Friday, May 11, 2012

Speed, more hills, weight update

It's been nearly three weeks since I ran the Blue Ridge Marathon. Most coaches and books recommend around 4 weeks rest after a marathon before getting back into full-training mode, but since I wasn't going all-out in the marathon, I figured I'd be okay doing some speed work last night.

Originally I wanted to do a set of three tempo runs, but I also wanted to run with someone, so I adjusted the workout to a 3-mile tempo that I hoped some of the group gathered at Summit would be interested in.

My target pace was 6:30 per mile, and Jordan, Adam, and Heather weren't sure they were up for it, but said they'd give it a shot. After a mile warm-up at a faster pace than I was hoping for (7:20), Jordan and I took off. We caught up to Adam and Heather, and Adam joined me while Jordan dropped back to stay with Heather. Mile 1 was mostly uphill, and after cresting it and heading down Pine Road, Adam had had enough too. I was on my own. Mile 1 split was 6:25.

Mile 2 was mostly downhill, but I knew Mile 3 was going to be uphill, so I tried to conserve energy. After hitting a 5:45 pace running down Robert Walker, I eased back and watched my average pace for the mile crawl up. By the end of the mile, my split was back up to 6:25.

I started Mile 3 on an uphill, and the uphill continued nearly all the way to the end. I felt like I was putting out the same effort I had been, but my pace slowed to 7:11. I pushed my way up the hill, crossing Concord in a break in traffic, and continuing uphill. I got to the crest and my pace was about 7:05. Now all I could hope for was to bring the average pace below 7:00 for the mile. Somehow I gutted it out and brought my pace down to 6:57 for that final mile. Given that there was 123 feet of climbing in the mile, it wasn't too bad, but I was still hoping for a little better.

Not ideal, but it meant that I averaged about 6:36 for the whole tempo run. It was all I could do to limp home at around an 8:30 pace.

Then this morning I decided I hadn't had enough pain last night, so I did a partial reprise of last week's hill training. The twist was I ran the Pick Your Poison 5K route in the middle. I averaged about an 8:45 pace for the whole run -- not great, but not unexpected given yesterday's hard workout, and it was nice to get in 9 miles on a Friday.

Finally, as promised, I did my weekly weigh-in today. I came in at 185. Given that 185 is my goal for the END of May, it's not bad. However, I know full well that my weight fluctuates from day to day. I could be 187 tomorrow. I'd really like to be solidly under 185 for May, which really means getting into the low 180s. Should be very doable, especially now that I'm increasing my mileage. Not that I'm not hungry most of the time or anything....

This week: 185
Last week: 187
May goal: 185
Goal by July 31: 175

Details of yesterday's workout are below.


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