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Week 99
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Greetings 50+ers for this last weekend in April. Glad to be posting on the upswing from what has been a terrible month for allergies. Yesterday was the first morning where I’d gotten a full night’s sleep and wasn’t hacking and wheezing by daybreak. Did some lawn work and went for a long run Saturday, and did have a cough attack in the middle of the night last night, so I’m not quit out of the woods, but getting there. With the persistent congestion and all the other turmoil that has gone on, I’ve not felt much like racing, but I did finally get a decent week of training in. Managed about 47 miles on eight runs; the log reads as such:
Sun: 5.2 w/3 on grass @6:40 pace (in Memphis on Mud Island)
Mon: 10.0 (4.1 am, 5.9 pm); mostly easy, but a couple in the mid-6’s + post-run.
Tue: 5.3 easy + upper
Wed: 5.4 w/8x(1 lap, ½ lap recovery) & 4x½ lap
Thur: 8.2 easy w/5.6 on grass + post-run
Fri: 4.3 w/3 tempo@18:32
Sat: 8.4 moderate (1 hour even) + post-run
With the reduction in phlegm over the week, the 3 miles on Friday felt easier than the 3 miles on Sunday. While Sunday’s was on grass, it was very flat with good footing, so it should have been pretty fast, but I was awfully congested. Wednesday’s workout was about the same as last week. Saturday was a good run, started out in the mid-7’s and work my way down to the 6:4x range for a few miles before easing up at the end. I did start to cramp up a bit after mile 6, though. I probably should have run easier, given Friday’s tempo, but it felt so good not to be congested.
I know that I’ve slacked off terribly over the past month with the ancillary work. When I do a stretch like this,
http://www.freestylefootbag.com/lateral.jpg
, I can really feel it in the hip where I’ve been experiencing problems. I really need to get my back to loosen up; I’m sure it comes back to sitting posture when I’m not running; I confess that I am a lazy sitter….this has gotta change.
In other random (old) news:
I guess I had read it briefly, but didn’t really internalize the 1:11:32 time. How other-worldly was Martin Rees’ demolition of 60+ half-marathon WR?
http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/Martin-Rees-world-record-run-encapsulates-Bath/story-18325260-detail/story.html#axzz2RljBHQJt
Also, I was cajoled into visiting beermile.com and noticed that Tony Young and some of his training mates up in the Northwest had run a pretty remarkable beer mile last fall,
http://www.beermile.com/display/event_5695
. I think Tony’s been holding out on us, as I didn’t see any mention of it back in October on the MWRR thread. ;-) If you click on the “official race site”, it’ll take you to a video of the whole event. I guess it’s not listed as an official record….what were the cited violations?
Cavorty, I meant to mention that those are some pretty rugged training weeks. I think that I’d be hard-pressed to duplicate those efforts (and I do mean efforts, not times. The times would be out of the question. And especially without a training partner.) When McMillan sent you plans was there an interview process? How did they select this set of workouts? Was age factored in? Did they discuss gauging your recovery? Just curious.
OK, so progress this week, but still not where I thought I’d be. Hope you’ve had a great week!