AHHHH!!!! 11 Weeks till Patriot's Day!

When I started my training plan a week ago, I thought 12 weeks was an eternity.  Wow, that week flashed before my eyes and was gone in a snap.  But, that said, it was a very good week of training.  Having setup my training plan with some very specific paces, one thing that I must do during this training cycle is focus on each workout individually.  I've found that if I'm too busy looking at the big picture, I lose focus on the individual pieces that make that big picture.

Monday kicked things off with a little speed session at the track.  It seems like forever since I've been on the track doing work and it was painfully obvious in the first segment of the workout.  I did what I'll call a pyramid workout.  After a warm-up, I did 400, 800, 1200, 1200, 800, 400 a 400 recovery jog between each segment.  Wow, this was tough, but I stayed after it and was very close on all my paces.  This was a nice way to build some confidence. The next time I do this workout, I'll be adding the 1600's for the additional distance.

		Pace	Actual
Distance
400		1:24-1:29	1:24/1:33
800		2:57-3:05	3:03/3:09
1200		4:31-4:46	4:38/4:38
1600		6:16-6:27

Tuesday was to be a nice, easy run following the track session.  I was a bit sore, but expected that and thought I was taking my time.  After a couple of miles to loosen up, I thought I'd run the remainder around 7:30 pace.  Well, much to my surprise, I was cruising a good bit faster.  I finished the run with just over 7 miles at 7:22 pace, the last 4 miles all below 7:15.  So much for a nice easy one.......

Wednesday was scheduled to be another faster run.  6 miles total with 4 of those at marathon pace (6:49).  NAILED IT!  The first two to loosen up and then dropping it to average 6:34 for the next 4 miles.  This was very 'uncomfortable', as it was supposed to be.  I'm going to try to get outside my comfort zone a lot more during this cycle.  There's only two ways to get faster, right?  Run fast and run fast uphill.  

Thursday, early on in this training cycle, is to be a rest day and a travel day.  As my mileage climbs higher, it will serve as an opportunity to get those extra miles at a recovery pace.  Luckily, this week it was indeed a rest day.    

Friday is turning into an 'acclimation' day.  During the week, I'm fortunate enough to have 70+ degree temps and the only signs of winter are all the seniors clogging up restaurants and traffic.  Geez people, get out the way!!!  That said, on Friday, I'm re-acclimating to winter in Tennessee.  Luckily on Friday, it was 45 degrees and I knocked down an easy 9 miles.  

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't as good on Saturday morning for the long run.  24 degrees at 6:30 a.m. for the start of 18 miles.  Jenifer and I did something that I'm typically not very good at on these long runs, we took it easy.  18 miles at 8:15 pace made for a great first long run.

Sunday I decided to sleep-in.  And by sleep-in, I mean 11:00 a.m. wake up.  Not the brightest thing I've done lately.  I know that when I sleep late, my motivation on a run suffers dramatically.  Add to that it was raining and wasn't going to stop.  I needed 9 miles and headed to the gym to get on the treadmill. A 3 mile death march into this run and I felt like the girl below.  I just wish someone would have punched me in the face and gotten it over with.  I called it a day, grabbed a shower and some lunch, then packed to head back to SoFlo.



Overall, this was a really good week to start off the training cycle.  I finished with just over 50 miles for the week and a couple of really good, faster runs.  I failed on Sunday, but as I stated earlier, I'm trying to focus on each individual workout.  That one is done and I'm on to the next one. 11 weeks till Patriot's Day.

Oh, lastly and most importantly.  WELCOME TO BASEBALL SEASON!!!