W7D4

8 miles speedwork - that's all the schedule said. The description said not to worry about the miles, with the warm up and cool down the actual speedwork amounted to 3 miles. The rest was left up to me. Pretty fuzzy. I don't do fuzzy very well. I need rules, guidelines, parameters. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. I'd figured something out but I wasn't completely at ease with it.

8 miles speedwork - that's what the Yasso schedule in the book said. I took a look at the RW version. It said "2 mile warm up, 3 x 1 mile @ 10K pace, w/400 meter recovery, 2 mile cool down TOTAL: 8 miles." Now that's some rules, guidelines and parameters. That I can work with. That I can do.

Mile repeats meant I was headed back to the San Gabriel River Trail for this one. The trail is marked in 1/4 mile increments. After a 2 mile warm up it was time for the mile repeats. My 10K goal pace was 8:57 based on the 10K I ran back in November. I took off and settled into a pace that was fast but comfortable. The first repeat came in at 8:13; faster than expected but it felt comfortable, fast yes but doable. The second one came in at 8:21 and the third at 8:04. I followed that up with about 3 miles at 10:00 pace.

I did the mile repeats at a pace faster than 10K but at a pace I was easily able to maintain. Hopefully I didn't do any harm. It felt right. So I don't always follow the rules but at least I had an understanding of what they were.

On the way home I saw one of these. Now that's more rare than any bunny or hawk.

W7D3

Normally with 3 miles on the schedule I would have headed over to the equestrian trail in Via Verde but since half of it has now been converted to concrete I had to rethink my easy 3 mile route. It didn't take me too long to settle on a route in Bonelli. Surprising, I know.

I liked the old 3 miler for the dirt surface to run on, so the trails made good sense. I ran some of the trails I use infrequently. After getting into the park I headed out the Treeline Trail that goes over the ridge that intersects the picnic loop. At the end of that I crossed over the main street and jumped onto the Parkview Trail, one of the few single track trails in the park. That put me onto the Middlecrest Trail and eventually onto the fire road that leads up to the small reservoir. The fire road is the beginning and ending of my usual 5 mile loop. I paused for a minute or two on the fire road to watch a red tail hawk flying from tree to tree. I think it was the biggest one I'd ever seen, the wing span was easily 5 feet. The BPM for the run was 4.66.

The route is gently rolling, but on dirt. I took in easy in light of last night's marathon pace workout and the speed work slated for tomorrow. That is going to be fun.

After the run, we had take out Chinese for dinner and then a little later I headed off to the gym and did some chest and tricep work on my own.

W7D2

Here we go! Right into the week with pretty big workout - 9 miles with 7 at marathon pace.

Just what is my marathon pace?

The pace at HOA will likely be approaching 11:00 miles. I imagine our projected finish time will be in the 4:30 to 4:45 ball park. If that's the case I'm already running my long runs faster than marathon pace. Not much of a challenge there, this would just be a relatively long mid week LSD.

I could shoot for 10:00 miles but that still isn't much of a challenge. A 4:00 marathon would mean the MP would be 9:10. My pie in the sky BQ pace (3:30 finish) would be 8:01 pace. Lets not get too crazy here.

I settled on a decent challenge and would try to keep the pace in the 9:00 to 9:30 range. To stay on pace I needed the comfort of mile markers so I went to the San Gabriel River Trail to get the miles in.

After the mile warm up, I picked up the pace. Mile 1 was 9:28. Mile 2 was 9:03; followed by 9:30 and 8:30. Clearly I'm not very good at gauging pace. Mile 5 was 9:03. I then messed up the watch an mile 6 was unknown. I was getting pretty tired. So I mentally gave up and decided to just cruise in the last 2 miles. It turns out I didn't slow down all that much Mile 7 was 9:33, still pretty much on track even though I had given in and tried to slow down. The cool down mile I was finally able to slow down to 10:10.

I was satisfied with the workout. I proved to myself that I could push the pace a little and held it for 7 miles. I've clearly got a way to go to get back to sub 4:00 shape, but progress is progress no matter how gradual.