Tuesday, March 27: AM – GEHC Trails – 5 miles – Woke up a little early to get in a morning five before work. It was slow going but really nice out, overall it was a great morning for a run. I ran out on the sweet gum trail to the GEHC trails down to the bottom of creekside and then back the same way for five.
PM – Chicopee Woods – 10 miles – After work I went back to Chicopee Woods to run on the mountain bike trails. I ran the coyote, tortoise and white tail trails, which total a little more than 10 miles. It is starting to get hot, mid to upper 80s every afternoon so I need to make sure I stay on top of my hydration during the day. I should probably look into either getting a hand-held water bottle or structuring my runs with the ability to stop for some water if necessary. I was dead tired when I got home and passed out on the coach while reading. I woke up completely disoriented and confused. It was 8:30 pm, but I thought that I had slept through the night in the recliner in the living room. It was a bizarre minute or two.
Wednesday, March 28: AM – GEHC Trails – 5 miles – Ran the same morning run as yesterday, so that after this afternoon’s run I will be caught up on my mileage for the week. This afternoon I’ve got a 30-60-90 workout planned, but we’ll see how it goes since I just found out that I’m playing golf around 11.
PM – Chicopee Woods – 10 miles – 8 sets of 30-60-90s - I warmed up on the coyote loop (2.7 miles), which was a little bit long of a warm up but I wanted to run the workout without running the tortoise trail twice as it usually has high mountain bike traffic. About five minutes into the warm up I knew it was going to be a long afternoon. I tried to stay hydrated while golfing but that clearly didn’t work. I started my repeats with the idea of doing six sets but figured that if I could manage eight sets it would probably bring me closer to the end of the run. My first few sets were a little rough. I had trouble recovering after the 30 second periods, even though I was trying to run a similar pace for each one. I battled through three sets and felt like I should do eight total because my rest was a little suspect and I knew that if I didn’t do those extra sets I would end up dogging it back to the car for the last two or three miles. I managed to work in a couple of good 60 & 90 second reps but continued to struggle with the rest and maintaining my pace the whole way through. I am definitely chalking some of that up to the heat and the fact that I spent the whole day in the sun. Mercifully I reached the creek crossing at the bottom of granny’s climb (a three or so minute climb out of the bottom of a little valley back up to the parking lot level). At the base of the climb I stopped and dunked my head in the water then hit my watch for the final set of repeats up the hill. I made it to the top and back onto the tortoise loop with one final 90 second repeat left. After finishing that I took the rest and then tried to run the final 1.5-2 miles with a decent pace back to the car.
It wasn’t a great overall workout in terms of the pace of both the repeats and the rest but I am glad I got in a hard effort day on difficult terrain (Chicopee is one of the hillier runs around with a lot of ups and downs). And that the end of the day that’s what I wanted a hard day on tough terrain because the Olde Rope Mill race coming up is tough terrain.
Thursday, March 29: GEHC Trails – 10 miles – This was a little bit of a weird run but man did it feel good to get it over with in the morning. I woke up a little early again because we have a seminar for work all day downtown. I ran out and back on the GEHC trails for five then out and back on the greenway for another five to get in 10. It’s really nice to be done with running early. Now I just have to get through this seminar.
Friday, March 30: AM – GEHC Trails – 5 miles – Amanda worked early today so got up and got an easy five in this morning before work. This is becoming my go to morning run. It’s a little bit nicer than just running the greenway because it’s got a few more hills in it, well actually it has hills and the greenway is completely flat.
PM – GEHC Trails – 5 miles – Same run as this morning. Nothing special, but I do run it two or three minutes faster in the afternoon than I do in the morning. It must my muscles a little time to wake up. Ten miles for the day.
Saturday, March 31: GEHC Trails – 5 miles – I ended up dialing it back a little bit today. I’ve been feeling pretty tired the last couple of days and decided to just run five to get something in and then I spent the rest of the day out in Canton, GA playing paintball. I was running around in the sun for four or five hours so I’m fine with only running five this morning.
Sunday, April 1: Ft. Yargo State Park – 14 miles – After taking it easy yesterday I decided to close out the week with a solid long run. I drove over to Ft. Yargo and ran two loops of the hiking trail to get 14 miles on the day. I left a little bit late this morning so by the time I got to the park it was starting to warm up. This run, unlike the 13 mile mountain bike trail, has a couple of places to stop for water which I had to do on the second loop. Other than getting hot on the second loop this was a solid run. It was aa little slower than last time I was out here but only by a minute or two and I think that had a lot to do with the heat. After the run I went to Five Guys for a burger and cherry coke.
Weekly Totals: 69 miles on nine runs – This was my highest week mileage-wise since around this time last year and I got in 253 miles in March, which is a little bit low but still my highest month since last April. I’m happy with the mileage (I should have added a mile to get 70 but 69 works) but I would prefer to do it on fewer runs. I like doubling but if I’m going to double more than two days a week I want to get one longer run so it breaks down to something like 8 and 5 or 7 and 3 instead of 5 and 5, but that was kind of the hand that I was dealt last week. I don’t really have any kind of strict training plan; right now I am just kind of running and trying to stay consistent. In that respect I’ve done pretty well. Next week, I’m aiming for another 65-75 miles with a workout before the Olde Rope Mill trail race (race three of the Dirty Spokes series). I will probably do another 30-60-90 workout at Chicopee to simulate the terrain for that race.
Side note: Before posting this I was reading a couple of fellow Keene State alum blogs and saw mentions of arm warmers, gloves and half tights because of the cold. I guess I should complain about how hot it is just yet.
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