Tuesday, March 13: Ivy Creek Greenway – 8 miles – Got back into the swing of things with an 8 mile afternoon run. I once again had hopes of running in the morning before work but I woke up to heavy rain and complete darkness. I forgot that the sun doesn’t come up until around 7:30 with daylight savings time going into effect over the weekend. The downside is running in the AM and getting out of bed in general is a little tougher but it means the sun will be up until almost 8 now. My legs were a little heavy today, but I’m assuming that’s a result of traveling and not running yesterday. I really should have done a shakeout or a pair of shakeouts before I left and then when I got back instead of worrying about not having time to run 7 or 8 on Monday morning.
Wednesday, March 14: Ivy Creek Greenway – 8 miles – My legs still felt a little heavy to start today’s run but I felt better as I went on. We are trying out a couple new catering services at work so I ate way too much and drank way to little water today. The temperate has started to settle into that nice 70-80 range but it takes a couple days of running in that to get used to it.
Thursday, March 15: Ivy Creek Greenway – 8 miles –Another borderline hot day. Nothing too exciting, just the standard eight mile loop up to the GEHC and then out and back on the greenway. For the fourth consecutive day my legs have been really heavy at the start of the run…I’m probably paying for eating like crap and running so little last week while I was back home. Saturday’s race could be ugly.
Friday, March 16: Ivy Creek Greenway – 6 miles – I was originally planning on running my standard eight mile run today but it was another hot day and I was already worried about my legs not being lively enough for tomorrow’s race so I went with a shorter version that I’m calling six. It was probably a little shorter but I’m calling it six.
Saturday, March 17: Dirty Spokes Running the Rocks 10k – 10 miles total – I’ll do another race recap for this one but it went about the way I expected it. Two mile warm up, 6.2 mile race, two mile cool down. The race went out fast as it starts on a slightly down hill/flat gravel road for about a mile before heading into the woods. Tim (the Dirty Spokes RD) changed the course up a little bit from last year and that made it a little bit tougher in the early going. A fast first mile and hilly second and third mile had me struggling to find a rhythm until things leveled out around four miles. I ended up third, but ran much slower than this race last year. I’m caulking it up to the fact that I haven’t done a workout in a couple of weeks and that my mileage dropped. I need to work on getting my mileage up to stay at the front of the pack in these races. I did manage to grab another 14 points in the age group series and I should be tied for the lead in the 25-29 group through two races.
After the race I met up with my brother, who was in town with a friend on their way back from Daytona Beach. We hit Dillards for some BBQ and then did about three hours of climbing and swinging in the trees on the ropes course at the GEHC. I was totally gassed by about 7pm.
Sunday, March 18: Ft. Yargo State Park – 14 miles – I got a late start on the day and didn’t decide where I wanted to run until about 11, normally on the weekend I plan out my Saturday and Sunday runs during the week. I decided to go out to Yargo and run the inner loop (7 miles) twice to get a nice long run in. Typically, when I head out to Yargo I run the mountain bike loop or the half marathon course but since it was around 12:15 by the time I got out there I wanted to be able to stop at the car and grab some water half way through, so I went with two loops of the hiking trail. The first one went well. I stopped at the beach campground to splash some water on my face and the back of my neck and then stopped at the car for some drinking water and a half a honey stinger waffle, which really helped me on the second lap. The second time around I saw a couple walking a Vizsla that I seriously considered stealing. I cruised for most of the run and finished in 1:36 and change. It’s kind of crazy how much the mountain bike loop adds. It took me 1:36 to run 14 today and two weeks ago I ran the 13.1 half marathon course in reverse in 1:50. Oosh. Post run I hit up Barberitos for a grilled chicken burrito.
Weekly Totals: 54 miles on six runs – Overall, I’m pretty happy with this week. It was tough for me to get going early on and I was a little down after taking Monday off, but I bounced back pretty well with another solid 50+ mile week including one okay race. Now it’s time to step up my mileage. I need to add in 2-3 10+ runs during the week, which most likely means at least one trip to Chicopee and Gainesville State a piece each week after work. I also want to play with my daily runs a little bit. After talking to Matt Rivers on Saturday he told me that in high school they did workouts on the hilly trails at the GEHC. I am thinking of mixing up a couple loops of the Stream Ecology trail into some of my runs. This trails is .82 miles and whichever way you run it, it contains two steep drops and two steep climbs in quick succession. After Saturday’s race I really need to work on finding a rhythm when running terrain like that, especially with the up and down switchbacks coming up at the Olde Rope Mill race.
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