Just Grinding Away

Some weeks of training are boring - nothing notable, nothing exciting. This was not one of those weeks! This was pure excitement. Let’s take a look back:

Sunday I ran a marathon in 2:40:38. Not in a race or anything, just up and down one of my old workout routes from college. Two miles down one street, two miles back. Two miles down another street, two miles back. Two miles down the first street again...You get the idea. Here’s a very rough map:

First annual Contour/La Jara Marathon

So that was fun. Or at least satisfying once it was done. I blew up a bit the last couple miles when dehydration really set in - the pace climbed up from 6:05 for the first 22 miles to 6:20-6:30 for the last four, but the total comes out to 6:07 per mile.

I did some easy running on Monday, some more easy running on Tuesday, and then - after an easy ten miler in the morning, I went to the track for some fast repeats on Wednesday night. The workouts was 2x(600, 400, 300, 200) with equal jogging recovery after each, plus an extra 400 jog between sets. I got a little optimistic on the first set (1:40, 64, 46, 30), which is to say I did all of the repeats way faster than I should’ve. Consequently , I blew up awesomely in the 2nd set (1:43, 65, 49, 30). They don’t look THAT much slower, but each one featured an all-out death-grimaced final sprint just to hit those times. And the recoveries turned into awkward, painful crawls. Truth be told, it was kind of fun.

Friday morning I went out for a long tempo at a relatively relaxed pace - the goal was 14 miles at 5:50/mile. My legs were tired from the track workout Wednesday, but the pace was pretty easy to hit, and I got through it with nothing more than some mild boredom and the annoyance that comes from running almost 30 miles on a 2 mile stretch of Contour Road in a single week. Final result: 14 miles at 5:46/mile.

I rounded out the week with some more easy running on Saturday, and hit my new highest mileage ever: 135. Woo.

I took it really easy yesterday - less than 14 miles in two runs - and today I did the SARR Labor Day 5 Mile Whine Run. I’ve done it the last two years, with times of 26:17 and 26:30, respectively. There were some solid local guys at the race today (something that wasn’t true in the past), but I was able to run away with the win by a pretty good margin, with a new course record of 25:38. The course is very hilly, including a first mile that is basically 100% uphill, so I’m really pleased with the time. It’s nice to be able to run the same course in multiple years and compare times. Last year did have some nasty winds that slowed times down a good amount, but this year featured much more usual Texas September weather, and regardless the wind wasn’t so bad that I would expect to run 52 seconds faster without being in MUCH better shape. Which is encouraging. 

 

During the first mile of the race

Right after the finish. Jeremy tired.

 Now back to training! Happy running everyone.