experienced some difficulties

Wed, 9/12/18

I was supposed to do an hourlong run, but I managed only 40-something minutes since I was running late and experienced some difficulties with my watch; I needed a few extra minutes to charge it.

I took the YMCA to East Amwell to South Triangle to Triangle to TMCA route. 5.75M in 43:00. 7:29/mile pace. Began at 8:00 pace and went progressively faster, with last mile in about 7:10.

Tues, 9/11/18

On tap today was 6 x 2:00 at 5K goal pace with a 2-min jog recovery between efforts. My goal is sub 18:00, about 5:47 or less/mile.  At this pace, I should have covered about 550-560 meters per repeat. (42 seconds per 200 meters)

#1: 570 meters

#2: 575 meters  

#3: 575 

#4: 575

#5: 580  

#6: 580 

#7: 590 

#8: 600 meters in 1:56

To keep myself honest, I used my new Garmin watch, which measured the distance run perfectly. Perhaps more importantly, I did not stop my watch after each rep. Instead I kept it going so that my two minutes of running and two minutes of rest were equal. Thus, I started each 600 run every four minutes: 0:00, 4:00, 8:00, 12:00, etc. 

did the trick

Sept. 9, 2018-

On this soggy, cool day I scheduled myself for 15x1 min up a shallow hill; walk back down recovery. I went to the ridge at Colonial Park. 

I arrived at the Millstone entrance to D&R Canal State Park. It was still drizzling as I jogged 1.48M (12:45, or about 8:37 per mile pace) to the site (pavilion) in Colonial as my warmup.

Starting at the portion of the sidewalk (that leads to the pavilion) closet to the park marker (near where the sidewalk intersects with the parking lot), I made my way up the soggy stretch of glass to the tree line. My 60-sec runs ranged between .30km (300m) and .30km (310m). or about .19M. Per the instructions, I walked back down to the origin, for a generous rest of 3 minutes, 30 seconds (30 seconds less rest than last month's 10x1 min effort).

Now that I am blogging, I realized I may have run only 14 hills, not 15. I covered 5.36M of hills, including up and down. At .19M a stretch (or .38M per loop), the total humber of hills would be 14.

Hourlong workout.

Talk about swamp foot!

I cooled down the same way I warmed up...1.48M (11:15, or 7:56 per mile pace).

Moderate workout.

Sat, 9/8/18-

Went to my alma mater to join my daughter in competing in the Alumni vs. Students XC meet. The day was less humid but quite soggy. The temperature at meet time was about 65 degrees.

At about 25, there were fewer alums than expected.

The course was challenging and muddy! In fact, as soon as I started sloshing I realized this was going  to be more of tempo run. The hill coming up from Crum meadow was difficult (I know my first mile was about 6:20), but the left turn towards the overpass and the stretch past Dana, Hallowell, and Wharton towards Parrish took a lot out of me.

Mile two ended right before the tunnel, although the official marker (2.19) could be found right before entering the Crum again (probably for convenience?).

I finished up the 3.13M course in just under 20:00 in 19:59. At 6:23/mile, each mile was within five seconds of each other.

I had a good time after the race. Food (hoagies and pizza), folks (family, alums, current students), and fun (beer and recognitions) did the trick.

I went for an avg

Fri, 9/7/18-took off

Thurs-9/6/18

route: from Y...to New Amwell...to Auten...to Amwell...to back to Y. 4.2 in 30:20. 7:13 pace.



Wed, 9/5/18

I had a 60-minute run scheduled for this humid morning. I arrived at Pingry at 6:30AM for this soggy effort. I'd use campus-side Mountain Park in Basking Ridge. The outer loop there is 1.27M. I went for an avg of 9:30 per loop.

