Spring Training?

So far this winter I've been putting in some pretty good training, although the mileage has consistently been a little light. I've had several excuses for that. First it's been a brutal winter in Chicago, with it either snowing or absolutely freezing for what seems like every day since January. Secondly, my home treadmill broke in early January and getting a warranty repair on it has been, well, slow. Finally, baby Jack just hasn't been sleeping that great at night, so that little voice in my head has won the internal battle more than a few times when it was time to wake up for the run at 5AM.

Now, that's not to say my mileage has been horrible. For the most part, I've been between 70 and 85 miles every week this year. The thing that has been lacking are those easy supplemental runs that boost your weekly mileage and, in my opinion, add strength to your training. So finally this week, the perfect storm arrived. Jack started sleeping through the night late last week. The weather finally broke and temps started consistently hitting 40's and 50's pretty much every day. Finally, my new treadmill arrived on Tuesday. No more excuses.

So with no fall back, I really had no choice but to do the runs. And I did. Finally. The week went down like this:

Mon: 15 miles @ 6:40 Pace. This was a tough run as it came just 24 hours after the Shamrock Shuffle 8K. This is the second time this year I've done a 15 miler the day after a race. While the run itself isn't that much fun, it is nice to get it out of the way and get back to recovering. I know. That makes no sense.
TuesAM: 9 Miles @ 6:48 pace
TuesPM: 6 Slow Miles
WedAM: 11 miles w/ 8 @ 5:50 pace I did this same exact run last week and averaged a comfortable 5:48 pace. This week was equally comfortable, but I didn't have the advantage of my Garmin to dictate my pace to me. The battery died out around mile 1 so I ran the next 7 miles blindly (how did they EVER do that in the olden days?). Then right when I was finishing up, I turned the Garmin back on and started back up the timing and then stopped it, hoping I would have a run start and finish time registered. I could then calculate my own pace. And hey…it actually worked. So that's my public service message for today.
WedPM: 6 miles @ 7:02 pace
Thurs: 9 miles w/ 12 X 400 in 75 sec avg. I had some problems getting going on this one, but once I did things started to smooth out. The splits were 78, 79, 74, 74, 75, 74, 75, 74, 75, 73, 74, 73 with a 200 meter jog in between each. Again, not a killer workout, but it was nice to get in some work around 5 minute pace without killing myself.
Fri: 24 miles @ 7:06 pace I've written about the Halsted run on here before, and to be honest, in my old age, I don't know that I'll ever do it again. It's just not worth the risk. Instead, today I did….The Western Run! It's pretty much the same as the Halsted Run, except I'm running on a street about 2 miles west of it. What a difference 2 miles make. My life didn't feel in danger once the entire run. It isn't a perfect run, as the first 5 miles are run on the shoulder of a busy street (in the dark), but it's much better than the alternative. The pace was slow for this one because, well, it's 24 miles and secondly, I had a nasty headwind the entire way. I think it might have been enjoyable if not for the stupid headwind.
SatAM: 10 miles SLOW This hurt. I havent run 24 miles since October of last year. It felt like it today.
SatPM: 6 miles @ 7:03 pace This actually felt much better than the morning run. I did it on the (new) treadmill as the wife was out on the town and the kids were all sleeping upstairs. NCAA tourney on TV.
Sun: 10 miles with 2 X 2 miles in 11:20 & 11:17. I'm not sure what to make of this run. I'm really just following the schedule when it calls for 2 X 2 mile in 11:20 with an 800 meter rest in between. It would seem that a simple 4 mile tempo run @ 5:40 would make more sense, but I was pretty wiped out from the week, so I took the easier option of the two. I'm probably lucky that I did, as I had a harder time with this than I thought. Right from the get-go I knew that things didn't feel great as I was struggling during the warm-up to even get the pace under 7 min/miles. Finally once I started up the first 2 mile section, I got into what I thought was a 5:40 pace and tried to get comfortable. I came through the first half mile in 2:55 and realized that I need to pick it up to come in at pace. I slowly worked it down over the next mile and a half and came in right at 11:20. After a very short half mile break I started on the second tempo section and things felt much better (after I got over that first quarter mile of my body screaming at me to stop). This felt more like I was expecting it to and I was able to cruise through to an 11:17.


Weekly mileage: 106 Miles
YTD Milage: 1018 Miles

Now the challenge is to follow this week up with another solid week. With my spring marathon plans kind of up in the air, I don't know when I'll be racing next. I guess the goal right now is to just make sure I'm ready for whenever that might be.