Week 2: 9/6-9/12

Sunday- 9/6: 18 miles !!! Riley's Lock

- I came into the run looking for 15 (which is still more than I have done on average)... Instead I was feeling good so I continued on with Bain and Karl to finish off with an 18 mile long run. I felt great during, great after. Will tomorrow or tuesday be the same story???

Monday- 9/7: 8 miles Ridge Park Loop +

- I ran a medium effort for much of today's run. Ridge park is half dirt trail, half asphalt trail through primarily wooded area. though the park is not big, it is about 2 miles from my house and there is a nice 1.5 mile paved trail that goes from my complex to the park. This trail is nothing but hills, which I feel will be a nice local training tool getting ready for some of my races ahead that have that type of terrain. I was surprised I felt better today than I thought I would. Again, I am a big believer in the 48 hour onset... those 18 miles could finally settle in my legs tomorrow...

Tuesday-9/8: 8 miles Ridge Park Loop +

- I ran an Easy/Medium effort for much of this run. I got out late and this run provides a nice amount of street lights along the way, so I repeated this run from yesterday. It has a nice mix of steep uphills/down hills, gradual ups and downs and a nice long flat section... The soft surface for close to a mile in the middle is a nice break from the roads/blacktop path. I will be doing a workout at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School tomorrow evening with the team. We are looking to do repeat 1000's and finish up with some quality speed.

Wednesday-9/9: 10 miles (Workout) Capitol Crescent Trail

-The plan was to get in a track workout (repeat 1000's/800's) Starting out comfortably hard and working down to a very hard effort. As is life, you must be ready to change plans from time-to-time. We arrived around 6:15 for the 6:30 workout and found that there was a varsity soccer game beginning at 7:00pm. Luckily, with the convenient location of BCC high school, the Capitol Crescent Trail is about a 5 minute run down the road. Myself, Karl, Bain, Murphy, Dickson, and Jimmy made our way. This is a paved trail that is not open to motorized vehicles. It goes through primarily wooded area and heads from Bethesda and wraps around D.C. We decided to utilize this for our workout. We ran a 2.5 mile warm up. and went into a 5 minute, 4 min, 3 min , 2 min, 1 min step down workout with equal recovery. Karl and I took the 5 minute out aggressively. It was the type of effort where cardiovascularly you are fine but the quick pace made your legs feel like they were not under you... We both felt that was probably too quick for the first long interval in the workout... At the same time, if you want to run against the best, you must learn to get out hard and bite down on your competition like a pit bull and hold on for dear life. The 4 minute interval felt more comfortable but the pace did not subside... We kept it hard. Interval 3 was the ball buster. We turned around this point and headed back up to the start of the Cap Crescent. The way down was downhill... our 3 minute interval was not only going to be the point that really measured mental toughness, it was going to be uphill on top of that. We pushed through the 3min and got it down in a hard effort. the 2 minute interval was the toughest for me, primarily because i began to get a stomach cramp with 30 seconds to go in the interval. I was able to get it to subside for the final 1minute hard and we took it home. Everyone ran a nice workout. The group we had made the workout for sure. It is so nice to have people to workout with again. It has been a LONG time since I did a group workout. Actually, no joke... the last time was 2006! We finished up with 2.5 miles of cooldown

Thursday-9/10: 0. OFF.

-I had to stay late at work and though I should of pushed myself out the door... I felt that I was going to get sick if I didn't get to sleep by 10:30pm.

Friday-9/11: 8 miles. Ridge Park Loop +

- In the steady rain, I got out and ran an easy 8 miles prior to driving back to Pennsylvania. My wife is going to my cousin Erin's baby shower on saturday afternoon... Plus, we still have a few items in our old apartment in PA that we need to fit in the cars... So, i made the trip as well. Legs felt great but due to the petty day off on Thursday... Still frustrates me.

Saturday-9/12: 10 miles. 5.3 mile tempo run. in Tyler Park.

-Back in the old stomping ground... Details to come...

Week Total =62 miles in 6 days.

Week 1: 8/30-9/5

Sunday: 0 miles... Busy day I wasn't too happy to miss my long run.

Monday: 6 miles...Ridge Park loop. Medium effort... felt good
In the AM I performed a 10 station circuit (x2) at my school during my break. Like a moron I incorporated squat thrust, mountain climbers, scissors and frog hops within the circuit that also included abdominal and upper body emphasis (which I do need). I don't think this will feel good the next few days....

Tuesday: 9 miles...Germantown Park. Didn't do the standard loop that combines the mountain bike trails and the back roads surrounding the park. I just neandered around the park and surrounding neighborhoods. Easy effort but felt harder as my quads felt like jelly.

Wednesday: 9 miles... TRACK WORKOUT. 2.5 up. 6 x 800 w/200m rest between first 3 800's. 400 rest after the first 3 intervals and then 200 rest again between final 3 800's.
2:20, 2:20, 2:19 400 rest 2:19, 2:17, 2:11. 2.5 miles cool down on turf.
- Workout felt great for first track workout in 2 months. Before the workout, I didn't think I was going to have a good experience as my legs were like lead and my hamstrings felt like they were going to ball up on me if I over-extended my workout. It wound up being tolerable and I was excited to get back on the track and really pumped to be able to have Karl to get through the workout with.

Thursday: 8 miles... Went out and back 4 miles on the tow path. Felt good. I wanted a soft, flat surface for today's run as my legs were beat up from yesterdays workout combined with the foolish circuit i put myself through on monday. Legs didn't feel good and it was hard to get into a rhythm.

Friday: 6 miles easy around germantown. Legs felt terrible. I took a cold bath after run and then took a hot bath later on, hoping to get the junk out of my legs.

Saturday: 10 miles total RACE: Kentlands/Lakelands 5k (Gaithersburg).
5th place with 15:30.
* Warm up of 2 miles felt fine. I was poised and ready to get out after a competitive field. I knew going into it I was lacking strength from low mileage and a consistency of 4-6 runs/week for majority of the summer. Usually if I run smart, I can still dish out a good performance on lower mileage. I went out easy and the plan was to go after the last mile and hope there was people fading ahead of me I could zero in on. I went out in 4:51 and came through deuce in 9:37. Karl and I worked with one another through 2 miles and just past 2 miles, the 3rd place kenyan who we were bringing in looked back and dropped out of the race. At that point, Karl surged and I was not able to respond... In fact, at that point I was unable to even keep my current race pace...The last mile of that race took forever... as my time explains... 9:37 at 2... 15:30 at finish. I am excited that I was able to get through 2 miles at that pace and feel comfortable... Usually when I suddenly get the bear on the back and it is not a gradual onset, it means I am just lacking strength... I cooled down 4 miles with Karl, Mike (Karl's friend from college) and a kenyan named Joel Mwaura (2nd place overall: just arrived in the states only 3 weeks ago from Nairobi).

Week 1 Mileage = 46 miles in 6 days.