National Marathon Week 10

This week has another 15 mile run at the end and it has new years in the middle. should be a tough one... January is the make or break month for me to see if I can hit my 4:20 goal. There are 4 tough weeks this month with one recovery week. Hopefully the weather will cooperate with my schedule...

Monday: Was supposed to swim, but got home late from Virginia and was worn out so I skipped it.

Tuesday: Today was a tempo run, after my last few workouts and all the traveling I wasn't expecting much, but it ended up being a really good run. Met Tim and Frank at Shelley lake and did the 1 mile warmup together. Tim had 4 miles at 8:30 and Frank said he would hang with me as long as he could. At mile 1 Tim took off and Frank and I increased to 9:10 pace, took my sweat shirt off at 1.5 and felt much better. My tempo pace for 5 miles was to be between 9:00 and 9:20. Mile 1 of tempo was 9:11 and I felt really good. Shelley lake is really flat so I'm sure that had something to do with it. mile 2 of the tempo was 9:10, still feeling good so I decided to pick it up a bit to 9 min pace and lost Frank. Mile 3 was 8:58, this was harder, but I still felt really good so I kept this pace for mile 4 and an 8:59. Mile 5 of the tempo had a short steep hill right where I dropped my sweat shirt that I had to pick up so I wanted to keep my 9 min pace going so after picking it up I sprinted to the top and still had dropped to 9:30 pace from 8:56 and was way out of breath. I kept a decent pace going until I could breath again and picked it up for the final quarter to finish mile 5 @ 9:03. then did a 10:14 cool down. total for the run 1:05 and a 9:23 pace for 7 miles, tempo part was 9:04 pace for 5 miles.

Wednesday: Coach changed my schedule to be a cross train at the last minute from a run so I did a swim today.
warmup:
5 swim, 5 pull, 5 kick w/fins

mainset:
12 mins pull & paddles @ 2.3
3 min swim at 2.3 :30 ri
2 min swim at 2.4 :30 ri
1 min swim at 2.5

cool down:
5 mins easy

Thursday: Very cold new year's day run. Wore my new tights and socks and shorts with an old long sleeve shirt and heavy fleece sweat shirt on top, skiing gloves and a hat. Had my heavy metal play list shuffled on my iphone and took off early. It was close to 30 degrees, I think I overdressed, but running into the wind I was cold with the wind chill, but when the wind was at my back it felt hot. Either way I felt fairly good and stong on this run, a little sore from the 3 hours of ice skating the day before, but since it was an easy run I took it easy. Did 5 miles in 52 mins for a 10:16 pace...

Friday: day off - woo hoo, but spent day taking down chritmas gifts and starting on a hopefully consistent resistence training plan.

Saturday: 15 miles at comfortable pace - um remember not to start resistence training day before 15 mile run. This 15 miler was better than the last 15 miler, while last time I was coming down with a cold, this time my energy level was good, but my muscles were sore. My running partners were resting injuries and my other running buddies were either too lazy to get up or had to watch the kids so I was solo this week. I setup a playlist for the iphone and headed to umstead. Started off cold, I was wearing long tights and shorts and a long sleeve running shirt and fleece pullover. no gloves or head gear. My paces were slower to start than last time, but overall my pace at the end was better. I did run the last 3 miles without walkbreaks but man my quads were killing me.
stats: 15 miles in 2:42:00 for a 10:47 pace, ave hr 144 max 162. spent most of the time in zone 3 1:54:45, and some in zone 4 ( 40:06 ).

Sunday: Swim - legs were really sore today so just did an easy swim and no kicking.

miles for the week 27

looking forward to getting back to a normal schedule...