Training June 18 - June 24

Monday, June 18: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Normal morning eight miler, once again nothing special…up and around the GEHC then out and back on the greenway.

PM Run – Gainesville State College – 11 miles – 10 sets of 30-60-90s. We have mini-camp this week so the middle of the week is going to be really hectic. I’m going to have to get up early just to get my morning runs in, so I decided to bump my workout up to Monday.

I ran two loops of the mountain bike trail with 10 sets of pickups. This workout went much better than last week. I was faster than last week and definitely felt much better. It was a good tune up for this week’s central park race, which features a similar course. 19 miles for the day, good way to start off the week.

Tuesday, June 19: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Normal morning eight miler. With mini-camp this week I am likely going to be limited to one run a day. I was up at 5:30 to do clips then out the door for an hour before heading to work for the first day of mini-camp. It was a long day out in the sun and on my feet, exhausted when I got home around 7, so only one run today.

Wednesday, June 20: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Normal morning eight miler. Same deal as yesterday.

Thursday, June 21: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Normal morning eight miler. Same story as Tuesday and Wednesday.

Friday, June 22: Central Park – 5 miles – Half-day Friday at work meant I had some extra time in the afternoon to drive over to Central Park and get a few miles in on the race course. I took some cool back roads and bridges to cross Lake Lanier to get to Central Park. I got two easy laps in to survey the course and get five in on the day. I had a little trouble finding where exactly we were going to start the race, so I just ran from the start/finish of last year’s race. This still allowed me to run the course and go to work on my race plan. This course has some really fast spots and a couple that are a little slow. I also think it’s longer than five. The most crucial part of the race is going to be midway through the second lap. This is where I will try and make moves because the final 800+ meters is in really tight, rooty trails.

Saturday, June 23: Dirty Spokes Central Park Trail Race – 10 miles – Ran 10 miles total. Warmed up with Mitch, won the race in 31:43 after taking it out pretty hard and distancing myself from the pack. I ended up winning going away, which all but assures that I will win the series for the second year in a row. All I have to do is finish the final race and make sure Mitch doesn’t beat me by more than 10 spots. It was smoking hot out. I was sweating from the get go, but luckily the humidity wasn’t too bad so I wasn’t soaked until I crossed the finish line, and dumping water on my head at the water station was a great idea. Mitch and I ran a short cool down then I spent the rest of the afternoon playing paintball at Nitro.

Sunday, June 24: Ft. Yargo State Park – 14 miles – After having a little bit of a down week due to mini-camp, I hit Ft. Yargo for two loops of the hiking trail. I didn’t make the decision to head out there until a little bit later in the morning (around 9) and that was a mistake. It was pretty hot, moving towards the 90s by the time I got going. I really should have gotten out there earlier, but I brought plenty of water and the hiking trail allows for a stop at my car and at two different camp grounds. It also follows right next to the lake for most of the way if I ever need to cool down quick in an emergency. Either way I got in a good long run and my legs actually felt a lot better than I would have expected. I started off super slow because of the heat, but only ended up running about three or four minutes slower than normal. Barberitos for a delicious burrito afterwards.

Weekly Totals: 72 miles on 8 runs – As I said, my miles were a little bit lower this week due to mini-camp but I was glad to get over 70 miles again. That makes five straight weeks above 70 mpw and I feel like that has really made a difference in both my racing and overall fitness. I feel fairly fit, which is much better than where I was at when I started out in January and even how I felt when I ran Mt. Tabor and the Sutallee trace. Next week should be another 70-80 week, with a hill workout in there. I am going to need to start getting some hills in to get ready for Sawnee Mountain.

Training: June 11 - 17

Monday, June 11: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Normal morning run, nothing special but my legs felt a little bit better after having a more relaxed weekend in terms of miles. I wish I would have gotten something longer in on Saturday or Sunday, but it was nice to feel refreshed on a Monday morning. Honestly, I probably needed it with the increase in mileage lately.

PM Run – GEHC Trails – 3 miles – Up and around the GEHC for three miles after work. 

Tuesday, June 12: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Standard morning eight miler.

PM Run – GEHC Trails – 3 miles – Up and around the GEHC for three miles after work. 

Wednesday, June 13: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Standard morning eight miler.

PM Run – Gainesville State College – 11 miles – two loops of the 5.5 mile trail with 10 sets of 30-60-90s. This was a brutal workout. I had to add two sets on top of my original planned eight to help carry me to the finish. I knew there was no way I would have finished strong without them. Not that I finished strong, but it was better than it would have been without the extra sets. I think I was a little worn out from doing this workout after one of our OTA media days. I was on my feet out in the sun all day and I think that worn me down a little. About 12 minutes into the run I thought about bailing on the workout because of the heat but I pressed on. Hopefully it will pay off.

