Week of the St. Pat Day 10k

I am taking a break this week from the track and "racing" a 10k this Saturday. The 10k will be a hard tempo effort goal to go sub 34 without much effort.

Monday (0 miles) Took today off so that I could study and recover from the previous weekend. I put in a 14 miler on Sunday so I don't really need to loosen up too much after the race for this Tuesday's workout.

Tuesday (8 miles) In the early early and dark AM I headed out for a track session at UCSD. 1.5 Warm up to the track and then 1 mile of Bowerman Strides. The session was 3 x mile with 400m rest with the milers done at date 5k pace. I went 5:00 - 5:02 - 4:58 which would be a 15:37.5 5k or 6.5 seconds faster than I clocked on Saturday. Then headed out on the 1.5 mile cool down. AM session is ~ 8 miles.

Wednesday (10 miles) Went out to Lake Murray, ran 7 miles at base pace. That's all that really went down there. In the evening I headed up to the gym and did my strength routine and then hopped on the bike and put in 10 miles plus a few on the treadmill to loosen up.

Thursday (9.25 miles) Went out to MB and headed out on a 8.2 mile out and back. Today's workout was a 4 mile steady state run. So I knocked off 6:30-6:45's for the first 4.1 miles. I started to throw down on the second half and average 5:25's. I felt relaxed for almost the entire run with the exception of the final half mile or so because I began to push it. Headed out on an easy mile cool down before heading home.

Friday (10 miles) Went over to Lake Murray and put in a 10miler and then did some strides. I felt a little tired towards the end, but that's probably just from yesterdays tempo effort. Laced up the flats and did 4 x 150m strides feeling pretty good. For those of you who done follow NCAA DI Track I am sorry for you since Day One of the indoor Nat's was amazing. Here is the recap, check out Flotrack.org for Day Two recap as well.

Saturday (15 miles) Didn't get much sleep last night due to some extreme raging parties that were going on. I woke up at 6:30 feeling pretty beat. Got to the race, registered and then did a 3 mile warm up. I headed over to the line, laced up flats, and headed out. According to my watch which may not be accurate since they said (5:01 when mine said 5:05 but oh well), here are my splits. 5:05, 5:22 (10:27), 5:30 (15:57), 5:39 (21:36), 5:41 (27:17), 5:32 (32:49), 1:01 (33:50ish). I then headed out for a nice cool down of around 2.5 miles. I didn't actually see the 5k split, but I interpolated from my 3 mile time and the 5k splits work out to 16:29-16:55 or 5:19 - 5:30 pace. Which given the fact that today was just a long tempo is a good result I think. Especially given the first mile. In the evening I went out and did 10 miles on the bike or ~ 3 miles of running. This gives  me 15 for the day, I'd say a good day indeed. Here are a few pictures from the day.

Before Mile One on Fiesta Island

The Finish : James and myself (check out the link to his blog)

Finally, I have decent stride mechanics!!!!!

 Sunday (20 miles) Today was a long run day out near CSUSM with Sergio, Kloz and Morgan. The first mile was pedestrian at 7:15 ran but after that Sergio and I got rolling and started knocking off mid-low 6's. I Google map pedometer my route to be 14.98 which I ran in 1h 30m which means I averaged low 6 minutes for the run. Afterwards I did some drills and them added on about a half mile with Kloz so that we wouldn't tighten up. At this point I am at 67.75 miles for the week. Will add on a small shake out later to breach the 70 mile barrier. Ended up adding on a good 4.5 miles. making today a whopping 20 mile day!

Mileage Total : 72.25

Summary : not a true 70+ week since a few of my secondary "runs" were done on a bike, but still a very good week. Progress is being made.