Week Recap (1 June 2008 - 7 June 2008) - 60 Miles

I can't say that I had a definite plan for this week, I was roughly shooting to get the mileage close to 70 and hadn't decided about doing any workouts. I would have been close to that mileage if I hadn't finished the week with only 6 miles over the last two days but sometimes that's hard to avoid when you have family visiting. It wasn't a great week anyway and a few more miles wouldn't make much of a difference.

Saturday, June 7, 2008 [0M]

Spent the day wine tasting in Napa. I had no motivation to go for a late night run after coming back.

Friday, June 6, 2008 [6M]

Alameda - San Carlos. I took the day off from work and took a trip with Lenia to Sausalito. We came back around 8PM and thanks to eating a huge ice cream cone a couple of hours earlier I had to wait a bit before I could get out for a run. We had plans to go out later so I had to keep the run short.

Thursday, June 5, 2008 [12M]

Foster City.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008 [10M]

Edgewood to Huddart through Woodside. I came back from work relatively early and drove out with Lenia to Edgewood and Canada Rd. I ran my usual loop down Crystal Springs trail to Woodside and back through Huddart. I would have liked to add on a couple of miles at Huddart but Lenia was only running for about an hour and I didn't want her to be waiting for me at the car for too long so I just headed back.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008 [10M]

Hallmark Park. I don't remember much about this run so I guess nothing worth mentioning happened.

Monday, June 2, 2008 [8M]

Redwood Shores. Crappy run, I wanted to put in 10 today but decided to cut it short halfway through.

Sunday, June 1, 2008 [14M]

Extended Sheep Camp - Ralston. I was up early today for no reason but I was feeling a bit the effects of last belated birhday celebration so I spent a few hours drinking lots of water and getting some food in my stomach. I wasn't feeling great when I got out but after a couple of miles I was much better and even started feeling good on the run. I was only planning on going for 12 but by the time I got to Sheep Camp trail I decided to add on a couple of extra miles. I made a detour up to the vista point near 280 and added some more on the way back by going through Water Dog Lake Park. Not a bad way to start the week, especially if you consider how I was feeling at the beginning of the run.

Week Recap (25 May 2008 - 31 May 2008) - 37 Miles

Not much to say about this week. After running a poor 10K on Monday I felt that I needed some recovery time so I took day off and kept the other days short and easy. I didn't really want to drop the mileage so much but it was hard to get myself motivated to put in any more miles.

Saturday, May 31, 2008 [4M]

I made a trip to Costco in Foster City this afternoon and managed to get my car keys locked in my trunk. I figured the easier way to open my car would be to run back home, have my landlord open my apartment and get my spare car key. Ordinarily I wouldn't count something like this as a run but I ran long enough and was even running pretty fast, despite wearing jeans. At least my walking shoes are the same as my running shoes so I didn't have trouble running in those. Panayiotis gave me a ride back to Costco so I didn't have to run back to the car. I was planning to add some more mileage afterwards but was too busy with party preparations and didn't manage to get out again.

Friday, May 30 , 2008 [4M]

Brittan Ave. I had a hard time getting myself out the door and wasted too much time after coming back home from work. I even started thinking about skipping the run altogether but eventually decided to squeeze in a short run before dinner.

Thursday, May 29, 2008 [6M]

Alameda - San Carlos.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 [6M]

Redwood Shores.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 [0M]

After yesterday's race I figured that a day off was in order. Feeling the need for a recovery day on my 27th birthday is perhaps an indication that I am indeed getting too old. How much longer can I keep fighting it?

Monday, May 26, 2008 [10M]

