Down But Not Out

Training Summary
This week started out strong and then fizzled a bit, though I think it will be a good thing in the long run. My workout on Tuesday went very well. I warmed up over to Franklin Park and then ran a fartlek on the road loop around the golf course, alternating segments of 5 minutes hard and 3 minutes easy. My effort felt harder than the Stew Chase but was still controlled. I was working hard on the last two hard segment and it didn't help that I caught the uphill portion of the loop on both. After the workout, I did a bit of an extended cool down before heading home. I was pleased with the run and thought that it showed some solid progress, even from my last fartlek session.

Tuesday night and all day Wednesday, I was totally wiped out and my calves were incredibly tight. It felt like I had run a hard track workout in spikes. I struggled through a 10 miler on Wednesday and felt so fatigued at the end that I decided to take a few easy days to get my legs back under me. In looking at my training log, I had four straight weeks of 80 to 85 miles and I figured I was due for a down week. After two days of short 30 minute runs, I went 90 minutes on Saturday and felt decent. Then, on Sunday, I went for a long run with a large group of GBTC folks. We left from Coolidge Corner and cut through the Chestnut Hill neighborhoods before hopping on to the marathon course. For much of the run, it was me and Andrew alone, but Tomoaki and Ryan A. caught up to us for much of the run back to Coolidge Corner. We picked up the pace quite a bit in the Newton hills and I felt excellent. Hopefully, taking the easy days in the middle of the week was the right call and I will be back to my regular training in the upcoming week.

I have off of school this week and my focus will be to take care of my left shin, which has been very sore lately, and begin to run strides two or three times per week. I head down to Houston on Wednesday for vacation, so I should have an excellent opportunity to get in some runs in nice weather. The plan is to get in one workout and a long run while putting in around 90 miles.

Monday
60 minutes
Tuesday
30 minute WU, 5 x 5 minutes hard/3 minutes easy, 35 minute CD
Wednesday
70 minutes
Thursday
30 minutes
Friday
30 minutes
Saturday
90 minutes
Sunday
120 minutes
Total
500 minutes (just over 70 miles)

Holler of the Week
Nothing. So boring. Even the nice weather couldn't help me. I'm desperate! I'll even take a "run Forrest, run." To quote Giannis, "come on!"

Epiphany Story of the Week
In math class on Friday, one of my kids asked me what I was doing for Valentine's Day. Before I could reply to say I didn't have any plans, one of the boys blurted out "He's going to eat a container of ice cream alone in his bathroom!" Sounds great...except for the bathroom part.

Song of the Week
I was looking around on Last.fm trying to check out some new bands. The program allows you to pick bands that you like and then gives you lists of similar bands. Each band has their own page and many of the bands have songs that you can stream. In checking out bands that are similar to Wolf Parade, I found that the lead singer has a band called Sunset Rubdown that started as his solo project and is now a second band that he fronts. Below is a video for the song The Mending of the Gown off of Random Spirit Lover. It is a live version and the video isn't very interesting, but the song is excellent.