Thursday, June 14: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Standard morning eight miler. My legs were really feeling yesterday’s workout and I made the executive decision to go with one run. I probably could have gotten a second one in before trivia, but I needed to lay on the couch for a few hours.

Friday, June 15: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Standard morning eight miler.

PM Run – GEHC Trails – 3 miles – Up and around the GEHC for three miles after work. I ran this run around 7 or 7:30 PM and it was awesome. The weather was so much better, at least 15 degrees cooler than when I run around 5 due to more shade. I loved running a little later but I was starving and I’m not a fan of running that late and then getting up and running early. I never feel like I have time to relax when I do that, but once in a while it is a nice change of pace. 

Saturday, June 16: GEHC Trails – 6 miles – Woof. Amanda and I went out with some friends and ended up getting home around 1:30 am, way past normal bed time. I got up at 7:30 to do clips then had to go back to bed because I was exhausted. I slept in until around 10:30, which was awesome, then did two loops around the GEHC to get six. This was a get a few miles in run. I had plans to run again later but settled on running 14 tomorrow to get 80 for the week.

Sunday, June 17: Ft. Yargo State Park – 14 miles – Two loops of the hiking trail for 14. I got started a little later so about halfway through the second loop it started to heat up a little bit. All in all it was a good run, not fast but not slow. I was glad to get a longer run in with the next Dirty Spokes race coming up next weekend.

Weekly Totals: 80 miles on 11 runs – Good week of work. I hit 80 miles, which gives me four straight weeks above 75 miles. If I don’t run well at next week’s race it will not be for lack of miles. Next week I’m looking to hit 70 miles, it will probably be a little bit of a lower week since I won’t be able to run in the afternoon after work most of the week and I’ll probably just run five on Friday and try to save my legs a little bit going into Saturday’s race.

Training June 4 - June 10

I’m falling behind on my blog again so I’m going to just write a quick recap of last week’s training, especially since there wasn’t really anything spectacular about it. I was pretty much exactly where I wanted to be mileage-wise this past week, honestly, I was probably a little higher than I anticipated. I got 78 miles in on 11 runs, which as I’ve mentioned before seems like a lot of trips out the door but not that high of a mileage total. I would think most people running 11 times in a week would probably tend to be in the 80-90 mile range or perhaps hitting 100+ territory, but because I really only have about an hour to run in the morning and depending on the day I am usually just doing a three mile shakeout in the afternoon. I feel like if/when I decided to train for a marathon I’ll be able to step up my second run, but for now I am just enjoying getting out there as much as I can. For what I am running these days 70-75 miles works pretty well.

I had a typical start to the week, but threw in a five mile afternoon run on Tuesday because I had a little bit of extra time. Wednesday was very similar to last week with an 8 miler in the morning and then a 10 mile 30-60-90 workout in the afternoon. I ran on the Suwanee greenway again, but this time I cut out the 2 or 3 miles of extra running that I did by starting at the actual trailhead. It wasn’t the fastest workout I’ve ever done by any means and my calves were still a little tight from the road race on Saturday, but it’s important for me to get in a more up tempo effort each week. I race much better when I do a workout and not just running each day (how crazy, right).

I only got a chance to run once on Thursday but made up for it with a double on Friday. I ran my normal 8 in the am then headed to Ft. Yargo and ran seven in the afternoon. I ran my second run at like 1:30 after running at 7 am so I probably didn’t give myself enough time to fully recover but I really wanted to get out there this week and I knew I wasn’t going to make it.

I Spent Saturday at the Red Bull Soap Box derby in Piedmont Park downtown with the McNamara’s, which was pretty cool. They invited me to go down with them at trivia on Thursday night and since Amanda had to work I figured why not? We got there early and got a chance to check out the course that had two “kickers” and a bunch of hay bale lined slalom turns. There wasn’t as much carnage as I was expecting due to a lack of speed from most of the cars, but it was fun to watch none the less. My favorite cars where the guys that made batman’s motorcycle from TDK, which came out of a cardboard version of his tumbler bat mobile, the guys that dressed like the Beastie Boys in the Sabotage video who had a police car looking cart (even thought it was totally weak sauce and didn’t make it all the way down) and the eventual winners from Sweetwater Brewing Co., who made a giant rainbow trout (that Pat Ard would have loved) car. I also dominated some cheese fries and had a peaches n cream popsicle from King of Pops that was soooooo good. Surprisingly, I did not have any Red Bull…probably for the best. Oh yeah, and I ran a quick five in the morning before we left, we also walked around a ton…Matt’s FuelBand said he’d earned like 500+ fuel points so that counts for something.

