Saturday, February 21, 2009

Workout on the Canal



I ran a good workout today with Reaves, Murphy, Diego, Sam, Dylan and Dickson. We started at Riley's Lock and ran south to Old Angler's Inn. The distance is about 9 miles and we planned to run 2 miles on/1 mile off x 3 sets. If possible, I wanted to run each 2 miles at my 10 mile race pace (i.e. - 5:06 - 5:11). After a 2 mile warm up, we started our first 2-miler at mile marker 23. We decided to take our first 2-miler easy and "warm up" into it. Although not exactly 2 miles, you can't get much closer unless you ran on a track. Each of the three 2-mile sets were 1.97, 1.99 and 2.01 miles respectively. I calculated the pace per mile for each of MY splits for a full two mile distance:

5:22/5:17 = 10:39 (1.97 in 10:31)
5:14/5:07 = 10:22 (1.99 in 10:19)
5:11/5:09 = 10:20 (2.01 in 10:23)


Each rep was a little faster than the last and the second mile of each was a little faster than the first. The last mile of the last repeat felt much faster than 5:09. I took off just before the halfway point and really tried to hammer away. I heard breathing and knew that Diego was walking me down. I knew I was picking up the pace, so he must have been really picking up the pace. I opened up the stride and surged it home. It felt great to get out and hammer away on the limestone path on a nice sunny day (mid-30s). I ran a solid cooldown and got in 14 total. I am at 101.5 miles in the past 7 days...my highest 7 day total of all time. If I run 16.5 tomorrow I will officially be in the 100 mile week club. I feel content to press forward.

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