Training January 16 to 22, 2017

Monday AM boxford 10 mile with Uta, 1:07:55
               late AM few drills and massage with Anna
               PM road 4 solo, 28:31

Tuesday AM road 4.1 with Uta, 30:19
               PM 3 warm up, drills- a skip, b skip, a+c skip, fast exchange, side 1, side 2 and karaoka, fast exchange 3 with 3 hops, hopping, strides, Moneghetti Fartlek covered 3.7 miles- 0.05 more than last time so an improvement.   I dodged a bullet on this one it was supposed to be sleet and freezing rain but it arrived late so it just started to drizzle as I started the fartlek and it was just getting going good over my last few efforts.  It was a cold 3.6 mile cool down to the house but two weeks ago the whole thing was in a driving cold rain so this was a nice improvement.

I should also note that I'm using a garmin now to measure in the past I used online mapping.  For the most part this hasn't changed anything pretty much everything is within a 1/10th a mile up or down from what the other measure said.  That said on the loop I use for the Moneghetti the garmin is consistently .15 shorter.  So on the computer this was 3.85.  This is unimportant except for comparison to when I have done Mona's on this loop in the past.  For perspective I was quite fit at this point last winter and was covering 3.9 to 4.1 miles pretty consistently on this loop per computer measurement.  So seeing 3.7 could be pretty frustrating as 3/10ths of a mile is a LOT of distance over only 20mins.  It is the difference between 5:24 per mile and 5:00 per mile.  Realizing that really I'm only running 1/10th to 0.15 less than last year is important in that I don't panic and think I'm in abysmal shape and not making progress.

 I must stress it doesn't matter what matters is the effort for the workout and for tracking training what matters is the comparison to past results.  IE you don't need to measure the loop at all you could just keep track of landmarks telling you how far you get.  For me I know if I finish past Mt. Vernon street I'm killing it.
  For the type A folks among you who need to know which is more accurate I would guess the garmin.  This loop is pretty hilly and based on my race times last winter while I was doing this loop regularly the performances lined up with being able to do a 4 mile Mona on the perfect flat but not over rolling hills.  To be honest in measurements I only trust a USATF cert. over the top steel tape and the full nine yards type thing I few everything else as ballpark.  That said the technology today has made the ballpark much much smaller.

Mona rates this fartlek a "would you please just shut up and run."

Wednesday Off day- semi planned.  Been right on the edge with training and work and this week has been a bit over the top at work, pretty much 10 hours every day in the building not counting 'homework'. So figured I'd take a day, either today or Friday

Thursday AM road 4 with Uta, 31:17, felt very flat after a day off 

                 PM  off, got home very late and it was Melissa's Birthday so no time to run.

Friday PM 3.5 with Uta then 12x12 second hills with jog down recoveries. Not a good day for volume but very happy to squeeze this session in.

Saturday AM road 7.2 with Uta, 47:21, 40 degrees sunny felt spring like.
                PM boxford 10 mile loop, 1:06:04, very warm 50 or so ran in shorts!

Sunday AM warm up with Ruben, drills, bunch of strides, one 27 second effort, race GBTC invite 2 mile, 7th place 9:15.91.  I was very pleasantly surprised by this one.  I though 9:20 was the absolute best I could hope for.  I planned to try and run 35 laps as long as I could.  Instead I was consistently a shade under and it felt very easy/smooth.  I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop but it didn't I ran hard the last 800 but I really feel like I could have run a second a lap faster just by being more aggressive. I really haven't done much work so this was really nice. 5.2 cool down with a group.

pic from Sunday by Mike Giberti showing me looking about as good form wise as I ever have.

Summary 66 or so miles for the week, 1 good workout, 1 moderate session, 1 race.  Not a great week volume wise but I hit the stuff that mattered so I'm happy with it.  Hope your training is going well.