Spring Catch-up

It's been far too long since I've posted.  In the mean time, I've had several good workouts with the team under Coach Jerry, and raced the St. Patrick's 5K in Baltimore.   I haven't run as many miles as I hoped, but I seem to be getting into decent shape regardless because of the quality of the track workouts.  Besides, I'm only running 5Ks this spring anyway...

St. Patrick's 5K:

I felt great going into this race, and had a lot of fun with the team in baltimore.  I just wasn't too happy with the time: 15:48 for 8th place.  I wanted to take advantage of the net-downhill course to break 15:30 and set my spring 5K season off right.  I began aggressively clocking 4:45 on the first mile, settled over the second mile with Chicken Tender splitting just under 10:00 at the two mile, but fell asleep, hit a wall of wind, and lost the pace in the final mile.  This will be an important lesson for more important races later this season.  The team had a strong showing, though, led by a 1-2 finish by Sam and Dirk.

Race/workouts:

2/19: By George 10K:  This was easily the windiest race I've ever run.  The wind rivaled the worst of State College, and caused white caps on the Potomac.  Worse still, this 10K course consisted of TWO out-and backs.  Given how comically futile it was to gauge my fitness at this race, I just settled in for an 80% effort tempo.  I finished in 35:12... ha!

Track workouts:

2/16:  2 x mile, 2 x 800m, 4 x 400m.  Don't have the actual splits, but I remember feeling pretty good about this workout.  We were supposed to run 5:12; 5:08; 2:30; 2:28; 72; 72; 69; 69.

2/23:  4x1.5 mile.  I don't remember this workout except for feeling like it wouldn't end.

3/2:  Step-down ladder: 2 mile, 1.5 mile, 1 mile, 800m at 78/76/74/72 sec/lap pace respectively.

3/9: Supposed to run 4x mile at fairly aggressive paces, but I couldn't hang on the final two mile repeats.  5:04; 5:00; 5:04; 5:04.  I still averaged 3 sec/mile faster than the last time I ran this workout.

3/16: 2000m, 1600m, 1200m, 800m, 400m. Don't remember the splits, but was supposed to run 78/77/75/74/70 sec/lap respectively.

3/19: 4 mile tempo on the track with Dave W.  We started at 5:40 for the first mile, and worked down to 5:20 for the last mile.

3/23: 6xmile at AU.  I ran fairly well considering the volume, finishing 5:15; 5:15; 5:09; 5:09; 5:04; 5:00.

3/30:  Since I'm not planning to race the full 10 miles this weekend, I did the extended workout with Wiggy and Outlaw: 2xmile, followed by 2x1000m and 5x500m.  I hit 5:04; 5:09 for the first miles, and quickly fell off the group after that.  I couldn't get my legs to turn over any faster, hitting 3:12 on each of the Ks.  The 400's weren't any prettier, and I bailed after three of them.  I think this was the product of starting the workout hard and running in cold rain.