Monday, February 7, 2011

Training Week Five Recap (138 days to go)

A day late, but hopefully not a dollar short, here's a recap of Week Five:

Monday: 7.60 miles...nice and easy morning run, a rare effort made necessarily by the threat of freezing rain that afternoon. It was, after all, going to be the biggest storm since 1982.

Tuesday: 9.12 miles in the gym, much of it on the "dreadmill" because we had a couple inches of ice that had frozen over every surface. I did manage 6 miles at a 6:49ish tempo pace while watching local TV reporters report from every corner of the metropolitan area about the weather, including 10-20 inches of threatened snow on the way. It was riveting. Also, as I explained to a marathoner friend, my ultra tempo pace is not the same as my marathon tempo pace.

Wednesday: 8.15 miles nice and easy. I ran this in the street because my taxpayer money was put to good use, and by mid-afternoon the roads were clear. How is that possible, you might ask? The experts said we were going to get nearly two feet of snow! Oh, we got 3 or 4 inches. But the sidewalks? Still dangerously frozen over even today as I type.

Thursday: 8.15 miles again, including 5 up and down hill intervals on a street hill that didn't promise to break me in half like my usual hill.

Friday: 6.12, again nice and easy.


Saturday: 20.76 on the Greenrock Trail. When my alarm went off at 6 a.m. and I looked out the window, I was elated to see 4-5 inches of fresh powder. And then I remembered that I was not going skiing. After a slow drive to the trail head, I set out in the fresh snow. There was one set of footprints ahead of me that I relied on as my navigational tool, and I caught up to a fellow St. Louis ultrarunner around my second mile. David and I ran the next 13 miles together, taking turns breaking in the trail, and I'm proud to report we only had 3 or 4 wrong turns. I ran the final five miles at a brisk pace. The entire run took me over 4 1/2 hours!


Sunday: 12.15 miles in the neighborhood roads, since all of the sidewalks in the area are still iced over. I ran the middle 9 at a tempo pace of about 6:45. I was hungry when I got to the Super Bowl party.

Total Week Five: 72.05 miles, another mileage PR! Perhaps the most surprising thing is how good my body feels. I can feel a weariness in my legs at times, but they're still responding. Even more importantly (knock on wood), I don't have any niggles.

Time to reset the mileage...on to Week Six!

2 comments:

  1. Chad, local runner who thinks your mission is awesome. A couple of us are running greenrock tomorrow starting at the trailhead off fox creek rd at 6am.

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  2. Ryan, I'm finally getting caught up on the comments after some crazy life events lately. Thanks for the comment, and sorry I missed you out there a couple weeks ago. Let me know when you're out there again....I'd love some company!

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