Crisp Air

The first two days of this week have been a bit chilly but I will not complain a bit because I have run under sunny skies. By the time I am heading out at 0515 the sun is near breaking the horizon and the morning air is crisp. The birds are chirping and all I could hear was the pitter patter of my feet hitting the asphalt.

Monday I found myself a bit more fatigued than planned. I felt so good yesterday after my long run that I figured I would jump out of bed and just pound out the miles. Wrong! I had sore and tight hamstrings along with general fatigue. That may have been a good thing as it kept the pace very controlled. I did my usual loop out to Martin road and home via Vermilion and UMD. By then end of the run I was looking for some food and tea and ready to start a fresh week.

This morning I managed to get out and do some uptempo running. For the next three or four weeks one of my weekly workouts will be steady-state running. This morning I did 4 miles and at the end of four weeks I will run a 10 miler at pace. The pace is NOT the same as LT (lactate threshold) pace, rather it is a pace just a bit slower, or, just a bit faster than marathon pace. At this point in my training I used 5:40 as my pace. I didn't really feel all that peppy this morning but I managed to hold pace rather easily. It's really important not to push too hard on these workouts and running under the prescribed pace is counterproductive. I'm not too sure what I will do the rest of this training for my second workout of the week but I am thinking I will dabble with 1000 meter repeats. In the past I have gained a lot of strength from the 1k's and I hope that is the true this time around.

Monday: 1:02:00 8.2 miles recovery

Tuesday: 1:10:00 10+ miles

(garmin died 32 minutes into run)

4 miles at 5:40 pace in middle