Training February 15 to 21, 2016

Monday AM valley spofford 6 mile solo, 0 degrees a bit cold for Uta,  41:45.
               3PM road 10, first 6 with Uta in 43 mins then solo for 4, 69mins total time.  Low back was tweaked a bit after AM run- weird it has been great for almost 2 years.
               5PM Bikram yoga, 90mins hot yoga, skipped sit ups and was careful on forward bends. Back felt much improved after.


Tuesday AM 6 miles, valley spofford loop, with Uta, in around 45mins- Uta just wanted to shuffle along- she is usually less bouncy when Melissa and I are around the house all day for a few days.
                PM 3.1 warm up, strides with jog back.  I actually timed these strides and was shocked that they were around 20 seconds.  I kinda assumed my strides off the track were always short.  Seems maybe they are always long.  By this point it was raining pretty hard and I was having a hard time staying warm.  That combined with how poorly my last two hard sessions had gone had me feeling very nervous.  Moneghetti Fartlek around glendale loop- covered 3.89 miles, 5:07 pace.  Huge improvement from last weeks abysmal 3.80.  Honestly I was hoping for 3.85 so this was real nice.3.1 cool down

Wednesday AM 18.2 miles, same loop as Sunday.  Worlds of improvement. 1:55:26.  Felt pretty good. Calves shredded.  Struggled to toe off well after 14 or 15 miles,  Feld coordination threatening in the last mile or so.  good run.
                    PM bikram yoga, 90mins hot yoga, put the back to rest.

Thursday AM valley spofford 6 mile with Uta, 41mins, calves really shredded.
                  PM 3.1 warm up, skipping warm up, light drills, strides, 3 mile tempo run in 15:22- 5:12, 5:10, 5:09, focused on taking it a little easier and feeling strong.  Still not without some trepidation as that was the plan last Saturday and I died after a 5:14 first so this was a good step in the right direction.  1min recovery then 8xhill sprint- estimating around 100m. with jog down recoveries.- all jog downs were 49 or 50 seconds all the reps were in 20 seconds except the 6th which slipped to 21.0 and the last which dipped down to 19.9. Focus on toeing off and keeping shoulders back with good power. tough to do calves very tired. 3.3 cool down, 23:45.

Friday AM valley spofford 6 mile with Uta in 44mins
             PM raliegh tavern 10, 67mins
             5PM bikram yoga, 90mins hot yoga

Saturday AM Raliegh tavern 12.2 miles in 1:19
                 PM valley spofford 6mile  solo, 41mins calves very tight still but on right side this has brought in the ITB as well.  Did a lot of foam rolling and exercises

Sunday AM 3+ warm up, skipping warm up, light drills, strides, Race USATF- NE 5k 3rd place in 14:55. 3.5 cool down in 26mins.  splits(220yard laps on this track not 200m) were very consistent- fastest was 35.4(twice), slowest was 36.8. mile- 4:48.7, 2mile- 9:34.99, 3 mile- 14:24.5

Summary 

 111 miles for the week, two decent workouts, one race. Made it to yoga 3 times thanks to being on vacation from school for the week.  

  The race;  On the positive side 14 straight years of at least one sub 15 5k race is checked off the goals for the year list, My 2016 goals . I was also happy that although the pace became hard to maintain it never felt fast.  I felt controlled and steady.  That is a much better place to work from than when you feel like you're flying and the splits tell you that you're crawling. I ran very consistently and was hurting but I didn't get a great effort out.  That is to be expected given the lack of racing and track work that I'm doing at this point in the year.  In terms of fitness I would say this is a slightly better performance for me than the Jax half and the super Sunday 5 mile.  On the downside 14:55 is pretty slow even without doing track work and I have a long way to go to get real fit.  So out the door again tomorrow and hopefully build on the consistent last couple of weeks and keep chipping away for a while.