Week of SOLID Running Workouts!

I need to rest for a few days - I've had some great workouts leading up to the TC 10 Mile (and the "Looney Challenge") in just under 3 weeks. But now my hip/sacrum is pretty achy. I've had 5 runs in a row that were every-other-day from last Saturday though this Sunday. The last 4 workouts have followed a week of workouts from Coach Jen from 4 years ago as I was training for my sub-60 TC 10 Mile.

• Sat, Sept 6: 1-mile intervals. (I posted a little about this workout HERE.) I ran on the road around my house, and ran an average of 5:49.

• Mon, Sept 8: 10+ miles done as a 2 mile warm-up, 5 miles descending, 3 mile cool-down. (Also posted a bit about this workout HERE.) I descended my middle 5 miles in 6:36, 6:19, 6:16, 6:20, and 6:00 (31:31 for those hard 5 miles).

• Wed, Sept 10: 7+ mile tempo done as a 2 mile warm-up, 4 miles descending FAST, and a 1+ mile cool-down. I've learned I have more speed left in my legs than I thought. My final mile was TOO fast because I'm saving too much in the middle. My 4 fast miles were 6:18, 6:16, 6:13, and 5:45. Yeah, saved a little too much for that final mile. Dang.

• Thurs, Sept 11: 3x500 in the pool. I had time for a QUICK swim between my class and a meeting at the college where I teach. Quickly cranked out 500s in 7:54, 7:53, and 7:54.

• Fri, Sept 12: easy, easy, easy 7 miler. Got in some stretching too.

• Sat, Sept 13: bike ride with 3x5 mile intervals. It was CHILLY on Saturday morning! I Instagrammed this:

"From this morning: dressing for a 45 degree ride is never sexy."

And then that afternoon, I got in some relaxed walking as we celebrated my brother-in-law Matt's bachelor party. We had 9 guys hitting the links for some shitty golf as seen in 2 more Instagrammed photos:

"Dear Goodrich Golf Course: we treated this as a suggestion. Hope that's alright. Thanx."


"Beautiful day to be out with the bachelor party boy."

(Oh, and here's a video of my youngest brother-in-law taking his first shot of the day. He's a majestic creature. Majestic like a drunk bear in heat.)

• Sun, Sept 14: 11+ miles done as a 2.5 mile warm-up, 5 miles at 10-mile race pace, then cool down for the rest of the miles. My mile hard miles were 6:13, 6:21, 6:11, 6:11, and 6:03. (30:59 for those hard 5 miles.) My first half-mile was my fastest (I went out TOO hard) - it was my only half-mile split of sub-3:00. I knew I couldn't hold on to that, so I slowed up a bit and then tried to hold on and keep it consistent.

Pointless nerdy math: Like I said at the start of this post, the last 4 runs were the same runs during a week of training with Coach Jen from 4 years ago. One of those runs was an easy run. So looking at the 3 hard runs, I was 0:11 slower/mile in the 10 miler, 0:17 slower/mile in the tempo, and 0:18 slower/mile in the 11 miler. I'd LOVE to run a 1:03:something this year at the TC 10 Mile (that's my "best case scenario"), which is 6:18 to 6:24 pace. That's 0:23 to 0:29 slower/mile than I did 4 years ago, BUUUUUT this year I'm running the 10K and 5K the day before. So, based on all of this, I think it's POSSIBLE to make sub-1:04 a reality. But the big "X-factor" is how my legs will feel after racing a 10K and 5K the day before. Should be fun!