Mon - 7 miles easy
Tue - 8.5 miles including 4X90 sec on/off
Wed - 10.5 miles steady
Thu - 6.5 miles easy
Fri - 10.5 miles including 5/10/5 min at tempo with 3 min recovery
Sat - 6 miles easy
Sun - 15 miles steady with a faster finish
Total: 64 miles
My first week of "real" training went about as well as I could have hoped for. Obviously my workouts were on the light side, but the point was just to see how my body would respond, and the feedback I got was favorable across the board. In other words, the pace was slow but better than I thought it would be, it wasn't as rough as I feared it would be, and I didn't have any aches/pains during or after. I've already blogged about my Tuesday and Wednesday runs, so I'll move on to the other two bigger runs of the week, the Friday workout and Sunday long run.
Friday went pretty well. I felt good at times and a little rough at others, but all in all I accomplished what I set out to. I was going 5:40's and 50's in the faster sections and for the most part felt under control. The easy run the next day felt fine aside from a little quad soreness and the cold, windy conditions. Of course that run wasn't ideal as I did it in Beckley, WV, and wound up running the first 1.25 miles downhill before doing an out-and-back on the rail trail and then heading back up the hill to finish. Regardless, Sunday's run was VERY solid. I felt a little sluggish early but by 7 miles I got rolling pretty good and then just went into a zone. I was knocking out miles in the 6:30's and 40's and feeling great. In fact, I just wanted to drop the hammer, but fortunately I had enough sense to keep it under control for the most part. I finally let myself go a little in the 14th mile and hit it in 6:14, still feeling like I was holding something back. I purposefully slowed the last mile down and still went 6:36. I felt very strong all the way to the end and it was great to close out the run that way. I want to start doing that more often in my long runs. I remember when I was doing a lot of my long runs with guys like Mike Cox and George Probst that I would sometimes wonder if I was gonna finish based on how the pace was throughout, and while it left me a little wiped out at times, that's also when I did some of my best racing. You just get strong as an ox and tough as nails.
Anyway, week 5 is in the books and I know I've made a ton of progress since starting back. A few weeks ago I was struggling to run 7:20 pace and was wondering if I'd just gotten old and wouldn't ever be able to run worth a hoot again. Now I know that all I have to do is be smart and stay healthy and it will all come back. I'm excited about my running for the first time in a long time and it's a good feeling. This week will be another week of easier type workouts as I continue to get my legs under me and prepare for the real work to come. Hopefully all the snow and ice that's being forecasted won't interfere too much.
I'll conclude with a big shout out to Jason Pyles who just flat out rolled down in Austin, TX, at the 3M Half Marathon this past weekend. He ran a very even-paced race and nailed down a big PR of 1:07:47, good for 14th overall and 3rd American. Performances like that just get me psyched up. Way to get it done, man! It's gonna be a fun spring!
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