Everything Counts

16.4-KILOMETER FARTLEK ALTERNATING 400s

I usually do workouts on Wednesdays and never on Mondays. But, we've been walking around a lot and my legs have been really tired. But, yesterday was the least amount of time we'll spend on our feet all trip, so I decided this morning was my best shot at getting a workout in.

The plan was 24k fartlek alternating 400s between sub-5:00 pace and 6:15 pace. But I had no energy and struggled the whole time. I only ended up with 16.4k. I hit 4:58 pace on the fast sections and 6:18 pace on the moderate sections. But the last 1-2k was really slow and off pace, so I called it. It was getting ugly fast. Quite a few factors may have contributed to the poor performance: I'm not completely over the cold I've had for the last 1.5 weeks, the weather was not ideal (72 degrees with 89% humidity), and my legs were exhausted from all the walking/standing you do when sightseeing in NYC.

8.55 miles slugging around Central Park, avg pace 8:29/mile. I was completely exhausted and my legs were toast. I stopped three times on this run to sit down.

No run. Early flight, tired legs, and zero enthusiasm equals no run for the day. It's been a really long time since I've just decided to be lazy and not run out of sheer lack of discipline, but it happened today.

AM: 15 miles easy with Jared on the Terrace loop in what was 57 degrees of heaven! Perfect weather. I did 7x8 second hill sprints at the end, avg pace 7:15/mile when taking out rest for Hill Sprints.

PM: 4.6 miles after dinner. 1.6 was with Hannah and Evie at a slow jog. Then I did three more miles on a progression ending with a 5:25 mile, overall pace 6:07/mile.

10.85 miles on the trails easy with Dave and Jared, avg pace 8:07/mile. Another beautiful morning with cool-ish weather.

PROGRESSIVE LONG RUN

I originally had a race and a tougher workout later in the day scheduled today. But I've been really tired and I wasn't going to be able to run again later in the day since I needed to help my brother move. So instead I joined the rest of the crew for the long run down Monte Cristo to Huntsville.

I wanted to run on a progression as long as I could, up to 20 miles if I had it in the legs. I felt terrible the entire run, but I kept grinding and managed to squeeze a pretty good run out of it. Overall pace was 5:48/mile to include the cooldown (mind you this route drops 2,300 feet over the 22 miles. We also ran one mile up toward Causey and back down to simulate a hill at mile 10.

Splits: 628 609 555 553 546 543 543 544 542 552 532 528 539 538 538 536 528 528 518 504 then cool down miles 659 638 and 621 for last 0.2.