Thursday, October 22, 2015

Training 10/19 - 10/25

Monday: 6.1 almost exclusively on trails with Alex before nightfall. Felt 'meh'. Glad I got it in.

Tuesday: 3 miles, 17:58 before coaching.

Wednesday: 0 - off. Run down! Needed the rest.

Thursday: 8.3 at 6:28 in the dark with Al. Pretty low energy today so I was glad this went as well as it did. Pretty humid!The roads /people immediately around the new apartment are sketchy and high traffic but not bad about a half mile out. It's tempting to drive out and park just to avoid the Lawrence cronyism we experienced tonight.

Friday: 0 - Off.

Saturday: 10 miles / 62 minutes morning cruise with Al. Felt good for a morning run, which is rare. Hit the old stomping grounds around Ballardvale.

Sunday: 8.5 miles with Joe in Hampton. 90% winding mountain bike trails. 69 minutes.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Recent moves

Friday: 7 miles around 6:45 pace on the treadmill listening to Jorge Torres on the run faster podcast.

Saturday: 10 miles at 5:55 pace on the rail trail in Keene after playing disc golf with my dad. Otter brook has a super nice woodsy course. This was an amazingly nice run. Perfect fall weather.

Sunday: 4 miles around 7:00s before football and family festivities.

Monday: 6.3 miles mostly on trails feeling downright depleted. Tired and a tad sore. A road run might have been smoother / more ideal. Saw some 10 minute miles in the woods.

Tuesday: 7.5 miles easy with freshmen. 7:30ish pace. Some 8-9 minute pace with some low 6 pace stuff as I moved from group to group.

Wednesday: 2+ miles with circuit work every 1/4 mile. jumping jacks, bicycles, planks, lunges, squats, burpees, flutterkicks, scissor kicks, bridges, v-ups, etc. Pretty good for a rest day.

Thursday: Off - parent-teacher conferences plus staff meeting plus MVS track committee equals no time and no energy!

Friday: 8.4 miles easy with Alex before dark.

Saturday: Off- unfortunately I ran out of time between helping my cousin-in-law to dump around 1000 pounds of demo from his kitchen project and getting down to Narragansett RI for my another cousin-in-law's wedding!

Sunday: 10 miles with Alex and Eric Narcisi mostly on trails between Ward and Harold Parker. Small roll of the ankle but perfectly fine after. I need to watch where I'm putting my feet! 79 minutes.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Fall (in)activities

This fall I took on a bit more than usual by way of duties. I'm coaching the school's first-ever cross country team and the 12-15 kids who signed up for it. On day 1, we started with 4 kids total, so to fill out scoring boys' and girls' teams was actually pretty exciting. We're young and inexperienced, and I've been thrilled to see them all running healthy and improving tremendously throughout the season. While all of that has been good, I'm realizing just how hard it is to work, coach 5-6 days/week and fit in my own training. I've been running here and there, but at maybe 30% the volume of years past. Lingering viruses and the ilk have also kept my running a bit subdued.

Team Whirlaway ran at the Wayland XC festival this weekend and I definitely didn't feel ready to toe the line and run anywhere close to sub-6 minute pace, so I didn't join them. But then on Saturday night I had a ridiculously good run which has me surprisingly thinking about racing. It was one of those once-a-year,-I-feel-amazing,-just-shrug-and-go-with-it kinds of runs. The temperature was an ideal 50 degrees and the rail trail heading northwest out of Keene was in better shape than I've ever seen it. The trail gradually climbs all the way out of town so the farther you run, the more downhill you can count on for the return trip. I got to 5 miles out in around 31:30 and decided to try to keep a good ryhthm on the way back, rolling 5:42, 5:47 (decent hill and rougher footing), 5:17, which shocked me and at the time I decided the GPS was confused, 5:27 and 5:27 back to the car. Looking at it now, my last 5 miles were 27:40, or 12-ish seconds slower than I raced for 5 miles at the GP event in late summer. That's just silly! In any case, this run gave me hope that I haven't lost tons of fitness. It also helped me realize that I could probably race and have some fun with it even if I'm running only 3-4 days a week. Perhaps this was the glimmer that I need to get back on the horse? We'll see..