Training Log July 9 - July 15 - 2007

Monday - 0
Planned Day Off

Tuesday - 4.9
5:10am. 43:40/ 8:54 a mile. Grumpy. Annoyed by having to run alone and annoyed that evening was going to be so booked up that I can't run in the evning. I hope I'm not grumpy like this all day.

Wednesday - 4.25
Easy run. River/Oakton route plus strides after. Feeling great, rested, smooth and strong. Strides felt "race" ready. There's a good race in me wanting to come out! :-)

Thursday - 6.41
7:30 PM. Bastille Day 5k. First race as a masters runner. Warm up 1.5 miles plus strides and drills, race which turned out to be 2.91 miles, and cool down 2 miles. Race time 16:55, estimated 18:01 5k time, first woman overall. I haven't won a race in such a long time I almost forgot what it was like! Dave Schaefers helped with pacing providing almost continual positive words the entire race and I pulled this time right out of my @ss! Love ya Dave!!! I haven't run under 18:40 in YEARS! I'm so pumped! What a blast being with my friends from work, husband running the race too, and a cool $250 gift certificate to NikeTown. I was just drooling over their stuff when I was there to get the race packets. Looks like its time to go SHOPPING!! Team finishes 6th out of 48. Very cool. See Race Reports for full details.

Friday - 0
Planned day off. Old lady needs a day to recover.

Saturday - 5.9
Easy run. 51:12 (8:40/mile). All seems to be well (no back pain, no quad pain, etc) but I do feel very flat. Splits: 1 - 8:39; 2 - 8:37; 3 - 8:22; 4 - 8:42 starting to peter out a bit; 5 - 8:48, 5.9 - 8:01

Sunday - 10.38
Went to the Morton Arboretum to get in a beautiful long run with some good hills. Run went okay but my legs still feel heavy with thursday's race. My ankles and lower calf feel a little beat up from racing in my "go fast" shoes which of course have little to no real support. 1:25:41 (8:15/mile). Splits: 1 - 8:51; 2 - 8:24; 3 - 8:13; 4 - 8:04; 5 - 8:11; 6 - 7:52; 7 - 8:15; 8 - 7:53; 9 - 8:10; 10 - 8:32; 10.38 - 3:16.

Weekly Summary
Total Miles : 31.8
This has been such a good week for me. I couldn't be more excited about thursday's race. To be able to race on that edge again felt like something from a life time ago. To have an old running friend just show up and pace me, to put all his energy in supporting my effort and telling me afterwards that he owed me at least that for the support I showed him when he was just starting out really opened my eyes. I had no idea that I had had that effect on him. I am truly grateful that just going about my everyday business of training during that time that I was able to help someone, even if I didn't know I was and then having it come back to me years and years later....interesting how things work, eh? Well I must move forward now to next week. I'm going to see if I can put in one really hard effort, some moderate runs and a pull back in preparation for saturday's Xtreme 10 miler at Waterfall Glen. Its a tough course and a race I did especially poorly at last year. Let's see what I can do to turn that around. If I'm not too beat up I will try to tack on some more miles after the race.