Thursday, November 09, 2006

Not That Bad, Really

OK, I said that last Sunday's run was a bit tough. I should clarify that. It was tough in a good way. As in, pushing through some soreness and tiredness and still finishing at a good pace and actually feeling good about the run.

OK, so on Monday, my day off from running, I did some cross training. I was kind of tired, so I cut the circuit training part a little short (half as many reps). I still did about 20 minutes of rowing.

Then on Tuesday, I had my first tempo run of this cycle. I started out with a 2-mile warm-up at an easy pace. Then I picked it up to what should be lactate threshold pace (somewhere between my 10K and 15K race pace), and held it for 4 miles. I finished with another easy 2 miles. I averaged 8:15 for the tempo part of the run. A little slower than I would have liked, but I'm OK with it. It was my first real up-tempo run in quite a while. Tuesday night, of course, I stayed up WAY too late watching the election returns.

Yeah, I was quite pleased. [No gloating.]

Unfortunately, I just didn't get nearly enough sleep that night. On Wednesday, my easy 5-mile recovery run was a real butt-dragger. I'm glad I no longer time those runs. It would have been depressing.

Today, however, after a really good night's sleep, I ran 10 miles at lunchtime. I mapped out ahead of time a new section of trails near Concord and measured it out with favoriterun.com's google earth interface. The weather today was simply amazing. Almost too warm. Upper 60's! This is crazy for November in Massachusetts. Averaged 8:36 per mile for the 10 miles. Felt very, very good.

Easy runs for the next two days, then my first "goal pace" run on Sunday. That will be where I practice going out 30 seconds SLOWER than goal pace, and gradually increase to goal pace in the first 6 miles (then hold that for the duration of the run). This one will be 12 miles total. Last week I did 43 miles, and this week should be 44, so no big increase this week.

And, on a MOST exciting note... It looks like we have FINALLY sold our house back in Kansas! We close before Thanksgiving.

[...and there was much rejoicing]

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just wanted to say YEAH about selling your house!! WAHHHOOO!

11/11/2006 1:25 PM  
Blogger Anne said...

Great news about the house sale. And especially in this slowdown.

11/11/2006 3:55 PM  
Blogger E-Speed said...

congrats on selling the house!

11/11/2006 9:27 PM  
Blogger D said...

Yea! Good news on the house - finally! Nice job on the training, Kurt.

11/12/2006 10:55 AM  

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