Monday, February 4: Flowery Branch Roads – 7 miles – I headed to
work early to hit the Flowery Branch road loop from the office. Not a great
run, my legs were still tired from the weekend and I just wasn’t into it at
all. I might have over done it a little bit yesterday with the 11 mile run then
about 9 on the bike. Even though I was riding easy I think it took a little
more out of me than I thought. I could still feel the Saturday’s race in my
legs too. I think I’ll start working in afternoon runs next week if I can get
things dialed back in this week.
Tuesday, February 5: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Decided to just run
from home for the rest of the offseason for my morning runs. It’s just easier
this time of year. I got out at about 6:45 am so I needed my headlamp for the
first 15 or 20 minutes then it was fine once the sun started to come up. I ran
around the GEHC, adding in the road hill and creekside spur trail section that
I found a couple weeks ago, then ran out and back on the greenway before adding
an extra .2 to make sure I got a full eight miles.
Wednesday, February 6: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – I tried something a
little bit different this morning, running the out and back greenway section of
the run first and then tacking on the GEHC loop after. It didn’t make much of a
difference in terms of time. The out and back part is always faster than the
loop. The loop is a lot hillier and it’s just slow going in general. I had to
remember that I ran a 5k on parts of this loop in 18 something and won. This is
the down side to wearing my GPS watch. Sometimes I forget that the terrain
dictates the pace. That said, I still need to get to a point where my training
runs are faster.
Thursday, February 7: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Ho-hum 8 miler. Same
run, different day.
Friday, February 8: GEHC Trails – 8 miles – Felt like crap all day, so I ran after work.
Didn’t matter much. I felt like crap and this was a complete death march. At
the end of the day I was just glad to get something in. I am definitely coming
down with another slight cold. It’s nothing too serious but enough to make me
feel like I don’t have anything in my legs.
Saturday, February 9: Suwanee Roads – 14 miles – I need to come up with a name for this run. With
the greenway and GEHC right behind my apartment and living so close to the mall
I haven’t ventured out on the roads in my area very often, but needing to get
something longer in and not wanting to do a bunch of loops of shorter trails I
decided to make my way over to Suwanee and hit that greenway with the new route
I found last week.
I started by running up past
the GEHC and onto Woodward Mill Rd. From there I ran past the woodward mill
farms then turned up onto Old Suwanee road and ran through the Morning View
neighborhoods, up, over and down to the elementary school to hop on the
greenway. I ran down the greenway to Martin Farm then turned right onto the
Martin Farm road to run to Suwanee Town Center. They really should rename
Martin Farm Road to Martin Farm hill, it was a brutal climb, not all that long
but it was pretty steep and I wasn’t expecting it. I ran along the train tracks
and back through Town Center park, stopped at Big Peach for some water and to
chat with some people that were running around the park then ran back down to
the greenway and retraced my route back to the apartment.
Overall it was a good run and
I was happy to be able to, one find a decent road run from my apartment (even
if it was out and back), and two, find a way to linkup both the Ivy Creek
Greenway behind my apartment and the Suwanee Greenway in a fairly direct way.
That means that I can get close to an 18 miler out of this run if I follow the
greenway all the way to its end. It would be 9 miles out and 9 miles back but
there wouldn’t be much traffic at all and eight miles of it would be on the
greenway.
Sunday, February 10:
AM - GEHC Trails – 8 miles –
Another slog on this route. The first part of it is slow. There is no doubt
about that. I think running with the Garmin has made me a little too cognizant
of how fast or slow, I’m running (obviously because it displays pace), but I’ve
had to remember that some of the trails I run on are going to be slower. When I
ran at Ft. Yargo each of the last two springs and summers I’ve gone into each
run knowing that it’s going be 8 minute pace, the effort might be faster but
the way the trail is, on a normal run it’s going to be 8 minute pace. I just
need to accept that on these GEHC trail runs. The second half is flat and I should
be running it under 7 unless I’m really running easy.
PM – Harbins Park MTB Ride with Amanda – 4 miles – Since it warmed
up in the afternoon, Amanda and I drove over to Harbins to check out the
mountain bike trails. We stuck to MB1, which is a short beginner loop. Amanda
enjoyed it because there wasn’t a lot of up and down or roots/rocks. It was a
fun flowy ride through the trees, Forest Moon of Endor style. Here is the
Strava info for the ride…
Weekly Totals: 61 miles on seven runs – Back to back weeks of 61
miles is positive, but my hopes of getting a workout in didn’t materialize. I
have to start working in a second run either at lunch or after work to get my
miles up. The upcoming XTERRA half marathon could be brutal otherwise.
Hopefully next week I can work on getting my miles up and get in some kind of
workout. I’d also like to make sure I get out to Ft. Yargo to get a run on the
half marathon course before the race. The big positive of the week was finding
a route that incorporated the Suwanee Greenway without just being a straight up
out and back run. Even though about 11 miles of the run ended up being the same
(out and back), it’s still a pretty good run with only one section that I generally
dread.
No comments:
Post a Comment