04.27.08
A hard week
I had a mile time trial schedule for this week, so I knew that there would be some hard running on the schedule. I didn’t know that I would add more later in the week.
I talked my friend Jerry into heading out to the track with me on Tuesday to run a hard mile. He went first while I timed him, and then I headed out to see how fast my legs could take me. My PR set in February was 6:54, and I thought I could do better. My plan was to head out at about 6:45 pace (about 1:42 per lap) and see if I could hold it.
This would be the first time I’ve run without my watch on my wrist to get instant feedback, since I’d given it to Jerry. I realized after I’d started that I didn’t ask him to tell me my times after each lap. I’d have to run this one based on feel.
I felt like I went out a little fast, and as I passed the line where Jerry was stationed, I yelled back to get my time.
“1:37,” he shouted.
It was confirmed, I did go out a little fast. I didn’t think I could maintain this for the next three laps, so I eased up just a bit. I didn’t have spare breath in either of the next two laps to ask for splits, and Jerry apparently wasn’t in the mood to help me out, so I was running blind, so to speak. I tried to keep a consistent effort from the second lap to the third, and I felt like I accomplished this fairly well.
The final lap there was another runner on the track who was catching up to me (he was quite a bit faster than me). When I had about 200 meters to go, I felt like he was 10-15 meters behind me, so I decided to redline the engine and go for broke. When I hit the line, I didn’t feel like I was completely gassed, but it felt like a significantly hard effort. I asked Jerry what the damage was.
“Your splits were 1:37, 1:41, 1:41 (my note: pretty consistent, indeed), and 1:28 for a 6:28 mile”
I gave a good effort and pulled 23 seconds off my previous PR (personal record). Not bad.
Wednesday and Thursday were softball activities, including a game which we won. Friday was family pizza night, so no running. Saturday was scheduled for an easy three miles. I pushed a little harder than “easy”, figuring today would be a long run and I’d just take it easy. I finished my 3.1 miles in 26:25 (avg pace 8:31/mile) and felt pretty good afterwards.
Today (Sunday) was supposed to be a long run of 7 miles. After a birthday party for Grandma, killing dandelions in the yard, and chainsawing down some branches in my front yard, I found myself with about 45 minutes before a late dinner. Not enough time for seven miles, so I instituted some flexibility in the schedule: flipping the long run to tomorrow and putting in a hard 5-k training run tonight.
I hadn’t had an Equivita training session this week, so my legs felt fresh enough to beat up again after the hard effort on Tuesday. I went out hard, kept things hard, and finished hard. I almost lost my lunch in my front yard, which would have been hilarious. I kept it together, looked down at my watch, and saw that I’d set my second PR in five days, this one at the 5 kilometer distance. Twenty three minutes flat. I’d taken 55 seconds off my 5K time. Sitting on my couch right now, I feel pleasantly exhausted. My back hurts from spraying weeds, and my legs are a little sore from running hard. A good weekend.
The next week will be all easy runs, with two softball games. The weather is heating up, and I’m getting to be outside and active most days of the week. Who’s complaining?