Week Recap (27 Apr 2008 - 3 May 2008) - 80 Miles

One of my best weeks in a while. I finally managed to get the mileage back in the 80s and had a couple of good, hard efforts. I started the week with a 5K race on Sunday, which I ran as workout. My run was far from spectacular but considering I was sick for most of last week and still not fully recovered by Sunday, plus the race was on a pretty tough course, I came out feeling satisfied with the effort I put in. I ran some hill repeats on Thursday for my second workout of the week and even though I don't have an objective measure for the quality of that workout, I felt like I put in a solid effort. My legs are feeling fairly comfortable again with the higher mileage but I probably won't go much higher than this. All I want right now is to stay consistent and keeping putting in high quality workouts.

Saturday, May 3, 2008 [10M]

Laurelwood Park. I woke up before 10 this morning, surprisingly early for a Saturday. I must be getting old I guess. I wasted a few hours, though, and didn't get out until 1:30PM. I headed out to Laurelwood park, which I had never checked out before despite being only a couple of miles away from my place. It didn't seem like I was missing out much, though. The trails looked promising at first but turned out to be disappointing. I probably only spent about half an hour there, came out on Ralston Ave, near Hallmark Dr and headed back home through Water Dog Lake Park.

Friday PM, May 2, 2008 [7M]

Alameda - Brittan Ave. I opted to run from home this afternoon and went on the loop I usually run when I want to avoid hills. I was thinking of putting in something in the 7-10 mile range but a couple miles in I settled on going for the lower end of that range. I was feeling tired, just dragging myself through the run but at least I got some decent mileage for the day.

Friday AM, May 2, 2008 [5M]

Foster City. I took a break from work around noon and headed out from Club O for a short and easy run. My legs were feeling the effects of the hill repeats a bit so I was content with keeping it slow. I didn't have to rush things this time so I was able to run some strides and spend some time stretching before heading back to the office.

Thursday, May 1st, 2008 [12M]

Hill repeats at Water Dog Lake Park, 1 long, 4 short, 1 long backwards. 8:45, 2:05, 2:03, 2:07, 2:06, 6:35. I got the inspiration for this workout from the Summit Ave workouts we used to do for cross country a few years back. I stayed true to the number but my repeats were considerably longer. For the long one I went all the way up Lake Rd, which I measured to be 1.35 miles long. It's a long climb so I didn't start hammering but put in a good effort. My legs were starting to feel it by the end but I kept my composure the whole way. I took 5 minutes before starting the shorter repeats, which I did on the Upper Lake Rd trail. I did a good job at getting out aggressively on each repeat and kept pushing all the way to the end. I jogged back down the trail after each repeat and got about 2:45-2:50 for rest each time. I know the times I posted above are meaningless and I'm only saving them for any future comparisons. All I cared about was putting in a hard effort and I was satisfied with what I got out of the workout. After the last short repeat I jogged back to Lake Rd trail and put in a hard effort on the downhill part, pretty much like the hard mile we used to run after the Summit Ave workouts. My legs were a bit tired from the hill repeats but I was feeling good and had fun flying downhill. I headed back home afterwards, adding on a couple of extra miles for cool-down. Overall this turned out to be a pretty solid day.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008 [8M]

Redwood Shores. I wanted to get my run out of the way in the morning today because I was going to an advanced screening of Iron Man 4PM (courtesy of Oracle) and didn't want to have to run after that. I even considered doing some hill repeats and set my alarm for 7:30 but I couldn't get myself to get up and run a workout at that time. I got up by 8:30 eventually but opted to go to work early and get my run in before lunch. I headed out from Club O around 11:30 for a pretty casual run. I was feeling sluggish, running right around 7:00 pace for the most part, and thinking that perhaps it was a good idea that I didn't try to run a workout this morning. I was thinking of going on a second run in the evening but after the movie I went to Ausiello's for a burger and a couple of pints of Guiness and obviously didn't feel like going on a run afterwards.

Tuesday PM, April 29, 2008 [14M]

Edgewood to Huddart. I drove out to the corner of Edgewood and Canada Rd after work and started the usual loop to Huddart before 6PM. I was only planning to run the 10 mile loop originally but every time I get to Huddart I can't resist adding on a few more miles. I was only going to add a couple of miles but the trail up Toyon Rd turned out longer than I remembered. Not a big deal, though, I was feeling good, working the hills well and enjoying the run. I wound up back at the car at 1:36, which is probably somewhere between 13 and 14 but I think I can use the extra morning mileage to round up. It would probably be more accurate to call the morning run 3.5 and this 13.5 but for consistenc's sake I'll stick with the integers. No matter what this is still a solid 17 mile day.

Tuesday AM, April 29, 2008 [3M]

Redwood Shores. I continued the cycle of going to bed early and getting up early for another day and was up by 8:30 AM again. I didn't feel like running in the morning but went to work ealy and was planning on putting 4 or 5 miles around noon. I got a bit caught up at work though and had about 40 minutes to head to Club O, squeeze in a run, shower and get back to the office before a 1PM meeting. I almost opted against running altogether but eventually decided to go for a short and quick loop. I was feeling a bit sluggish but kept the pace faster than what I would normally had, averaging around 6:30. This was actually around 3.5 miles but I'll round down and add on to the afternoon run.

Monday, April 28, 2008 [9M]

Hallmark Park. I was up by 8:30 this morning, before my alarm even went off, thanks to sleeping early last night. I came back from Santa Cruz around 7PM yesterday, feeling spent after not getting much sleep the previous night, racing and having a huge Easter feast. I thought I'd take a nap for an hour but ended up sleeping until 10:30PM and at that point decided to turn in for good. Since I was in at work early I left somewhat early in the afternoon, came back home and out of the door shortly after 5. I ran the usual route to Hallmark and was thinking of adding on some mileage there but my legs were feeling too tired to spent any more time going over hills so I pretty much headed right back. Not the most exciting run although things could have been different if I hadn't managed to barely avoid stepping on a snake at Hallmark.

Sunday, April 27, 2008 [12M]

Big Sur 5K. 15th place in 16:17. The race was at 7:30AM so I had to get up ridiculously early on another Sunday. I'm not used to going to bed before midnight so I always have a hard time sleeping early before these races and usually end up getting only a couple of hours of sleep. That was pretty much the case today as I woke up at 4AM to get some breakfast but I went back to bed afterwards and stayed in a bit longer than usual, since I wasn't really that concerned about the race. There's really not that much to go over about the race, all I wanted was to put in a decent effort and that's pretty much all I did. I was planning to start out slow and gradually bring the pace down as the race progressed. I was surprisingly slow in the first mile thanks to the big hill right before the mile mark, coming through in 5:27. I picked it up a bit in the second mile but it was hard to get moving on the dirt path. I tried to avoid the sandy parts but it wasn't always possible since the trail was narrow and there were a lot of people around. I split 5:18 for the second mile and sped up some more, trying to take advantage of the downhill part to get the legs moving. I had some trouble breathing in the last mile, still feeling a bit sick I suppose, and knowing that I wasn't running very fast I couldn't find much motivation to push the pace much. I was probably around 5:00 for the 3rd mile and at least this time I dind't lose any places in the last mile. There's not much to take out of this race, obviously a slow time but I really wasn't looking to run anything fast. Times in general were slow across the board, a lot of the guys raced Zippy last week as well and most were about 25-35 seconds slower today, which I guess shows that I put in a decent effort. Cooled down with Rachel for about 7 miles, putting in some decent mileage for the day.