Sprung

It was another solid 7 days of training and my highest in volume since who knows when. I ended the week with 73 miles, which included two workouts and a 16 miler.

After the Wednesday workout, Thursday morning, as usual, was a grind of a run. In fact, I don’t even remember where we went.

I didn’t run again until Friday evening and by the time I hit the roads, spring was in full effect. Everyone and their brother was out walking, jogging, biking  - even playing baseball. The blooming flowers and bright green grasses coupled the warm evening air and gave me sense of renewed energy – sometimes hard to muster by the time 7:00pm on a Friday rolls around.

On Saturday morning, I met Outlaw, Wertz, Tex and Bain at Old Angler’s for a 2 x 2.5 mile workout at Cherry Blossom pace along the limestone towpath. Cherry Blossom pace is somewhere hopefully between 5:10-5:15/mile, but that’s simply a guess. After a 3-mile warm up, we got after it. We hit the first mile in 5:16 and the second in 5:12. Outlaw pulled out due to IT pain somewhere around here so Tex surged ahead to take his place. When all was said and done I ended up running 13:03. We ran a half mile out and then a half mile back and proceeded to run the same 2.5 mile section hard again, albeit in reverse this time around. I went out a little too slow for the first mile (5:18) but made up for it with a 5:10 on the second. My last half-mile was again 2:35 and I finished with a 13:04. I was hoping to crank the second rep a lot faster, but it was a good effort nonetheless that didn’t leave me very taxed. My right calf was, however, sore after the workout and while on the cool down my blood sugar levels seemed to drop dramatically. I felt weak and dizzy and day dreamed of chugging Gatorade, which I soon was doing. Normally this happens during evening (read – Wednesday) workouts, not in the mornings. It’s certainly something for me to keep an eye on.

On Sunday I met Bain for a run down the Northwest Branch/Rachel Carson trails in/around Wheaton/Silver Spring/Tacoma Park. My calf was still pretty sore but no worse for the wear after 16 miles. In my 9 years running in and around DC, I’ve never once run a step on these trails. Once we arrived at Wheaton Regional Park (some 5 miles from Bain’s house) we were really in a trail heaven. I’ll definitely have to drive here some day and do some exploring – old school Red Fox-style adventuring.

I’ll run another “up” week before bringing my mileage/intensity down for Cherry Blossom.