Survival of the Getting Fit

Training Summary
This was the first week all year that I really felt that I was just surviving. We had the science fair at Epiphany on Thursday and Friday and there was a great deal of preparation for that. Additionally, I had a big paper due on Thursday for my graduate inquiry class. Despite this, I was able to get in a decent week of training.

My workout on Wednesday night went much better than I predicted. My goal going into it was to hold 5:13 miles for the duration of the workout based off what I did the previous week. I ran the mile intervals completely by feel and didn't look at my splits in the middle of the hard segments. As the workout progressed, my pace quickened significantly and I even dipped under 5 minutes for the final mile. I met up with Eric for the workout on Friday. My goal for this workout was to run short repeats with full recovery to begin getting comfortable with faster paces again. The first 200 was in 35 seconds and it felt incredibly clumsy but they got more and more smooth from there. By the final few 200s, I was hitting between 32 and 33 seconds for each repeat and feeling comfortable. Eric and I traded off leading repeats and I ended up leading the final one where he blew by me in the home stretch and completely blew my doors off. I met up with Eric again on Sunday for a cold, windy, rainy long run. As we were going through Olmstead Park, we passed Ruben and doubled back to run with him for a while. It was nice catching up with him since I hadn't seen him in a few months. He is on the mend from a hip injury, but I'm sure he'll get his injury licked and be back for a big outdoor campaign.

Monday
70 minutes
Tuesday
30 minutes
Wednesday
40 minute warm up to Milton Academy track, 5 x 1600 with 400 recovery jog in 2 minutes (5:13, 5:10, 5:10, 5:08, 4:59), cool down to 100 minutes
Thursday
100 minutes
Friday
35 minute warm up to Milton Academy track, 10 x 200 with 400 recovery jog in 2 minutes starting at 35 and working down to 31, cool down to 90 minutes
Saturday
80 minutes
Sunday
120 minutes
Total
590 minutes on 7 runs (roughly 85 miles)

Holler of the Week
On my Tuesday run, as I was running past an older guy near Lower Mills, he called out "Teach me to run like you!" Another older guy commented "Alright! Nice pace, young man!" on my Friday run. It is amazing how much of an effect comments like these have on my runs. I'd bet that my pace easily drops 20 seconds per mile just because of the change in mood I get from people being encouraging instead of rude.

Epiphany Story of the Week
Last week was spirit week at school and we had student/teacher switch day on Wednesday. It was funny to see a few little Mr. Bonner replicas walking through the halls in oxford shirts and khaki pants and some of the kids really went all out. One of the 5th graders dressed up as a teacher and, when his skills teacher told the class to sit down, he said "No, you sit down" jokingly assuming the role of teacher since he was dressed the part. The teacher didn't know about the switch day and was not ammused by his comment. She immediately kicked him out of class and he consequently had a bit of a melt down. When I saw him sitting in SRA, writing about why he was sent out of class, I asked him who he was dressed up as. He took a deep breath and dejectedly sighed "It doesn't matter now...what's the point of dressing like a teacher if you can't act like one."

Song of the Week
I met up with a large group of GBTCers/GBTC significant others at John Harvard's for a burger and a beer on Friday night. Before going to the restaurant, I ducked into Newbury Comics to see if the new Harlem Shakes album was in stock yet. I was in luck and I've been listening to it pretty consistently since I got home that night. The first single off the album is called Strictly Game and I've already heard talk about it being a Float On-type anthem for this summer. I'm not sure about that, but it is a solid song.