Week 5 12/10-12/16

I finished of the last week down in Rolla before break pretty good.  All of the runs were at a fairly fast pace, and on Friday I ran a really good tempo.  The only bad part of the week was that  I cut my long run short on Saturday, but I still managed to hit 70 miles in 7 runs.

12/10 - Somehow we ended up doing our run really fast this morning.  It felt like a really slow and relaxed pace, but when we finished and calculated the pace it was barely over 6:50 per mile for a little under 16 miles.  The best part of the run though was Boston falling on the ice 12 seconds into the run. It sucked that he cut up his knee, but the timing was amazing.  It was nice to go for a long run in decent weather finally.

Total 15.6 miles, 107 minutes

12/11 - I went for a good run with Kurt and Joffroi today.  The first half was into the wind, but that also meant we got the wind at our back for the second half.  We ran Generic from the house and straight back to the house at the end.

Total 8.5 miles, 55 minutes

12/12 - Today’s workout was pretty hard, but I managed to do it on my own.  It was a ten mile hillly fartlek.  I ran College Hills from the house, then did mile loop and ran back home through campus.  I struggled on a couple of the longer hills, but most of them I ran strong.  The best part was that I got to run without a shirt because it was in the mid 50’s.  It was a rough, but good run.

Total 10 miles, 65 minutes

12/13  - I ran Generic again today, but backwards and with just Joffroi this time.  Since we didn’t stop by the Quad the run was slightly shorter, but we still ran it at about 6:30 pace again, which I may regret when I do the workout tomorrow.  The run felt really good though, and the weather is till amazing for December.

Total 8.4 miles, 55 minutes

12/14 - I felt horrible on the run today.  I started out running really fast, so I was going to do my tempo today instead of tomorrow, but  then my shins started hurting real bad.  I iced them afterwards and hopefully they’ll be feeling fine for the run tomorrow.

Total 4 miles, 23 minutes

12/15 - Today was probably my best workout ever.  My shins were a little sore on mile two, but the pain went away for the rest of the run.  I normally really struggle on long tempos, but I got stronger on every mile of todays 10 mile.  It was supposed to be 6:10 pace, but I felt really good and went faster.  The first 5 miles were in 29:39 and the second five took 28:15.  My individual splits which came from a well marked and accurate course were 5:44, 5:51, 5:53, 6:05, 6:04, 5:48, 5:47, 5:28, 5:40, 5:29.  I was really happy and surprised to run so strong on the second half.  None of the run really felt hard either, except for the end I was pushing it a little, but I was still really relaxed.  This is going to be a great season if I can keep up the way I’ve been running on hard days.  I finished it off with a 2 mile cool down.

Total 12.5 miles, 75 minutes

12/16 - I struggled on todays run, because I went so hard yesterday.  I ran at Castlewood, and it was back to the fast pace we ran over the summer. About 7 or 8 miles into the run I broke off from the group and just ran on my own so I wouldn’t have to worry about staying on pace.  My hip was a little sore too, but once I got off the soft trails and onto concrete it seemed to go away.  Hopefully the pain was just a side effect of the poor footing from the ground being wet and giving more than usual.  So instead of doing a 16-17 miler like I planed I only ran 11 to end the week at 70.

Total 11 miles, 72 minutes