PreSeason III

Total miles: 83

Sunday, 9/9
Ran from Rose bowl to JPL and then some. Felt tight at times, 12 miles. About 5 miles into it I felt good, so I picked up the pace a little.


Monday, 9/10
Patrician, plus something a little extra before and after. I worked the hill hard yada yada yada.

Easy 3 in the PM plus plyos.

Tuesday, 9/11
Oak Groves in the morning. I really felt strong on this workout, much better than shanendoah's. I had good consistent times ( 4:05, 00, 02, 00, 00, 3:57) and recovery of about 2 minutes.

In the PM I slept in and woke up at 4:30, oops. I got down to the gym in time to lead the guys through my ab workout. They seem to be getting stronger, I think next time I'll up the interval to 90 seconds. We'll keep the pushups at 20, maybe 25 every other time. Afterwards I ran 4 miles and did a little lifting.

Wednesday, 9/12
Easy seven in the morning, followed by lacy plus laps in the afternoon. I was feeling really tight in the morning so I built into a nice brisk pace over most of the run to shake things out and by the end was cruising at sub 6 pace. This seemed to get most of the junk out. But things were still a little less than comfortable. The afternon I just kept chill.

Thursday, 9/13
Jogged to garfield and did 4 on, 2 off x 6. Felt kinda like shit the whole time, but managed to keep things moving at about 5:30 pace.

In that afternoon we did an easy 3 mile jog with the girls followed by abs and weights. I up-ed the interval for abs to 90seconds... it seemed hard for everyone again, so we'll hold it there for a while. We also did 20 pushups x 6, although iI'm not sure that everyone is doing all of them. My legs are finally feeling pretty loose and back to normal compared to a few days ago.

Friday, 9/14
Easy 6. Started pre-race with the team then finished by going to the end of lombardy and back to tech. Legs didn't feel sore, just tired. Very tired. Could move quick, but it took a decent amount of effort. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be feeling more ease in quickness. Finished up with some strides, 8. Once again, the legs just didn't feel too quick. I tried hitting my top speed on the last two but it didn't seem like it was coming. Overall: not sore, just tired.

Did an easy 3 on the course in the pm with some striders. Began feeling better, but not much. Still tired in the legs.

Saturday, 9/15
8k race at Balboa park. My stomach felt like crap, I think i ate too much the night before. Anyways, by the time the race started all was fine. I half led most of the first mile at a 5:30ish pace. This felt very easy and relaxed and like I was breathing lighter than all the guys around me. the big hill didn't seem that bad although a few guys passed me there I figured they were working too hard. I maintained in 5th place down the backside through 2 miles in 11:00ish and hit the turn around point feeling good. Going into mile three I was starting to feel pain and it showed in my pace as I dropped to 5:45ish. The fourth mile was a bomb. I started doing survival shuffle which luckily in a race is still 6:00 pace. The hill set me back a good bit though on the concrete switchbacks and I fell to nearly a 6:20 for that mile, ouch! Coming off the hill I was in seventh place with about 1 mile to go and Anton had just passed me. I managed to work through the lactic acid and start opening my stride again to gain on Anton. When my legs started working correctly again I had about 40 to 50 meters to go on Anton. Slowly I caught up and by the time I reached the U-turn I passed him and headed for the shoot. With a few hundred meters to go I was in full stride and much more pain than the last race. Then I finished, 28:40. Felt like crap, not too happy, not too angry. Just a hard race on a hard course after a hard week.