DC = Decrease Conditioning?

Training Summary
There wasn't a whole lot of running to speak of two weeks ago and this post is obviously coming quite late but I'll give a rundown anyway.

From Monday through Friday, I chaperoned the 8th graders on their DC trip. It was a great time but was not very conducive to sleeping and, in turn, running. One of the highlights of the trip was getting to go home for Easter. Fortunately, I was allowed to fly home on Good Friday and meet up with the Epiphany crew on the Monday after Easter. I took the train from Baltimore to DC on Monday afternoon and met up with Kate for lunch. After that, I took the train to Georgetown Prep where we stayed during our time in the capitol.

I got in a good run on Tuesday morning and things went downhill from there. The boys slept in the wrestling room of the school and, while lights out was at 11, it was tough falling asleep and the sleep wasn't high quality at all. Also, we walked all day seeing the various monuments and museums, which tired me out even more. I had to be back from my run by 6:45 AM, so it was generally a 5 to 5:30 AM wake up. My left shin was bothering me towards the end of my run on Tuesday and I cut my run on Wednesday short because of shin discomfort. Thursday was basically an off day, though I did get up and run with two of the 8th grade girls for a few miles. They had asked me if I would run with them and, after starting off with two miles in 20 minutes on Monday, they got up to running 3 miles in 24 minutes on Friday. Watching them improve, even just on easy runs over a matter of five days, made me realize how much I want to begin coaching.

Even with the lack of running for the week, it was an awesome experience. The 8th graders are so much fun to be around and Dwight did a great job planning out the trip. In addition to many of the things that are almost standard procedures for a DC trip, we also got to see Senator Kerry's office, watch a Nationals game, and we went to see the monuments at night, which was a neat change of pace. I also went to Arlington National Cemetery for the first time ever and got to see part of the finals for the National Monopoly Championship in Union Station (not a planned part of the trip, but interesting nonetheless).

Monday
70 minutes
Tuesday
90 minutes
Wednesday
40 minutes
Thursday
15 minutes
Friday
30 minutes
Saturday
30 minutes
Sunday
60 minutes
Total
335 minutes on 7 runs (about 45 miles)

Holler of the Week
It was pitch black for the majority of my runs and nobody that I passed on the Rock Creek Park bike path said a word to me as we passed like ships in the night. I don't know that I would ever run that early by choice, but there is a strange sense of camaraderie that you feel with people you see when you run that early, even when no words are exchanged.

Epiphany Story of the Week
On Thursday, we ate dinner at the Georgetown dining hall. They had a station where you could pick out vegetables and they would cook up a stir fry for you. I brought my stir fry back to the table and one of the boys asked me where I got it. I pointed to the station and told him what to do. Three minutes later, he came back with a plate of pasta with a drizzle of tomato sauce on top, five slices of mushroom, a few pieces of baby corn, and some tofu, complaining about how he couldn't figure out what to do. As delicious as his concoction might have been, I decided to help him out and walk him through the process. There is no way my story can do justice to exactly how sorry his pasta dish looked, so below is a picture of his creation and the stir fry I made for him.

Song of the Week
No music for this one...I'll try to get caught up tomorrow and have last week's training and a song.

Home Cookin'

Training Summary
This was one of my best week of training in a very long time. I got in a solid aerobic capacity workout on Wednesday and a very promising anaerobic conditioning run on Saturday. I didn't get in a long run for the week, but the workout around Lake Montebello on Saturday totaled two hours, so I am not too concerned. In addition to the two workouts, I also did strides twice. I am starting to feel like I am getting into shape and I am looking forward to racing in early May. It will be interesting to see where my fitness is and getting a baseline performance will be beneficial for my training moving on from there.
I have been reading Run Strong by Kevin Beck on my train rides to and from BC for class and I have worked to create a training plan that will carry me through the middle of May. A lot of what Joe Rubio talks about in the book is doing the types of workouts that target your weaknesses. That doesn't mean that you ignore workouts that play to your strengths, but just that you should have a well rounded training approach, even if some of the workouts involved in that aren't the most enjoyable. For me, that means adding in work at faster paces, all the way down to 1500 race pace. I also hope to be more diligent about doing strides to continue to get back in touch with my basic speed. I had decent footspeed in college but have lost quite a bit of it as I have focused mainly on tempo runs and longer intervals.

