Week Recap (4 May 2008 - 10 May 2008) - 84 Miles

This was a good week mileage-wise but pretty disappointing in terms of workouts. I put in a nice long run on Sunday and had a few other solid 12-13 mile days. The workout on Wednesday didn't turn out as I was hoping, I finished the workout with some decent quarters but I was really out of it on the longer intervals. I was thinking that the problem was mostly mental but after Saturday's workout I started worrying that there might be something wrong physically. I don't know if the mileage is taking its toll but I think by now I shouldn't have any problems running just over 80 miles. I might bring the mileage down a bit next week and hopefully get out of this slump. I'm running Bay to Breakers on Sunday a week from now so it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep the legs a bit more rested.

Saturday, May 10, 2008 [10M]

5M decreasing pace at Sawyer Camp. 6:01, 5:41, 5:31, 5:39, 6:00. I was at Sawyer Camp around 1PM, started with a 2 mile warm-up and got right into the workout. The goal was once again to start at 6:00 and bring it down 20 seconds each mile but obviously I was no where near my goal. I pretty much nail the first half of the workout, which of course is the least important part. I was 3:01/3:00 for the first mile, 2:50/2:51 for the second was pretty much right on pace on the third, coming through the half in 2:41. Things went downhill from then on. I probably lost 2-3 seconds making the turn back at 2.5 miles, so the second half of the 3rd mile was probably 2:47-48. I was working a lot harder than I was expecting at that point, my legs feeling heavy but also working hard aerobically. I only managed to come through the half in 2:43 for the 4th mile and pretty much gave up on the workout after that. The last mile was fairly meaningless, I was just going through the motions and not putting any effort into it. Obviously a disappointing workout, making it two bad workouts in a row.

Friday, May 9, 2008 [10M]

Redwood Shores. I got out of Club O by 6PM, wanting to put in an easy 10. Although I ran slow, averaging just over 7:00 pace, I wouldn't call this run easy. My legs were feeling crappy and I was dragging myself for the last half of the run. I almost cut it short to 8 but eventually decided to go through with it.

Thursday, May 8, 2008 [12M]

Foster City. I was planning to get out for a short run at noon but couldn't get out of work so I ended up going longer in the afternoon. I was expecting the legs to be tired after yesterday's workout but I felt decent. I averaged 6:40 pace, running fairly even paced.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008 [12M]

2x1600, 4x800, 4x400. 5:04, 5:08, 2:22, 2:29, 2:25, 2:27, 68, 66, 66, 65. I drove out to Redwood city this afternoon and tried out the track at Sequoia high school for this workout. Carlmont high school is a lot more convenient but I I'd rather do workouts on a 400m track. I didn't get there until 6:30 PM so I didn't take much time to get the workout underway after the usual 2 mile warm-up. I was originally planning to run 5x1600 but I after the first two intervals I decided to switch to some shorter stuff. I got out slow on the first 1600, coming through the 400 in 77 and the 800 in 2:33. Picked things up a bit after that and ran mid 75s for the the last two laps. I got out faster on the second 1600, running 75s for the first 2 laps but slowing down to 79s for the last 2. I was really out of it mentally so after the second interval I figured that it wasn't worth trying to run any more 1600s. I wasn't very focused on the 800s either, I was slowing down too much on the second lap and my times were all over the place. I got out aggressively on the first one, came through in 69 and finished in a decent 2:22. I was out in 73 for the second one and didn't put much effort on the 2nd lap, slowing down to a 76. I was out in 71 on the 3rd but only managed a 2:25 then I was only able to get out in 73 for the last one but at least didn't slow down too much on the second lap. I managed to run some decent 400s and salvaged the workout a bit. I was getting out fairly aggressively, coming through 200 in 33 for the first one and 32 for the other three, and held it together to the line. I ran about 4 miles for cool-down but my legs were spent and I pretty much put in some junk miles.

Tuesday PM, May 6, 2008 [8M]

San Carlos Road Runners Club. I made it to San Carlos this evening and joined Doug, Brad and Bridget for the usual Tuesday night run. Doug took the lead in setting the pace and we were moving along well the whole time. We were probably around 7:00 on the way out and 6:40-6:50 on the way back.

Tuesday AM, May 6, 2008 [5M]

Foster City. I got out at noon for a quick 5. I was feeling pretty good, clipping 6:30s for the most part. I had enough time to ran some good strides afterwards and stretch before heading back to work.

Monday, May 5, 2008 [12M]

Sheep Camp - Ralston.

Sunday, May 4, 2008 [15M]

Huddart. I drove out to Edgewood and Canada Rd this morning and met with Doug and Brad at 8:15. We took the short way to Huddart, getting there in 20 minutes or so. As soon as we got there Brad and I broke off so it was just the two of us from then on. Brad only wanted to run 12-13 so we stayed at Huddart for a little less than an hour and headed back to the car. We got back in 1:37, and I added on another 10 minutes by myself along Canada Rd. It was nice to do a long run with some company, it's been a while. We were pretty much chatting the whole way and time flew by. It sure was nice to be done with Sunday long run by 10AM, a time when I'd normally be waking up.

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.

Week Recap (20 Apr 2008 - 26 Apr 2008) - 65 Miles

This week started out well, I ran a decent 5K on Sunday and put in some good mileage for the first couple of days. I was feeling sick for the rest of the week, though, and inevitably my training took a a hit. I tried running a workout on Wednesday and probably shouldn't have since it was hard to run anything decent in my condition. I did feel better by the end of the week but I took things easy to aid in my recovery and didn't quite put in the mileage I was hoping for.