Marin Memorial Day 10K, 33:15. (Splits: 5:05, 5:15, 5:20, 5:24, 5:33, 5:29)
The race was at 8:15 AM, which is rather typical for these road races but for some reason I was feeling a lot more sleepy this morning. I almost started worrying that I would fall asleep while driving up to Marin county. I wasn't feeling great on the warm-up either but I was hoping that my legs would loosen up once the race got underway. I was shooting for sub 32 but I was on pace only for the first mile and started to fall back from there. By the halfway point I had pretty much given up on running anything decent and just got myself to the finish. Despite running slow my legs were spent at the end and I barely managed to get myself through a 2 mile cool-down. No matter how I look at this I can only call it a crappy race and I can't come up with any excuses. The course was flat and fast and the weather was pretty much perfect. I averaged about the same pace last week for 12K, on a much harder course and that wasn't really an outstanding race. I also keep thinking that I averaged 5:25s for a half marathon in February so I can't be anything but disappointed after only managing to average 5:21s for less than half the distance. I'm not sure now what to plan for the rest of this season. I had been thinking of running some track races in June/July but my confidence is rather low at this point and it's not just because of this race. After coming back from my last injury I knew that it would take some time for things to start clicking but I've been running injury-free for some time now and my training has not progressed as well as I was hoping. My workouts and races have varied from average to bad and I don't if I can turn things around in the next month. I even thought about shutting things down for the season, taking some time off and starting to build up the mileage for next year. Well, I'll take it easy for the rest of this week and take things from there.

Sunday, May 25, 2008 [7M]

Alameda - Brittan Ave. This was a rather unusual Sunday run since I'm racing a road 10K tomorrow. Kept it short and easy to keep the legs fresh.

Saturday, May 24, 2008 [9M]

Hallmark Park. Usual route to Hallmark and back. I was planning of adding another couple of miles at Hallmark but the legs weren't feeling that great so I decided to cut it short.

Friday, May 23, 2008 [12M]

8M tempo at Sawyer Camp. 5:44, 5:43, 6:19, 6:50, 5:34, 5:32, 5:43, 5:39. I drove out to Sawyer camp after work and got things started by 6PM. My plan was to run a controlled, long tempo, shooting for 5:40s the whole way. The first couple of miles were just off pace but fairly controlled. I knew it would be hard to maintain the pace for the next couple of miles since most of that part would be uphill but I wanted at least to maintain the same effort. It's been a while since the last time I made it to the end of trail and I forgot how steep it gets, especially in the last mile. As shown by my splits I slowed down quite a bit and wasn't putting in the effort needed to do a decent climb. In retrospect, opting to go all the way to the end of the trail was a bad choice for this kind of workout. I wanted a controlled effort and the long uphill part threw me off. I didn't make an effort to pick up the pace after making the turn but I was expecting to be a bit faster since I'd be going downhill. It was steep enough, though, to force me to break my stride so I couldn't really get rolling. The decline in the 6th mile was a bit more gradual so I could get the legs moving better. I got back close to 5:40 pace for the last couple of miles, after hitting the flat parts. I could have pushed the pace more but that wasn't the point of this workout so I just kept things under control all the way to the finish.

Thursday, May 22, 2008 [8M]

Redwood Shores. I was planning to catch a 9:25PM show of Indiana Jones in the city and I couldn't get out of work until 7 so I kept it short. I tried to force the pace a bit but my legs were feeling crappy so I backed off after the first couple of miles. I kind of rushed through strides and stretching afterwards and headed out. Not the greatest of days but at least I got the miles in.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 [10M]

2 sets of 8x400. 70, 69, 68, 67, 68, 66, 67, 67, 68, 67, 67, 67, 66, 65, 66, 63. Rest was 200m between intervals and 5:00 between sets. Since I was only running quarters I opted to run the workout at Carlmont high school. It was very windy today, which I figured would make the workout harder so I decided to wear my Hyperspeeds to even things out a bit. I must say I really liked the shoes, they feel light but they have enough support, unlike my Streak XCs, so you can even race up to the marathon in them. I even did my warm-up and cool-down in them, since I ran to the track from my place and didn't want to be carrying an extra pair of shoes. My goal for the workout was to run 68s and work on getting some good turnover at 3K pace. It took me a couple of intervals to get down to the right pace but after that I started rolling. The rest was more than enough and I felt recovered at the start of every interval. My rest periods were fairly quick, I was only taking about 1:30 for the 200m whereas I've had workouts in the past when I was taking about the same time to jog 100m. The wind on the backstretch was pretty bad so I had to work a bit but in general it didn't feel like I was working too hard. I was feeling good enough at the end to let the legs loose and finish off the workout with a 63. Definitely not a killer workout but a nice controlled effort. I had a good turnover and was feeling strong on all intervals. As a former miler, quarters were my bread and butter so I always feel like I can knock them out without any problems.