And…We’re back!

This was a busy, but successful week! So, lets get right into it.

Monday:
Rest day in Cali. We took our rest seriously!

Tuesday:
We flew back home this day. J was too tired to run, so we skipped track and I ran on my own. Nothing too exciting to report. I felt good during the run, and held a decent pace.

3 miles (9:34 avg pace)

Wednesday:
Since we skipped Track on Tuesday, we tried out our first tempo run on Wednesday. I had 5 miles on the schedule and thought a 1 mile warm-up, 3 miles at tempo, and 1 mile cool-down would suit us just fine. The only question I had: “What is the most appropriate tempo pace?” Calculations based upon our 10k PR, would put our tempo pace at about 9:15-9:20. But since that race was probably “a bit” off, and we ran 8:00’s as our T pace at track, I figured somewhere between the two would be our best bet. I picked 8:30’s as our goal pace. Here’s how the run broke down:

Mile 1: 10:04 (Warm-up)
Mile 2: 8:23
Mile 3: 8:13 (We turned around during this mile.)
Mile 4: 8:24
Mile 5: 10:01 (Cool down)

5 miles (9:01 avg pace)

The next day, I was curious to know how a tempo pace should feel. (I wanted to make sure I hadn’t gone too fast.) I found this description on the Runner’s World website: "Talk Test: A question like "Pace okay?" should be possible, but conversation won't be.’” That’s pretty accurate, but it was more like, "Turn left...[heavy breathing]...$%&!!!" :P Curiously, the last cool down mile felt soooo slow, I was shocked that it wasn’t more like 13:00! ;)

Thursday:
First Thursday! This was a LOT of fun. At 6pm, they put up a map of several near(-ish)-by businesses that you can run to. When you reach one of the given destinations, you are given some raffle tickets (more tickets the further the you go). You are given one hour to collect as many raffle tickets as you can. You put your raffle tickets into the bin, and shortly after 7pm, they begin the drawing for several running related prizes!

When the map was released, we formulated a plan (and by we, I mean someone else in our group who is a veteran to these runs!) Now, you can run as far, and as fast as you would like on these runs, but we just went with the flow of our group. We started off by heading out to the Lower Macleay trail stop; 0.8 miles for 4 (?) tickets. Next up was the Leif Erikson Trail head up on Thurman; another 0.8 miles up a nice long hill. The hill didn’t actually seem too bad, I actually enjoyed running up a hill for once! :) Next we headed back to NW 23rd and hit up several of the businesses near to the finish location. We got a nice pile of tickets in the hour, and I kinda won some new socks! :) (And we got to enjoy some free beer!)

4 miles (avg pace 10:00?, probably)

Friday:
Rest day

Saturday:
Work :( And then BBQ :)

Sunday:
10 miles!! WOO! We decided to head over to the Leif Erikson trail this morning. Although it was mostly an uphill climb until the turn-around, it was nowhere near as bad as our last trail run attempt… I forgot to turn off my Garmin’s auto-pause until about half-way through, and since the signal is often “lost” when we’re up there, I do not have accurate splits. I didn’t even have an accurate overall time (auto-pause fail). So I took the time we had and added about a minute to get an estimated average pace. (There was probably about a 400ft elevation gain on the first half, and descent on the 2nd half, so the pace probably wasn’t “even” throughout, but the effort definitely was!)

10 miles in about 1hr34min (9:24 avg pace!)

Overall, it was a great running week! 22 quality miles on the books, and we continue to climb for another couple weeks! Only a little over a month until the big day! Here’s the plan for the upcoming week (completely subject to change, of course):

Monday:
4 miles? (Monday or Wednesday, we’ll see how we feel tomorrow.)

Tuesday:
Track?

Wednesday:
4 miles? (Monday or Wednesday, we’ll see how we feel tomorrow.)

Thursday:
4 miles

Friday:
Rest Day

Saturday:
11 miles (hopefully flat :) [24 total miles]

Sunday:
Rest Day

Here’s to another great training week! :)