03.9
21.18 km (0’26.0) 09’29.9

5pm: Long drive back from VA Beach. Pretty stiff after. Took a nap and then jogged easy around Crystal City. Total run 3M+.

XT: Core, 12’