We Be Jammin'

Today marked the first VO2 Max workout of this training cycle, and it went just fine. The only downside is that I didn't think the track would be clear of snow & ice, so I did the run on the treadmill (or, the "insteadmill", as I've been calling it lately). Considering the unprecedented mileage I've been logging, I'm very pleased to have gotten through an 8-mile run with 5 x 600 intervals at 5K pace, after an 8-mile general aerobic run yesterday early morning. Since I haven't run a 5K race since last August (shocking!), I presumptuously used my pace from then, hitting the intervals at about a 6:22/mile pace. It was definitely hard, but I had no doubts that I'd manage to hit the intervals as planned. The cool-down portion seemed to last an eternity, since slowing down by 2 minutes per mile feels like crawling (though I was thankful when the last interval was done).

Injury recap:

• pretty sore hip (not affecting actual runs under 14 or so miles)
• soreness in outside of left calf, but also not a problem during runs
• some foot pain, I'm guessing from the training volume (shoes are still pretty new)

Tomorrow (Thursday) calls for a 5-mile recovery run, which I plan to do with my injured colleague who ran the Philadelphia Marathon in 2:55 this year (talk about a crawl; I can only imagine how slow it'll feel to him to run 8:30 pace). Friday will be cross-training and core work. Saturday calls for 8 miles with 8x100 strides, and Sunday a nice 14-miles at the slower "long run" pace than last weekends MP effort.

After this cutback week, I have to "crest" the training program, with a 55-mile week on tap. More on that later, but what will follow is 3 50-ish mile weeks, then the taper, then the actual RACE. Hard to believe it's that close, but far enough away to allow for more fitness gains, and - more importantly - hopefully more objective indicators of those fitness gains.

-ESG