Track Workout

Monday morning I did 10 miles slowly before going to the chiropractor for an impromptu appointment at 10:45am. Abel said that it was my hip flexors, so I need to work on stretching those out more before and after; but don't worry too much about stretching my back because that might just inflame it. Then that afternoon I did another 4 miles from home. The afternoon run was a little bit more painful than the morning run, but I also ran considerably faster. The weather was amazing.

Some jackass in an oversized pick-up with a giant Cobra Commander logo in the back window revved his engine on me downhill around Twin Lakes, so I gave him both fingers. He saw it, and did a U-turn around the median near Kings Mill & Alum Springs, and came back up the other side. He yelled something inaudible, I yelled back "do you think you're funny?" and then I picked up the pace to get to Alum Springs so that I didn't have to worry about him coming back by and hitting me with his truck (or more likely throw something at me.) I wondered about if he and his white-trash friend were going to come looking for me in the park or on the other side at Lafayette. When I turned off of Lee Drive at the cannons, I turned around and saw a truck coming. My heart definitely skipped a beat, thinking that it might be the same truck. Thank goodness it wasn't.

Tuesday morning I did twelve miles. I started off with Bob and Justin, then finished with Andrew. My right hamstring started to get a little tight towards the end. KC and I went to core at the YMCA after the 5.8-magnitude earthquake kicked her out of school early. The class was tough and I couldn't do everything. Afterwards I made sure to stretch.

This morning Pat came down to go to the chiropractor so we ran together before hand. He came over at 7:15am, so I got to sleep in quite a bit. We warmed up from my house to Mary Washington. I figured that the JM track would be busy with football practice. The scheduled workout could have been hills or track, but I didn't want to press it with my back, and Pat didn't want to do hills either. So instead we were going to do 3 x 3 miles. I was pretty worried about it, honestly. That's the longest workout that I've had on the schedule. I'd tried to do some 4 x 2 miles and they'd always been a disaster for the most part. So I was nervous about this, especially after doing core the night before and with how poorly Hartwood went.

But it was fantastic! The weather was really good (not as nice as yesterday but still good) with low humidity and low temperatures. A slight breeze picked up on the back stretch on the 2nd mile of the 2nd interval. Greg showed up 2 miles into the same interval. I suppose he brought the wind. I wanted to start out easier, and I'd suggested to Pat that he do the same. So my plan was 5:45, 5:40, 5:35. It worked out a lot faster than that though. He did the math for me on the first interval, and I think I just didn't pay enough attention to it during the first mile because it was slower than I wanted. But I made up for it too much on the second one and just went with it. No point in listing all the splits and then showing a screen shot, so I'll just get straight to the splits.

After each interval I jogged an 800 backwards, getting water after 400 from my water bottle and then stretching out my hips and hamstrings at 700 meters. I didn't rush the recovery at all. I was excited that I was being really consistent in each lap. It wasn't like running a 75 and then running an 90 to make up for it. I was really smooth. The last mile of the last interval was tough though. I was really getting after it. You can tell from my heart rate. (I wore the HR monitor for science purposes.) It was a good workout though, I was pretty pumped about it. My left hip was bothering me a little bit towards the end, undoubtable from running around the track for 9 miles. Makes sense to me. The three of us jogged our half-mile, did some stretching, and then headed home. Going up the hills in Alum Spring (barely a hill!) and the neighborhood (awful) were terrible. Pat said he'd wanted to hit 15 miles for the day and I knew he was going to be short, so I offered to go further with him once we got back to my house. He said he was done.

When we were stretching, I figured that I could have probably done a 4th interval if it was only aiming at 5:30 pace. Hopefully that's what's going to happen when I get to the race. Now, several hours after the race, I'm just useless. I am so tired I just don't want to do anything. I'm almost too tired to sit here and watch TV, if that is possible. I am not looking forward to going running again in a couple hours.