Sunday I stayed home and ran an easy eight miles. I knew I had the miles that I wanted for the week and as much as I wanted to get a longer run in the crappy weather made me feel like staying close to home and getting breakfast with Amanda instead of ditching her on back to back days in the morning. I made some sweet baby rays BBQ boneless ribs for dinner. They were pretty good but next time I’m slow cooking them on the O Grill instead of using the Foreman.

Weekly Totals: 78 miles on 11 runs

Training: May 28 - June 3

Monday, May 28: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Typical morning run. Up and around the GEHC and down to the greenway, out and back. Still feeling the busy weekend in my legs a little bit.

Tuesday, May 29: GEHC Trails - 8 miles – Normal morning run. I’ve got this run pretty dialed in as I’ve been hitting it between 57-59 minutes on most mornings without putting in a whole lot of effort. Unfortunately they are not really very exciting to blog about, just a standard put the work in eight miler. I am in a good rhythm though, as much as I would love to sleep in until 7 once in a while I am really enjoying getting out and getting a run in early. It is allowing me to add extra miles in the afternoon if I choose or to go on with my day without knowing I need to get out and run at some point in the day. I feel like that is how running becomes a chore, when you feel like you have get a run in and it’s hanging over your head. I’ll have that feeling once in a while but since I’ve moved down here I’ve been better at just enjoying it. /rant.

Wednesday, May 30: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Took it nice an easy this morning. I have a workout planned for tonight, but I wanted to make sure I got a solid run in easy just in case anything comes up at work.

PM Run – Suwanee Creek Greenway – 12 miles – 30-60-90s – I ended up running a little longer than I had originally planned, but it was good to finally get a mid-week workout in. I didn’t realize they had added 1.25 miles to the end of the trail making it 10.5 out and back instead of 8. I started at the George Pierce Park rec center, ran down to the start of the Greenway then ran out and back on the greenway and back to my car with 8 sets of 30-60-90s in the middle. They are still doing a little bit of construction just before Suwanee town center but I hopped the fences and ran along the dirt path that they will eventually pave. It’s a little ridiculous that I am hopping fences as a 27 year old, if they can’t take a joke…anyhow; the workout went pretty well for about 10 miles. I was running solid on my pickups and my rest was pretty good, it could have been better but by the time I made the turn I was starting to tire out a little bit. The last two miles were really tough. I did not run in a strong as I would have liked but I think that was a result of running 8 in the morning. 20 miles for the day was a little more than I was really prepared for.

Ran in my Type A5s for the first time, I liked them. They are nice and light and they fit well. A really comfortable ride for a racing flat.

Thursday, May 31: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – GAAAAAHHHH…my calves are insanely tight this morning. Probably a result of running 12 miles in racing flats, maybe not my best idea. I knew I was going to pay for running 20 miles yesterday. My legs loosened up a little bit as I went on, but I had to stop at the GEHC, at the pavilion by the apartment and at the tunnel to stretch out my calves. Other than tight calves though I felt alright for having run a long workout yesterday, a little sluggish and slow to start but okay once I got going.

PM Run – GEHC Trails - 3 miles – Normal three mile loop after work. It probably would have been smarter to run five and five today instead of eight and three as my calves were still really tight and didn’t loosen up all that much over the three miles. Hopefully I didn’t overdo it on Wednesday.

I hit an even 300 miles for the month of May. I know that’s not a ton of miles, but it’s better than my May last year and I’ve been increasing my mileage every month since I refocused my training in January. For the year I’m at 1,204 miles. Not crazy, but that’s about 240 miles a month, which I’m pretty happy with. I feel like the last couple of months have really helped me feel like I can train and race well during the offseason…now if I can just figure out how to stay in some kind of shape during the season at work.

Friday, June 1: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Normal route, up homesite to creekside and around the GEHC, down sweetgum then out and back on the greenway for eight. Just going with one run today, as I’m going to run the Run the Rails road race in historic Buford tomorrow. I want to see what I can run on the road for 10k; hopefully it will be something good. I need it after a crappy race at Mt. Tabor and then the abomination that was the Sutalle Trace race…which again was straight up and down miserable.

