I’M ON A ROLL This is the kind of weeks I want to duplicate over the next few months, hopefully with some small improvements still to come. Although the improvement curve right now, in the early stages, is high and I’m hoping it doesn’t plateau for some time. Mileage wise this week is where I want to stay for the next couple of months, a max of 90-100 miles, while adding in additional training supplements like stretching, pool running, weights and exercises, along the way. I managed to get in three morning runs this week while getting out of bed at 6 in the morning; which is a big deal with me. Subsequently it has been forcing me to bed at 9-9:30 pm which is also a benefit. These morning runs have been a good lesson in running easy on my easy days; with a couple of those morning being in the -4 degree range I paid special attention to bundling up the layers before I headed out the door and starting off really slow pace, but that is the point right now with these runs and there is no need to push hard everyday. I had two workouts planned for this week. The first was on Tuesday at the new UBC track with our group and a whole bunch of UBC runners. It was a cool, cool night so I wanted to spend as much time as I needed to warm-up. The workout planned was 4x1600 meters off 2:30 rest and while the rest in my group were going to run some 300’s after the miles I was supposed to do an extra mile and that would be it for me. Not knowing exactly what pace I would be able to handle I settled into the second group of runners and came through the first interval in 4:49. Happy with that and the mind set that I had 5 to do and the final one would be on my own I decided to settle in where I was for the remainder of the workout. The next I ran in 4:47 and the next in 4:44 with a small change, I was feeling good and keeping my effort under control while the rest the runners around me (mostly college runners) were turning the final 200 meters into a kicking match. Now later on in this build-up I may not be able to reign myself in from kicking down some of these sprints; right now I am quite content to just stick with a comfortable pace. While this was going on I kept thinking about a book I read, Running with Legends, where I read that Bill Roger’s,( while he ran really fast marathons; 2:08 at his best), trained with a large group called the Boston Track Club and would sit in mid pack just getting in the work; not worrying about leading each interval or setting records during workouts. I ran the fourth mile in 4:44 again and expecting to have one final mile to run solo was told by coach that that was good enough and there was no reason to do any more so I changed my shoes and put on some more clothes and cooled down around the track. The next workout was on Thursday and we had a good group for this one, Dylan, Wykes, Anders, Jerry and me. The workout was a progression run around Mundy Park 12 miles in length. I parked at the wrong place so I had to jog over half a mile to meet up with the rest of the guys and then we were on our way. The first loop was nice and easy and I was feeling good, we split 19 minutes for the first loop. The second loop the pace started to quicken and half way around Dylan and I started to lose a bit of ground on Jerry and Wykes and I pushed it a bit to keep that distance small but I knew I was probably pushing it a bit more than I should so after a second loop at 17:26 I stopped trying to keep pace with the leaders and just ran a pace I could keep up for the rest of the run. Loop three was run in 16:37, which at this point in total would be a damn good progression run through Mundy park while in peak fitness so I was satisfied that I had done enough work that day and veered off from Dylan during the 4th loop and ran a shorter 2km loop back to the parking lot in 6:30 and continued on back to my truck. In total I still got just over 12 miles in at a pace of 5:40 per mile average.
