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Week 53
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I'll bump us for the week, starting off the 2nd year of this thread! Thanks to everyone for keeping this experiment going. I've greatly appreciated your all's advice and encouragement, and I've enjoyed your stories, that have allowed us share in your journeys.
It was a pretty anemic week for me, as I only managed to log about 27 miles. Too much traveling, too much eating, some resting from a semi-serious niggle, and not enough training, but it'll all work out, I'm sure. My weekly training log looks as such:
Sun: 0 (drove ALL day!)
Mon: 3.1 easy
Tue: 5 w/4@6:33 pace
Wed: 5.5 w/ 6x1 lap,4x1/2 lap (1/2 lap recovery) on this weird 4 lap=1500m track.
Thu: 0 (more driving!)
Fri: 7 w/5 moderate stepdown 7:20 -> 6:40
Sat: 6 w/5k@18:17
Notes:
1) Sunday was the return day from our excursion to Iowa. I was also still nursing that sore hip flexor that I was worried would become a bigger issue. I think that the forced rest in the car help me from doing more damage, and I felt strong enough to test it Monday, then give it a moderate tempo on Tuesday. Once I cleared that, I felt comfortable moving back to normal training.
2) Wednesday's track workout was faster (but fewer) compared to the repeats of week's past. We averaged 77.3s for the 6 laps (add 5.1 s to compare to 400m times) done with 1/2 lap jog recovery. Even with the jog recovery, we finished the ~2 miles of repeats and recovery (8-1/2 laps total) in 12:36. We then did 4x1/2 lap averaging 35s, with a straigh-away walk, curve jog recovery. Hip felt great, so I was pleased with the workout.
3) Thursday, my wife and I had the honor and privilege to join my good friend in Dayton, OH, to celebrate his retirement as a Colonel from the US Air Force. It was a 3-hour drive each way, and the ceremony was followed by lovely all-afternoon reception at his family's home. By the time we returned to Lexington, we were absolutely beat. If I were MikeF and had a 500-day streak on the line, I probably would have mustered up the energy to log a few miles....but I'm not, and I don't, so I didn't.
4) On Friday, I hedged my bets a little, knowing that the weekend was going to be beautiful weather for a race....and if the spirit struck me I would want to run. So I cut my run short, but gave it a bit of zip...certainly not enough to wipe me out, though.
5) So Saturday comes, it's right around 50 degrees and calm, and although I knew I wasn't really race ready, I couldn't turn down conditions like that in the month of June in the mid-south; I had to get out and see my buddies and race on such a gorgeous day. I weighed myself before the race, and I'm up 3-4 pounds from prior to our trip to Iowa...amazing what a week of sitting around and eating too much can do. So I really didn't have very good expectations. I thought I'd be lucky to break 18:40, especially after I learned that the third mile of the course is pretty much all up hill. It's a T-shaped course, where they manage to make the 2-mile mark the lowest point on the course. There were about 600 participants (half of which are really walkers) in this popular charity event. I saw a few people that I knew would be very fast, so I figured to settle in somewhere behind them. Between the downhill, and not wanting to lose sight of the leaders too quickly, I came through the mile at 5:42 (the leaders were already 30+s ahead). By this point, we were pretty much already well spread out and I was running behind the two really fast guys (one who is a very good 41 yo) and a string of four fast-ish 20-somethings, but there was quite a gap behind me and the rest of the participants. I tried to keep it even on the rollercoaster second mile, coming through 2 miles at 11:33 (5:51 split), knowing that the third mile would be a bear. I lost a bit of ground to the guys in front of me, but I feared blowing up on the uphill, conscious of the extra weight I'd put on. The third mile was tough, I gritted it out, and actually gained some on one of the 20-somethings who started to fade on the last mile. It was still slow, as I hit the three mile mark in 17:43 (6:10 split), but I'd made up about 10s on the guy in front of me. I didn't feel that I'd given it my all going into the chute, but I felt the 18:17 was respectable enough considering where I'd been a week ago. The post-race replenishments were excellent, along with the usual recovery drinks, bananas and oranges, they also had rolls and bagels from Panera's and some sausage sandwiches (OK, I had to try one...although I shouldn't have) and most people stayed throughout the awards, which was nice.
So where am I at this stage of the summer? I feel pretty fit aerobically and my leg strength is good (not great), especially after the hip scare last week. Leg turnover is coming around and will just need some fine tuning. But if I want to recapture any of where I was two summer's ago, I have to lose some weight. At 165 lbs, I'm 9 lbs over where I was at that time. If the 2s/mile/lb rule holds, I'm actually in pretty good shape on the other fronts. So that is my one big goal for the month of June, to lose 2-3 lbs/week and get back to some semblance of race weight (even then, I'm probably over optimal) for the 10k race on the 4th of July.
Masterstrack.com reports (although I've not seen it officially, yet) that Tony Whiteman has become the first masters runner to break the 4-minute mile barrier since Eamonn Coghlan's famous indoor sub-4 in 1994. Also, props to Marie-Louise Michelsohn (age 70) on her 46:38.50 10k age-group world record. Anyone else have some racing news to report?
Just want to remind everyone on this anniversary of this particular thread, that this is an open forum on running and racing past the half-century mark, so I invite all that have been lurking on the thread and are interested in such discussions to pipe in and tell us what is on your mind; join in the discussion and tell us your journey.
Cheers to one and all!