Fartlek with Bohle

landed at LAX around 10am, had a couple business meetings, then got up with Nick where I unwinded with a nice Miller Light. After having my feet up for a few, went over to Bohle's and where we shortly thereafter set out for a 6 mile run, with the middle three miles alternating between hard .5 mile segments, and .5 mile easy recovery segments.

Miles: 6
Garmin

out of the ordinary

What is happening? Running 5 days in a row last week, running during my lunch, running before work?!

I am not a morning person, so I really had to psych myself up to do this. When the clock went off this morning I didn't allow myself to think and got up and out the door to knock out this workout. Once I was out, I realized how nice the weather was and how it was kind of peaceful as opposed to 5pm and stress weighing you down from the day.

I went into a 10 min jog to wake the legs up, then it was go time.

The workout: 5x4 min hard ( I don't have a gps watch so I was going on old fashioned feel. Hopefully it was at 6 min pace or faster, as that was my target) / 2 min jog rest between sets.

The first few sets went by great. The last two I had to dig a little bit, but I really felt great. I didn't feel empty, and my stomach/energy level was perfect.

Cooled down with a 7 min jog, for 45 mins on the morning.

Miles: 6.5+

Fartlek in Southend/Dilworth

Opting to forgo the track...again, David and I met where he stays over in Sedgefield for a nice little workout - fartlek style. We determined to repeat what I had done last week.

Here is the Link from his Garmin.

The workout: 8 min warmup, 5 min hard (2 min jog) x 4, cool down.

The legs felt quicker and smoother than last week's run. You can see for the middle 4 miles we averaged 6.33 pace which INCLUDES the intermitent rest periods. Based on my calculations - and David's hollaring during the run - we were running approx 6.07 pace overall for the HARD segments. Definitly not bad!

Miles: 6.4

2x5mins into 2x6 mins

Thought I could use some sort of workout, and not wanting to do run at the track today, decided to do a farlek. Wanted to run around 40 mins total, so kind of made this up on the fly.

Warm up: 8 mins
Fartlek: 5mins hard, 2min rest, 5mins hard, 2min rest, 6min hard, 2min rest, 6min hard
Cool down: 6 mins

Total: 42 mins

Distance for total: (per mapmyrun.com) 6 miles
Pace for total run: 7:00

I didn't feel weak or tired, so this was pretty good. Wasn't the "snappiest" run I've had in recent memory, but it was a solid showing. Felt that I was able to maintain pace for all 4 hard segments, and a testament to that is me throwing on an extra minute of "hard" on the last two sets.

Also, yesterday I signed up for the 2011 Charlotte Grand Prix Series. It's 11 road races throughout the year, comprised MOSTLY of 5ks. I know I will miss one race right off the bat, but I'm planning on doing all the rest. I gave this some thought, and feel like I'm motivated to see it through for the year. The competitive juices are sure to be flowing as I try and stay (or get to) high in the standings. I don't really know what to expect, but I'm excited to have a plan to stay in good shape all year. This will serve me well as I go into 2012 when I race the Boston Marathon. On top of the GPX, I will probably do Thunder Road marathon again this year. The Series will keep me out of marathon prospects until Novemeber....which is fine by me. Can't wait to see how all these shorter races go!

fartlek in florence (alabama)

Took my talents to McFarland Park, right on the edge of the Tennessee river for this workout. Jogged from my hotel and at 18 mins started my first interval. Threw in a mixed bag of intervals, with some 5 on 2 offs, 3 on 130 offs, 4 on 2 offs, 230 ons, 1 offs, 2 on 1 offs, and in random order. McFarland Park was occupied mainly from an old golf course, with some light car-type track trails around the fields. It was like running on a grass field country course. Accumlated 36 mins of the work-out, and concluded with almost a mile of cool down. Legs were pretty sleep for the first half of the run, but then they became more responsive and I was starting to be able to open up a little better on the fast parts.

Time: 1.02
miles: 8+