Week Log: 11 May - 17 May 2008

Sunday 11 May 2008

9 Miles / 1:11:30

Monday 12 May

0 Miles

Weights at the gym

Tuesday 13 May

7 Miles / 55:05

My plan today was to start doing some up tempo stuff to help increase my aerobic capacity. So today, the plan was to do mile repeats nice and easy. I thought I would start with three and build up to six over the next few weeks.

When I do mile repeats, I do them more as a speed workout as opposed to a tempo run/cruise intervals with really short rest. Instead, I do mile repeats with a quarter mile jog in between.

I planned to do them today on the Platte River Trail, but when I got up it was snowing! On May 13, it was snowing!! So, this meant I was doing them on the treadmill. This was probably a better idea anyway, as this would force me to keep an even tempo and not get going to fast too early. Since I don't know what it feels like to run even moderate pace, mile repeats done the wrong way could be really bad.

I started out with a mile warm up and then went right into the repeats. I set the treadmill at 9.2 MPH and went one mile. Then I walk/jogged a quarter. I thought I could do three, but I ended up doing four! Each one was just a bit faster also, so this was really good. My times were 631, 628, 626, and 623. The rest between each was 300-330.

Now, I know that this is not very fast considering I have done 6xMile with an average of 455 before. So, I do have a long way to go. But, to run four miles at or better than 630 is something I have not done in six months!

On Thursday, I plan to do a three mile tempo run. So, my schedule will be repeats on Tuesday and tempo run on Thursday. I also plan to increase my long runs on the weekends with a long term plan of hitting 15-20 on both Saturday and Sunday.

Wednesday 14 May

6 Miles / 45:58

Thursday 15 May

9 Miles / 1:10:17

The plan today was to do a three mile tempo run. I went to Waterton Canyon to run it because I wanted to stay flat. Even with the climb on the way out, it is very subtle.

I started out with an easy three mile warm up (24:21). Stopped and put my H2O bottle down and then headed off farther up the canyon. I wanted to stay conservative because this was my first one, so I was shooting for 645-700 pace. I hit the first mile in 7:01 and the 1.5M in 10:31. So, I was right on 7:00 pace for the first half, going up hill. I hit two miles in 13:55 coming back down the hill and finished it off with a 6:35 to finish it in 20:30.

I then started my three mile cool down back to the car. After about a mile of it, my left calf started to tighten up some so I stopped and stretched it out a lot. I started back up and it loosened up so I was able to run the while way. It was a pretty slow warm down (25:20), but it was good.

My calf still hurt for the rest of the day, but I kept stretching it. Hopefully it will be OK tomorrow, which is a planned day off anyway.

Friday 16 May

0 Miles

Weights at the gym

Saturday 17 May

9 Miles / 1:13:56

Week Total: 40 Miles / 5:16:56 (7:55 Pace)
Overall, this was a very good week for me. I got in 40 miles and two workouts. However, I need to keep an I on my calf over the next week and really do some stretching.