Tuesday, April 12, 2011

week Ending April 10

Mon - 8.5 miles (800') easy. Bluesky to Arthurs and back.

Tues - 9 miles intervals. Ran with Jane's group on a beautiful spring morning. Workout was 5 x 1 mile on the two hilly City Park routes, with middle three at fartlek (hard/medium) and 3-5 mins between miles. Miles 1, 3 & 5 measured .97, while miles 2 & 4 measured 1.04 (according to GPS watches): 5:22, 5:40, 5:23, 5:38, 5:18 (5:25 - 5:32 pace). After a somewhat disappointing 5k race on Saturday, I made the pledge to push my interval workouts a little harder to see if I can't make sub 5:20 pace a little more sustainable; however, with AR50 upcoming, I decided to slot into my usual interval effort for this week. Next time out I'll try to make good on my pledge (recovery from AR50 and other excuses pending).

Weds - 6 miles (500') easy. Valley.

Thurs - 10 miles (2,000'). Towers. Cruised to a comfortable 33 something ascent.

Fri - 4.5 miles (500') easy. Out and back on last 2 miles of AR course.

Sat - 50 miles (3,500'). AR50. 6:00:09.

Sun - 14 (2,000'). Out and back to Hwy 49 on Western States course from start/finish at Placer High with Ryan, Scott, Andy J-W, Jill Perry and Eric. Out super easy to No Hands Bridge, then picked it up a bit heading up to the Hwy 49 crossing. Back steady w/ Fast Eddie in 58 minutes, which is two minutes faster than I ran it at the tail end of WS last year. Felt like a reasonably hard effort, especially on post-50 mile legs, but certainly a few gears under overdrive. Running it in 60 minutes on 93-mile legs just about killed me last June. Out in 1:13. Really pleased with how good I felt.


Scott, me, Burch, AJW, Eric on the finish line.

Scott put a move on me with 150 to go that I just couldn't cover.

Total: 102 miles (9,300')

Got a little confidence back this weekend at AR after a couple of performances that I felt were a little sub-par. I'll take that and roll it into the next seven week block of mileage before the Western States taper. Probably the biggest thing for me this weekend was feeling so good on Sunday after the hard AR effort. Things were definitely a little creaky getting going, but once Scott and I picked up the pace for the last ten miles, things started feeling good. Good enough even that I was able to engage in a 250-meter kick down with Scott as we got onto the Placer High track. For the record, Scott destroyed me, so I'll have to make sure to break him early in June.

Next seven weeks will be all about mileage and vertical gain/descent, with two faster workouts per week slotted in there as well. Starting to get that tingly goal-race feeling already. Love it.

11 comments:

  1. You did a 14 miler on Sunday? Watch out for that overtraining - I thought I was coming back too soon with 2 11 min miles even though I felt reasonably ok (for after a 50-miler, anyway) :)

    Really looking forward to a rematch at WS, although I wish I'd looked over the end of the course again like you did.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have a feeling you might be the guy to beat this year at WS. No pressure or anything. : )

    ReplyDelete
  3. No doubt, Nick is the man to beat. If his finish time doesn't start with 14: I am sure it will be a disappointment. Especially since he gets to slide through all that snow during the first part:)

    On that note, I was talking to a guy who grew up in Squaw and his parents still live there. They said it's the most snow they've had on April 15th since 1952!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Look at Andy try to add a little pressure and bait you (Nick) to go out too fast.

    Good times in Auburn with you and Burch - both of you had really great races! Look forward to many more outings with you guys!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have a feeling you might be the guy to beat this year at WS

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good article, hi friend, i found there is one website offering free puzzle games. Just take one minute to sign up then you will receive one free puzzle game. I've done it and now i am enjoying it. Its URL is http://www.684899.com/en/CosmicCreature/project_1.htm
    Click below button to get one.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey I have a question. I am 10, and my best mile time is 5:58. Is that good? I want to become a Olympic Runner and was just wondering. And check out my blog too.

    -1m2kool4u12312

    ReplyDelete