.75M from athletic center entrance to walkway of park (6:00)...8:00/M pace
loop 1: 1.27M/2.02M...15:40 (9:40)....7:36/M pace
loop 2: 1.27M/3.29M...(9:30)...7:29/M pace 
loop 3: 1.27M/4.56M...(9:25)...7:25/M pace 
loop 4: 1.27M/5.83M...(9:25)...7:25/M pace
loop 5: 1.27M/7.1M  (9:15)... 7:17/M pace
.75M to the athletic center entrance...7.85M...57:45 (4:30)...6:00/M pace for last .75M

 7.85M in 57:45 exactly. 7:21/M pace

From the Facebook Vault

Here are a couple of workouts I'd love to try. Someone posted this set of final workouts before heading to Worlds in Malaga. It appears as originally written from the Facebook vault:

Tuesday was 2 x 4 min at 5:30 mile pace with 1 min recovery then 3 x 3 min at about 78 sec quarters pace with 2 min recovery and then 4 x 1 min at 67-68 sec pace with 2 min recovery. I struggled a little with the transition to the faster paces as I think my legs were still tired from last week.

Saturday: final tune up before Worlds. 4 x mile with 90 sec rest on the track. Goal was to start out relatively comfortable and then drop my pace on each one to where the last was sort of fast. Goal was 5:45, 5:40, 5:35, 5:25. Again, my legs didn't have a ton of zip and I had some negative thoughts going through my head, but it's amazing how you can grind through a workout when you are in good shape. Actual splits 5:43, 5:37, 5:33, and 5:24. Went into the well a little bit on the last one, closing with a 78 sec quarter.

It's hard to believe that Worlds are just around the corner. A little over a year ago, I started putting my plan together to start slowly building up in order to compete at 1500 to 5000 instead of 800/1500 that I had done previously. My hat goes off to those of you that can hammer fast reps to prepare for the 800, but I seemed to get injured doing that. So I'm feeling very fortunate to have found a training program that seems to work for me as I've been able to train all year with only a couple small hiccups along the way. This forum has been very helpful in keeping me motivated through the process and as a result I'm as fit as I've ever been in my masters career. Thank you. Steeple on the 7th, 5000 on the 12th and 1500 prelims on the 15th and hopefully 1500 finals on the 16th.

The pace was supposed to be 3K

Tues, 9/4-Made my way to Pingry's track on this early morning in 74-degree humid weather to do three (3) sets of four (4) 300s, with 100 meter jog recovery (1:00) between efforts and 3:00 between sets.  The pace was supposed to be 3K.  

Set 1: 57, 58, 58, 58 (5:15-:20/mile pace)
Set 2: 56, 57, 56, 56 (5:05-:15/mile pace)
Set 3: 53, 53, 54, 51 (4:35-4:45/mile pace)

October of last year...Set 1: 66, 60, 60, 59 (5:18-:22/mile pace)
Set 2: 56, 56, 57, 56 (5:05-:15/mile pace)
Set 3: 53, 52, 51, 53 (4:35-4:45/mile pace)

Then ran some more

9/3-

Went to Duke Island Park with V today. Ran 1.47M with her, then walked .25M, then ran .5M, then walked .25M, then ran some more. As V made her way back to the car, I decided to run the rest of the loop at "easy 30-min run pace". I took the remaining 1.35 in 9:56, o5 7:21/mile pace.

Felt like an easy 75 minutes

Sun, 9/2

Felt like an easy 75 minutes (Duke Island Park, low 70s, misty and rainy)

(@1.47M...11:40) during this initial stretch my pace was...7:56 pace
(@4.31M...33:40) from 1.47M to 4.31M my pace was...7:45 pace
(@5.78M...44:50) from 4.31M to 5.78M my pace was...7:36 pace
(@8.62M...64:45) from 5.78M to 8.62M my pace was...7:00 pace
(@10.11M...74:40) from 8.62M to 10.11M my pace was in 6:39, with 8.62M to 9.62M in 6:55 and the last .49M in 3:00)

10.11M in 74:40 (overall 7:23/mile pace)

Felt good!


Saturday, 9/1-Rest day