Week In Review

Time: 272:30
Distance: 39 mi.

Shy of 40 miles. Sick. No long run. Got to get back on top of things, one day at a time.

Three weeks to the Downtown 5k, eight weeks to the Marine Corps Marathon.

Bike Path

Time: 61:12
Distance: 9 mi.

Felt good enough in the morning to get a run in then. Trying to put together a knock-down-drag-out long run didn't make much sense, so I decided on 60 minutes of feeling good. I pretty much accomplished that much, at least, including getting in a few 6:15-ish miles on the way back.

Three Town Loop, Wildflower

Time: 28:40
Distance: 4 mi.

Very easy four miler to just sweat it out a bit. Still feeling fairly sick, with a lot of congestion and coughing. It's going to be a few more days before I am back on top.

Day Off

Trying to get over this cold before Sunday.

Puffer's Pond, Flat Hills

Time: 9 mi.
Distance: 67:16

Since I'll be in Amherst for a little while, I've decided to help out at the Amherst Regional High School cross country practices when I can. Despite the cold feeling a bit worse, I figured I could meet the guys for an easy run and see what the scene is. We ran very easy down to Puffer's Pond and then through the trails to Flat Hills and back. The good part of this run is that I couldn't hammer at all, the bad part was that I couldn't really cut it short. My cold is definitely getting worse.

Amethyst Brook

Time: 63:50
Distance: 9.5 mi.

Finally back in Amherst, but I wasn't feeling great in the morning, so I put the run off until the afternoon. I seem to have developed a bit of a cold, and I was still feeling it in the afternoon but really needed a run today. While my sinuses were clogged and I have a bit of a sore throat, my legs felt great. It was a beautiful day in the trails of Echo Hill and Amethyst Brook.

Day Off

Pumpkin Patch

Time: 52:07
Distance: 7.5 mi.



Easy afternoon recovery run up in Hanover, NH. After a day of hanging around the school and down by the Connecticut river, we were met by Neil Graves and Jason Lyon (going into his senior year at Dartmouth). We did a run they called "Pumpkin Patch," but I didn't see any such thing. Fairly nice the whole way, most of which was on the trails.

Autumn is in the air.

Week In Review

Time: 448:30
Distance: 63.5

Given that I was on the road the whole week and didn't get much sleep towards the end of it, this was a fine week of training.

Reservoir Park, Chestnut Hill Reservoir

Time: 93:10
Distance: 13.5 mi.

This was quite shy of the 2+ hour run that I had scheduled, but after a long last couple of days, this is what I had in me. Ari came over from Cambridge for it and Tom ran the first 30+ minutes of the run with us around Reservoir Park. We would have been closer to 80 minutes, but I got us lost on the way back to the McArdle residence.

Day Off

The Charles

Time: 77:56
Distance: 11.5 mi.



Morning run with Brian from Chez McArdle in Brookline out to the Charles, where we ran up to the North End on the north side of the river and back on the south side past Beacon Hill and Back Bay. While we weren't trying to really do a workout, I wanted a second effort getting my legs going this week, so I got Brian to do a 6 x 30 sec. fartlek which he pretty much schooled me on. We decided to jump in the river when we were done with that and Brian was met with the cheer of "Hey Gorgeous!" by some cute British tourists has he ran off the dock.

North Providence, RIC

Time: 61:35
Distance: 9 mi.

I stopped in Providence heading back up to Boston and met up with Tarpy at his place near Providence College for a run. Max Smith and Mark Carroll came with us on the run, which went through North Providence and on a short bike path near Rhode Island College.

Fartlek in the Squan

Time: 64:50
Distance: 10 mi.

Target: Two sets of a fartlek ladder - 1:00 (1:00), 2:00 (1:00), 3:00 (1:00), 2:00 (1:00), 1:00 (1:00)
Workout: Good sub-tempo effort throughout

Fairly happy with this workout around a loop near Craig and Corey's place in Manesquan on the Jersey shore. Craig was worthless to do the warmup with me, as he told me he would try to do, but I did rope him in for the cooldown. A total of 28 minutes of workout time, with 18 minutes at sub-tempo pace.

Brooklyn Bridges

Time: 80:14
Distance: 11 mi.


The Manhattan Bridge and skyline from the Brooklyn Bridge

I met Nick early before his first day of work at the New York Road Runners. We ran from Brooklyn to Manhattan on the Manhattan Bridge and back into Brooklyn on the Brooklyn Bridge. Despite dealing with cars and traffic, it was a great way to see the some of Brooklyn and the beautiful bridges on the east side of Manhattan.

Amherst Run

Time: 72:09
Distance: 10.5 mi.

Easy run in Amherst.

Week in Review

Time: 522:30
Distance: 78 mi.

Overall a very good week of training. The mid-week workout was tough, but it will take a few efforts like that to get used to it. Hopefully next time I'm on the track I'll feel better. I was very happy with the long and hard effort, as I don't think it will take too much more out of me to get up to 12-14 miles at that pace in the next month.

Olympic track started this week and has been exciting. I was very happy to see Leo make it through the first round, though I'm sure he wasn't too happy with his DFL finish in the second round. Anna also cruised into the final and I was able to watch her race live, which was fun. The men's steeple and 10k did not disappoint. Hopefully videos of these will be online soon.

Bike Path, Rosen Loop

Time: 115:42
Distance: 18.5 mi.
Map

Target: 5 miles steady warmup; 10 miles averaging 5:45; 3 miles recovery
Run: 6.5 miles steady warmup; 10 miles in 56:39 (5:40 pace) starting at 6:00 and working down around 5:30; 2 miles recovery


The wetlands along the bike path

I started this run pretty early so that I could get back in time to catch some Olympic track action on sketchy live online TV from Denmark. Eliot is in town for the weekend and volunteered to bike along for the run, which was particularly nice for this hard session. After running up to his house, we headed to the bike path near Amherst College. I was shooting to start 3 miles out and got to a decent pace, but missed the first mile mark (or there isn't one?) so I really started with 2 miles from Station Road.

The first few miles on the bike path were just getting into it, 5:59 and 5:52. Once I got onto the 7-mile Rosen Loop starting on Station Road I got a bit more on pace, even over the hills. I then did four miles in 22:45 (5:41 pace), two miles in 11:04 (5:32 pace) and the Station Road mile in 5:21. Because I missed the first bike path mile I was planning, I went back onto it for a final mile where I relaxed the pace to 5:38.

Overall, I was happy with how comfortable I felt, though it would be good for these runs to more steady throughout and less progression. I was able to take some water during the run, again, and some GU around 5 miles of the hard effort. My knee felt great, so hopefully the new shoes have saved me there.

Amethyst Brook

Time: 39:30
Distance: 5.5 mi.

Easy run with Paul Norton, a 2007 ARHS grad who now runs for Brandeis. We met at the main to the trails just as Gould was going by and we went with him to the North East Street entrance. From there we took the trails back through.

I was thinking of doubling, but decided against it to make sure I was good for Sunday. I am still a little worried about the tendonitis in my knee.

Belchertown

Time: 90:00
Distance: 13 mi.

I started out heading out on Warren Wright, the way that the Rosen Loop starts, but continued on it out to Bay Road. I messed around on a few roads out there trying to find a new loop, but ran into dead ends and I didn't want to run for a long time along the relatively busy section of Bay Road.

I seem to have developed some patellar tendonitis, particularly in my right knee. It's not too bad, but I felt it pretty strongly at both the beginning and the end of the run.