Eugene Training - Week 3

“Life is bigger than running, but it's better with running.” – Mike

Week 3 went off pretty much without a hitch. I got myself over to the track to do some 400’s on Tuesday. That was a confidence booster to be able to do them ever so slightly faster than this same time last year. Wednesday nights run was pretty unremarkable. I tried hard to keep the effort on the easy side and did OK with a 9:02 pace.

Thursday, I was in San Diego for the second time in less than a week. This time I was visiting a doc in the evaluation. I was on my feet, in dress shoes no less, for about 4 hours. I could feel the residual effects of Tuesday’s track session in my quads. Traffic was bad so I spent another six hours behind the wheel of a stick shift. That evening the weather had warmed up a bit from the “cold” we had been experiencing. I was able to jump out the door at 6:30 without the slightest hesitation. I usually hem and haw a little when the temps are on the cool side. I felt really good on this run. The conditions were just about perfect running weather. I felt neither too hot nor too cold. It was somewhere in the low 60’s. I had worn a long sleeve, but a short sleeve would have been just fine. I resorted to a tactic I used last year when I was all anxious about my training time. I left the watch at home. That allows me to get my run in and saves me all the mental anguish over the clock.

I left work a little early on Friday and was able to get in my 4 mile run over on the equestrian trail in Via Verde. It was nice to get out and back before sunset during the week.

Saturday I attended all day training (thus the early departure on Friday) for our sales representative. The training was in Huntington Beach. Three of the docs I had visited for the evaluation were speaking. It was a good chance to catch up with them and to rub shoulders with the reps. The reps are invaluable in getting doctor cooperation in evaluating new products. Part of my job involves trouble shooting and the reps are often the ones that call in. It is always nice to put a face with the name. I of course packed up my running stuff so I could hit the beach board walk bike path at the end of the day. We didn’t finish up until nearly 6:00 p.m. so I flip flopped my work out for the second weekend in a row and ran 5 miles in 41:51. Needless to say I was quite pleased with this pace. It was sort of eerie to be running that path in the dark. I actually saw about 6 other guys out there running in the dark too.

I resorted to running my 13 miler in the afternoon on Sunday rather than first thing in the morning. My goal this week was to do the long run at an 8:30 pace. Sunday afternoon was a beautiful, sunny, cloudless day. It was one of those days I like to call a Rose Parade Day. During the Rose Parade the rest of the country, usually in the middle of some wonderfully cold winter weather, gets to see a glimpse of our winter weather and decide to add to the population explosion. Today was one of those days. I checked the temp when I left. It was only 60°. Does anyone else not get why 60 and sunny feels so much warmer than 60 and dark. Isn’t 60, 60 no matter what?

I headed over to the Santa Fe Dam Bike Trail in a sleeveless. Hey, it’s never too early to start working on that tan. Anyway back to the run. The one thing I don’t like about the dam is that right off the bat you have to climb up on top of the thing, 70 feet in the first quarter of a mile. Admittedly it is a little hill but, right from the get go, without a chance to warm up at all, it is always a little bit of a chore. The first mile clocked at 8:56 and seemed about right. Mile 2 came in at 8:07. This was quite a bit faster than I was planning, but I felt good so I kept on going. Mile 3 was 8:07 too. Mile 4 was 8:10. During mile 5 my legs were beginning to feel this effort. I began to think that maybe at mile 5 I would take a walk break to intentionally slow things down a little. When I hit the Mile 5 marker in 7:51, you bet I took a walk break.

Mile 6 was at 8:41 including the walking. After that I ended up with three more sub 8:00 minute miles. I guess I was just in a groove and decided not to fight it. I took two more walk breaks after miles 9 and 11. My final time was 1:47:17, 8:15 pace overall. I calculated my pace without the initial mile and the three walk break miles and ended up at 8:01. Whoa, what a difference from this same route 2 weeks ago at 1:56 and a huge difference from last weekend’s 9:26 pace. I don’t really understand how this happens, but I’ll just go with it. I am happy to report that although I felt like I was working harder than last week; it wasn’t out of my reach.

There has been one interesting little twist in the schedule. I thought I had 2 days off for the next two weeks. I misread the schedule. I still run 6 days a week but for some reason the day off is Friday rather than Monday. Friday actually fits the rest of my life better, but this means that I will be running 10 days straight between week 3 and 4. I’ve never tried this before, should be interesting.

Total miles: 38.4

M: Rest
T: 5.4 miles with 4x400
W: 6 mile, 54:11
H: 5 miles, no watch
F: 4 miles, 35:05
S: 5 miles, 41:51
S: 13 miles, 1:47

I've already run more miles in the first three weeks of January than I did the whole month of December.