Training Summary: 9/2 - 9/8 and 9/9 - 9/15

Mon: AM – 7 miles; PM – 3.5 miles, including bear siting (ha)
Tue: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 8 miles, including strides and drills
Wed: 10.5 miles, including Aerobic Threshold workout
Thu: 6.5 miles
Fri: AM – 4 miles; PM – 9.5 miles, including Turnover workout
Sat: 6.5 miles
Sun: 15 miles with a fast finish
Total: 75 miles

Mon: 9.5 miles
Tue: 10.5 miles
Wed: 7.5 miles
Thu: 6.5 miles
Fri: 5 miles
Sat: 6 miles
Sun: 15 miles
Total: 60 miles

I’m back from a week in San Diego and ready to get a lot of things back on track, including my blog. Since I’m posting two weeks of training instead of just one, I’ll keep the commentary to a minimum and just do a brief paragraph on each week.

The first week (two weeks ago) was a pretty solid week. I had to structure it a little different than what would have been optimal, but it turned out ok. The Wednesday workout was encouraging because it was the third week in a row where I was able to run more volume at my aerobic threshold effort while increasing the pace and having it feel more comfortable. The Friday turnover workout didn’t go too well, but I was tired from traveling throughout the day on Thursday as well as from the workout two days before, so all considered it wasn’t bad. Sunday’s long run was pretty miserable for much of the way, but we picked up the pace for 10 minutes towards the end, getting down to a couple laps on the track at 5:48 pace, and that actually felt good and actually pretty easy, which was encouraging.

This past week was a down week thanks to travel, but it was a good time to cut back a little anyway, so it worked out pretty well. Tuesday through Friday were all in San Diego, and as you can see, it started out great then sort of dwindled from there as the effects of the trip wore on me. I would have liked to have run a couple light workouts at some point, but I was lucky just to get out the door each day. At least I managed to frontload the week enough to achieve my mileage goal, and the running each day was really nice. I ran along the bay and the weather was perfect. Still, I’m more than happy to be home.

Now it’s time to get down to business. Haile Gebreselassie knocked out a 60:41 half marathon yesterday at age 40, proving us “old” guys can still get it done. Granted he’s one of the all-time greats, but that time is similar to what he ran back when he was younger and he gave Kenenisa Bekele and Mo Farah all they could handle for most of the race, so he’s still got it so to speak. I also saw where a 60 year old ran a 32:48 10k over the weekend. That age grades even stronger than Geb’s half marathon, and both performances serve as great motivation. Who knows? If I can get my act together and do the work, I might be able to make a return to racing and do some good things. Time will tell, but there’s only one way to find out, so here goes.