After work I headed down to historic downtown Buford to register for the race, but not before sitting in an express oil place for 2 hours while they changed my oil and replaced a rusted fuel filter. My car is running horribly right now and I definitely need to take it to a mechanic next week. When I signed up for the race the lady at registration asked me if I’d ever done the race before, I said not this one but I’ve done a bunch of others. She thanked me for signing up and then told me there was a hill around three miles and that I might want to pace myself, which I thought was kind of funny, but probably good advice since I haven’t run a road race in about a year.

Saturday, June 2: Run the Rails 10k – 10 miles total – I decided to do a local 10k in my base of operations (Buford, GA) to see if I could get myself back on track mentally and see what I could do in a road race. The last road race I ran was the Lahey Clinic “5k” last year around this time. I say “5k” because I ran 11:58. I’m just guessing but I think they may have cut it a mile short.

On to the race…it went really, really well. A lot better than what I was thinking. I figured I would be happy with something between 34 and 34:30 give or take a little bit depending on the temperature and the course. I ended up winning the race in 33:13, which is a road 10k PR (I know my road 10k PR was soft, something like 34:40 or something that I ran at the Hangover Classic six years ago).

The course was well laid out and pretty flat. It was two loops of the 5k course with some slight alterations. We started out at the Bona Allen Mansion and ran down along the train tracks through “downtown” for the first mile then back up a side street for mile two, which was a long gradual uphill. The course leveled back out as you pasted the starting area then ran out for a long way on another flat road before looping back and passing three miles. From there, you ran through a neighborhood and then back down main street, repeating the first and second miles then headed back out for a similar loop on the third/sixth mile. My only issue with the course was the weird 50-yard out and back we had to do on a side street just after the five mile mark and the fact that course was really crowded because of 5k lappers. After that it was smooth sailing to the finish.

I won a train whistle, which was kind of cool, but I was most pleased with my time and the fact that my splits where pretty even other than a little bit of a quick first mile (5:11ish) and what I am assuming was one short mile at, in terms of where the signs were placed, (5:02). I ran the 10k because I was worried I wouldn’t have the wheels to run fast enough to win the 5k but I think my splits where both faster than the 5k winner (16:58), however the kid that won was like 22, so he probably had more in the tank.

Run the Rails 10k Splits

Mile 1 – 5:11
Mile 2 – 5:30 (uphill)
Mile 3 – 5:36 (long maybe???)
Mile 4 – 5:02
Mile 5 – 5:27 (uphill)
Final 1.2 – 6:23
Total - 33:11 (33:13 official according to the awards ceremony)

I had 33:11 on my watch, so I must have stopped it a bit early, but I haven’t raced with a watch and tried to get splits in a while so forgive me. All in all it was a great race. It was good to get back out on the roads and feel like I was running fast. I still like the trails, but I think it’s clear that I’m a rhythm runner and I’m better suited for the roads. Maybe I will try and add more road races to my calendar in the fall.

I got to the race a little late and only warmed up and cooled down about 1.5 miles each. I added 10 minutes when I got back home because I could feel my calves tightening up. 10 for the day.

Sunday, June 3: Ft. Yargo State Park – 14 miles – When I stared this run I planned on going 7 to 10 but after finishing a loop on the hiking trail (7 miles) I felt okay and decided to keep it going and add a full second loop to get 14. I felt pretty good until the last two miles or so when I started to run out of gas.

Weekly Totals: 79 miles on 9 runs – This was a really good week for me. Not only does it give me two weeks over 70 miles but I also got in one good long workout (and one monster mileage day), but I also had a really good race. The race has definitely restored a little bit of confidence and getting my mileage up has me amped up for the final two Dirty Spokes races (Central Park and Sawnee Moutain). I had five straight weeks in the 50s and 60s, and I really think I run well around the 75-85 mpw mark, so it’s been good to get back up above 70 and 75 even. I’d like to keep that up for as long as I can, or at least until the end of June when the heat will start making afternoon runs a little bit less appealing. Next week’s goals are 70-75+ miles with a workout. No race next week. I’ll take a week off from that and then maybe try to jump in a 5k before Central Park.

Training May 21 - May 27

Monday, May 21: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Standard morning eight miler. Nothing special, my legs are still a little beat up from Saturday’s race but they are starting to come back around.

PM Run – GEHC Trails – 3 miles – Homesite loop up to Creekside, along Cherokee then back down sweet gum for an afternoon three. It’s starting to get hot. I feel like I’ve said that a bunch, but the temps are creeping up into the high 80s in the afternoon and I don’t think we’re too far from hitting the 90s on a regular basis.

