Week Overview.

Monday: track workout( 200,400,600,800 X2...then 200x4) 7.6 miles
Tuesday: Surgery...2 mile bike ride
Wednesday: 20 mile bike ride (trails) 1.9 mile easy jog.
Thursday: Tempo road run but took it a little esay as I was still re-couping from surgery. I decided to stay off the trails and try to work a bit on 10k speed training.
In the beginning I thought about running a double 3.2 loop but after the first mile decided to shorten it up.This is what I thought for sure was a 5 mile loop with a good amount of hills but it ended up at 4.7 on the garmen ( the Nano only read 4.5 miles??).
4.7 miles...av HR 147..max167
splits:
8:17...147-158
8:06...153-160
7:51...153-159
7:57...155-167(baston road hills)
7:25...158-164(kick@10.7mph)

After kicking I went right into the cooldown run and went an additional 1.25 miles
@9:28 pace...138-145 heart rate.

I was feeling pretty tired with this run and a little discouraged as I felt I should be able to kick off a 5 miler at much faster pace.

I took Friday off because it was raining pretty heavy, I was still feeling tired and I was toying with the idea of running a 5k or 10k race on Saturday. There was one in Freeport that had both distances and incorporated A bit of some trail runing. It seemed like a good chance to see how my speed was doing.

06/20/09
Saturday.

I woke up at about 6am which gave me plenty of time to get ready for the race in Freeport. I have run the 5k there before but hadn't yet had the chance to run the 10k. In my mind I could vision a pretty fast 10k and the means to guage where my road race training base is.

Problem is, I just didn't feel like racing and I didn't feel like running on the road. My mind flippped back and forth a million times and finally I setted on running the Bradbury East side trails for an hour or two.

I knew it would probably be a bit wet but I just felt drawn to the fact of trail running, working on core and getting a long run in at the same time. So off to Bradbury I drove.

I arrived at about 7:15 and parked At the church because the park was not open yet. Last year when we started early we parked off to the side of the gate, but I remembered the trail monsters talking about new management and didn't want to chance pissing them off.

Because I parked at the church which is down the road a bit, I hit an outcrop of the trail near there. It was uphill and I found a river running towrd me with huge patches of standing water totally encompassing the trail. It was certain that this would be a wet run.

The first mile was pretty slow but then things got much better and most of the trails were not too bad. There were many patches of greasy mud which I was very careful with and an occasional large puddle. Nothing really muddy though except for a rare sinkhole trying to steal my shoe right off my foot.

At first the thought still crossed my mind to pack it up after a few miles and head to freeport for the race which was not until 9:00, but I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind as I started really enjoying the run.

There is something about the twisty trails at Bradbury East that draws me in....I think even in the mucky rain conditions, it is my favorite trail. The garmen was reading way off as the tree cover and cloud cover hampers it....I know for sure I didn't run a 22 minute mile....which the Garmen showed in mile two.

So as usual I had to estimate my miles, the garmen only read 7 miles after an hour and a half and knew that had to be way off. By the time I stopped and checked the Nano, 1:46:13 had passed and it read 10.6 miles.

The nano is calibrated for roads and though it is quite acurate on the road, it is not on the trails because of the shorter stride length. I setted on 9.6 miles as the nano is usually about a mile off for a ten mile run.

Who knows...perhaps I did only run 7 miles, but it sure felt like 10. What I can say for sure is that the run was a great workout on the whole body and a nice break for the mind. I kicked off an easy cooldown half miler then headed back to the truck.

The timing was perfect to stop at the park gate and purchase my season's pass for the year. I left bradbury feeling satisfied with my workout and not at all disappointed with my decision not to race today.

When I got home a few laps in the pool worked as a great way to refresh myself for the day.

Total miles (I think) 9.6 miles 1:46:13(11:04 pace) 143-160 heartrate.

06/21/09
Sunday

I thought this was going to be a rest day but all the kids showed up and we ended up playing whoofle ball for hours and hours. What fun and we even incorporate some swimming into the game. usually in the pool is an automatic double but we decided if one could jump and grab the ball before it hit the water it would be an out.....well we got a lot of outs that way and the water was quite refreshing!

I think we played a bit too long as the score ended up 43 to 38 .....I am not sure how many innings...but it was a lot.

06/22/09
Monday


Feeling quite lame today.....almost like I ran a 50k or something! I wonder how to translate whoofle ball innings to miles?