our choices show what we truly are

I went running more as a tradition and to burn some calories from last night/early morning, I went just before lunch time with a beautiful sun and cool breeze.

First fast workout of the new year. 4k warm up, then I left inside the car my second layer and the gloves and I started my tempo run, 9k at 4:00-4:05/k. I was feeling great as usual for the first 5k then I started working on my form and speed turnover and finished the last k at an incredible 3:49/k. Overall 9k in 36:04. 2 more k as a cool down. I am feeling good about these runs, next week, when the holidays will be gone, I will resume my normal schedule, and I will add a repeat session on monday or tuesday to the tempo run.

Easy run.

Another easy run, nothing special.

Third easy run in a row, I am just glad the Christmas holidays are done. 

Speed workout 8X800 w/ 2m recovery jog, my splits were incredibly consistent tonight and during my recovery jog I covered at least 300m. These are my splits: 3:02, 3:03, 3:00, 2:58, 2:59, 2:59, 3:01, 2:59 average time 3:00+1" final AP 4:44/km, including warm up and cool down.

7 easy recovery miles, at the end I was almost shivering even though it was not cold (about 5°C), weird.

Five easy miles nothing special about it.

Tempo run night. I wanted to continue the trend of the last few weeks, getting to the point of doing a 10k threshold run at 4:00-4:05/km. After 3k warm up, I immediately realized it was not going to happen. I started my first fast km and my legs were really heavy and dead, I kept pushing until I finished the 6k and then I quit. At that point my average pace was 4:08/k, still decent, but I was struggling, breathing was fine, but my legs were not there. I added 4k cool down and went home.

Doing two workouts (800 repeats and a tempo) in a week is hard and this is what I can do right now. Instead if I do only one of them I can push the pace a little bit more in each one. I am not disappointed it is what it is.

Heavy rain outside, chicken heart inside. 1 hour biking on the trainer.

Sunny day with subfreezing temperatures, nothing like Utah weather though.

Medium progression run starting at MP and finishing at HM/threshold pace, overall I would say mission accomplished. These are my splits: 5k at 5:35/k (warm up), 5k at 4:57/k, 5k at 4:29/k, 1k at 5:12 (to drink some water while passing by the car and eating some sugar), 5k at 3:59/k, 4k at 5:35/k(cool down)  final average pace 4:53/k. Last thursday I struggled to keep 4:08/k for 5k, today, while it required some concentration, it was comfortbly hard and really doable.

The weather was not the best for running, fog/low clouds with a visibility of maybe 200m, humidity and temperatures around 5°C. I wanted to do an HM at slow pace, overall at the end was not fast but it was a nice progression run, first 11k in 58 min and change, the last 10.1k in 50. 

Easy easy run, I was really tired and hungry. I just wanted to go home and have dinner.

Interval run, the usual 8X800 with 2' recovery jog. These were the splits: 3:01, 2:59, 3:02, 3:02, 3:04, 3:05, 3:01, 2:59 AP 3:01+5". I was tired and hungry again, halfway I had negative thoughts and I was not confident I could finish it (splits show this), then I decided to keep pushing and I rescued the last two intervals. Probably doing two workouts and a long run per week is a lot right now, but I will keep it in my schedule. It was definitively the coldest run of the season so far.

Slow run, just some easy recovery miles.

I had a tempo run planned for tonight, but snow changed the plan. I know that people in Utah would still doing it anyway especially with just a 32F temperature, but the footing was really bad. Ended up with a 7 miler progression run in 1:00:13. The last four km were at 4:30/km. It is always good to run on fresh snow.

No run, 1 hour indoor biking.

I started while it was snowing, not very hard, but it was a light snowshower with heavy wet snowflakes. No powder here, and by the end of the run I went through endless cycles of snowflakes-sticking-to-my-body-melting-refreezing and I was totally frozen and wet. The footing was just horrible as well, with black ice underneath and a light snow cover on top, I did 10 miles with baby steps. Did I mention I really enjoyed it!!! 

Five easy miles with much better footing and traction than yesterday.

Progression run, from warm up for 5k to MP for the rest of the run. It was nice and easy, the moon is out and the visibility tonight was incredible.

Medium tempo run night. 3.4k warm up, then a 10k at 4:00-4:05 goal pace.

It went really well (mostly due to the easy runs of the last few days), these were my splits:

3:59, 4:03, 3:52, 4:03, 3:56, 3:59, 4:07, 4:01, 4:16, 3:59 final time 40:15. The yo-yo effect in my time is due to the hill and the 180° turn every 1.6k. The only disappointing km was the 9th when I thought I had 40 minutes in the bag and I relaxed a little bit on the downhill, lost the momentun and concentration on the uphill portion and finished with the only bad split of the night.

This is not my HM pace yet (even though I could have kept it for a couple of more kms), it is something in between 10k and HM, but considering that it is still an unofficial 10k pr (my overall 10k pr is in a training run and it was 39:55 four years ago) and two months ago in a faster official 10k race I did 40:55, I am pretty happy with that.

Relaxing run, 4 easy miles to recover from last night run and to prepare for next sunday race. I will continue on this theme for the rest of the week.

5 easy miles, tomorrow and saturday complete rest.

This is the traditional race opening the season, it is longer than an HM, it is slower as you can see in the altitude profile here and every year the start is in one of the three town. This year based on the altitude profile map we started from km 13 and went backward, with the big dive and climb right at the end.

I met two of my running buddies at 8:00 am and we drove to the place. Temperatures were just sub-freezing but the sky was blue and no wind at all. We were forced to park a mile from the start and take a shuttle (it was actually better than last year). We reached the start with plenty of time and then we started fighting our way close to the start line. This year there were 2000 runners packed in a 4 meters wide road and we were probably half way without any way to go any closer.

It took us almost a minute to get to the starting line but the mess was later when we started the passing game. My goal was to keep for the first half 4:15-4:20/k but the first 2k on a narrow road slightly uphill, packed with people, I did 4:51, 4:30, then I started going down to my target pace. I thought it would be easy to maintain that pace, but it was hard, we never done this race in this direction (usually it is in the opposite direction when we start from the other two towns) so I didn't have any reference for the pace.

I got at the half way point and also the highest point of the race in good mental and physical conditions, from that point on the course is slightly downhill first and then a big drop before climbing back up to the finish line. I passed in this section many more people and crossed at the bottom of the downhill the HM mark in 1:28:5X. The last km back up was steep and brutal. I crossed the finish line in 1:35:52, that was a solid time. It is my unofficial CR.

When I started I didn't know how I could honestly do, I trained hard and fast during the last two months, but I am still missing some mileage. Now I know I am on the right track and in a month I will have a legitimate chance to finish on a flatish HM in under 1:27.

Tonight I still had some good marathon grade pain in my quads, going down the stairs is still painful and my whole body feels totally trashed. The heavy rain out convinced me, as if I needed, to stay inside and bike for one hour. At least I got a good sweat going. Tomorrow I will try to run again.

10k in 1:00:57, good easy recovery run. My right quad is still achy, but pain is on its way out.

Tomorrow more or less same program.

Another recovery run, 5 miles in 45:09. My right hamstring has some residual pain, left one is fine. In a couple of days I will be back to my normal aches and pains.

Another easy run, I let my legs dictate my speed. Tonight I went a little bit faster and longer. My right leg has some residual tightness, I didn't want to push too hard, but toward the end of the run I felt almost back to normal. 7.5 in 1:11:14.