Monday
70 minutes
Tuesday
40 minute run to the South Boston track, 6 laps of jogging the turns and striding out the straights, continued running to 100 minutes
Wednesday
35 minute warm up to the Milton Academy track, 2 X 1200, 800, 2 x 1200 w/ 400 jog rest in 2 minutes (3:50, 3:52, 2:31, 3:45, 3:43), cool down to 100 minutes
Thursday
30 minutes
Friday
AM: 30 minutes
PM: 80 minutes
Saturday
50 minute warm up, 7 mile tempo in 36:31, cool down to 120 minutes
Sunday
80 minutes, 6 x 25 second stride with full walking recovery
Total
620 minutes on 8 runs (just under 90 miles)

Holler of the Week
I had a few decent hollers this past week. One guy asked me to run a mile for him, which I thought was sort of unusual. The interaction below happened towards the end of a dark, cold, rainy run. It cracked me up and left me feeling pretty tough.

"How long you been runnin'?"
"About 12 miles."
"For real, yo?"
"Yeah"
"Damn...you da MAN, yo."

My favorite of the week by far was when a woman yelled to me "I know you can't be the 5 - 0 in shorts like that!"

Epiphany Story of the Week
We had the Nativity/San Miguel Science Fair on Tuesday and Epiphany students took first and third place in the competition. It was a lot of fun going to UMass Boston with the top three finishers from our school science fair and watching them present on their projects. The science fair was the bane of my existence for a solid two weeks, but this event was a nice way to be done with it and see that all of the time devoted to the science fair resulted in some very high quality work.
I am home in Baltimore as I type this and will head to DC tomorrow to meet up with the 8th graders from school to help chaperone their trip for a week. I am sure there will be many stories that will make this section more exciting next time around.

Song of the Week
The new album by The Thermal came out this past week and I absolutely love it. I have easily listened to it 20 times in the past five days (short album + lots of train time = 4 listens per day) but my song of the week does not come from that album. I am seeing them in concert in early May, so look for a song then. For now, check out Airstream Driver by Gomez.

Goin' Down

Training Summary
After four weeks of relatively high mileage, I decided to take a down week last week. I was not feeling particularly tired, but I figured it was prudent when keeping long term goals in mind. Additionally, I knew that my week was going to be especially busy so it fit in perfectly with my schedule to do it now rather than later.

My runs on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday weren't all that great. I felt a little worn out and had a tough time getting out the door. It is strange, but I have a harder time motivating myself to run in weeks where I am doing less mileage. Despite the fact that all literature on training says that recovery is the key to good training, it never seems that useful to me to go out and just run for 50 minutes.

I am starting to round into decent shape and have a few solid workouts under my belt, so I need to begin being a bit more structured and purposeful with my running when I resume training at full volume this coming week. I've been reading quite a bit about training theory and hope to apply it to my personal training schedule. Some things that I think will be beneficial include varying the types of workouts I do a bit more and adding in a third workout each week consisting of short efforts of 100 to 150 meters with full recovery to build my speed back.

Originally, I was planning to run the Groton 10K on April 26th. It turns out that the Puma Street Meet is the same day and I won't be able to go since I am hoping to take a group of Epiphany kids to participate in that. Instead, my new plan is to go down to New Jersey to visit my family and run the Newport 10K on May 9th. From looking at past results, it is a competitive race and a fast, flat course. My 10K PR is weak (31:50, though I ran 31:27 at USATF-NE XC Championships in 2006 on a course they say is 9845m), so I am hoping I can break my first college PR since graduating.

Monday
50 minutes
Tuesday
30 minutes
Wednesday
70 minutes
Thursday
40 minute warm up to the track at Milton Academy, 3 x 1200 with 400 jog rest in 2 minutes (3:53, 3:51, 3:49) 400 in 75, 6 x 200 with 400 jog rest in 2 minutes (33, 32, 34, 31, 31, 30), cool down to 100 minutes
Friday
30 minutes
Saturday
70 minutes
Sunday
110 minutes
Total
460 minutes on 7 runs (about 65 miles)

Holler of the Week
Nothing really stood out this week. One thing I noticed was that, with the marathon right around the corner, everyone keeps asking me if I am running Boston. In most people's minds, if you aren't doing the Boston Marathon you aren't a runner. Oh well.

Epiphany Story of the Week
We had burritos for dinner on Wednesday and I managed to convince the kids at my table that I used to work at Taco Bell after one of them asked me how I learned to wrap the tortilla so well. The moment I mentioned Taco Bell, one of the 5th grade girls at my table blurted out "My mom's friend's water broke in Taco Bell!" She then went on to say that the woman had her baby in Taco Bell because the ambulance didn't get there in time and that she named her daughter Quesedilla. Yikes.

Song of the Week
Considering the name of this post, the fact that I have been listening to Born to Run on repeat, and my upcoming trip to New Jersey, the song below seemed like the most appropriate choice for the week. Just watching the video makes me mad about the whole Live Nation crap again.