Tuesday, May 22: GEHC Trails - 8 miles – I had a workout planned for this afternoon, but since everyone I’ve planned for the last couple weeks has been shot down by work or something else I wanted to make sure I got a decent run in the morning, so I ran my normal eight. That way if I get kept late or have a random golf outing I’m not scrambling to try and get something in later in the day.

PM Run – GEHC Trails – 7 miles – Forgot to pack shorts, so my initial plan of running at Gainesville state got shot down. I figured I would just head home and run another eight with some pickups, but I was a little more tired than I expected. Thunderstorms rolling in late in the afternoon forced me to cut the run a little bit short. I didn’t want to get caught 10 or 15 minutes out when the heavy stuff came in. Good call, I went to add on a couple loops of the homesite trail and BOOM! Thunder, lighting and torrential downpours by the time I crossed the wooden bridge behind my apartment. I made a mad dash for the breezeway and called it a day. 15 total miles on the day…I’ll take it.

Wednesday, May 23: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – SSDD once again. Nothing exciting to report, ran my normal morning run up the homesite trail up and around the GEHC then down to the greenway, out and back. Just one run today.

Thursday, May 24: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – I’ve had to grab my ipod shuffle for some of these morning runs lately. I’m not a huge fan of running with music but when you run the same eight miler pretty much every day (at least every weekday) sometimes I need the music to carry me through it. That reminds me I need to look into adding some new music to my shuffle (which is affectionately known as iRun by my computer…clever, I know). This got me thinking about the fact that pretty much every song ever is available to me online now and how kids now will never have a stereo with a tape deck that they use to record songs off of the radio, they’re so spoiled.

PM Run – GEHC Trails – 3 miles – Looped the environmental center after work. Nice little afternoon shake out. I really may be an over grown 12 year old…lately I have been climbing the entire little kids treetop adventure course during my afternoon runs. Amanda told me I need to stop before I get us banned for life.

Friday, May 25: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Standard morning eight. I took it a little easier as I’m still debating running the Mountain Goat 10 miler tomorrow. The last race I did in the series was a good one so I figure I might as well jump in, after all I can’t run worse than last week (Foreshadowing??? Maybe).

Saturday, May 26: Mountain Goat Sutallee Trace Challenge – 14 miles – Mitch and I both went back and forth about doing this race after he told me a the trails are pretty tough, but I figured if I could handle it. In retrospect, Mitch had the right idea by staying home (in fairness he was dealing with some upper respiratory issues). Friday night I decided to make the drive out to Canton to run the race, figuring I’d hit up Nitro and play paintball afterwards and it would be a good day of being outside and running around.

The race was pretty heinous. I ended up taking second but the times were complete garbage. I was 1:11 and change with the winning coming in at 1:09. Looking at the times from last year I knew it was going to be slow but I thought I’d at least be under 70 minutes. I got out well and separated myself and the eventual winner pretty early and we battled over the first five or six miles before he eventually passed me on one of the many climbs around seven miles. At that point, I ran up the white flag and pretty much jogged in the last three miles. It was a miserable experience in very sense of the word, just nonstop up and down. One huge hill around half way (that I actually ran well) and then down one hill to a creek and back up the other side. It didn’t help that it was about 95 degree and humid. At the 8 mile aid station I made the decision to go straight home and park on the couch once the death march ended. Warmed up two and cooled down two to get 14 on the day.

One thing I learned from this is I can’t do these long races without getting a long run in and without doing at least a 30-60-90 workout.

Sunday, May 27: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – I was totally hosed from yesterday. I decided to stay home and run the backyard eight instead of trying to drive somewhere and have another disaster of a run like a couple weeks ago at Harbins. Drove down to Dosser Works in the city to play paintball for a couple hours after then parked on the couch and waited for Amanda to get out of work.

Weekly Totals: 75 miles on 10 runs – Much better week. I’m really pumped to get up into the 70s this week. It still feels like a lot of runs to get there, but I’ve accepted the fact that the way my schedule is running 8 in the morning and 3/5 in the afternoon is the best way for me to get my miles in. The morning runs help tremendously during the times when I have unexpected late days at work or when we’ve got a lot going on and I just don’t have the legs or time to get more than 25 minutes in after work. I am looking to build on this and try to stay in the 70s during June. I will bring my miles back down during July, August will be a wash because of training camp, but I should at least be able to pick things back up with maintenance runs by September, but that’s getting a little ahead of myself.

Maybe a road race next weekend…