week 4 wrap-up

First 40-mile week I’ve thrown down since Chi-town training last year.  And as today is the last day of July (duh)…logged 168 miles for the month of July.  More than in 2008 (good NYCM year) but less than 2009 (bad MCM year) so I’m taking this as a good sign, actually, since things have netted out well so far.  (fingers crossed it stays that way!)

So where did I leave off…oh yeah my remaining 2 missions for the week.  The first being a VO2 max workout of 7 x 800s (@ 3:20) which I had to get done in the morning before work on Thursday as I had plans afterwards.  And honestly, getting the workout in wasn’t the tough part, no it was trying to figure out where to do it!!  The first suggestion was the Great Lawn oval, but I nixed that as I found out the hard way a coupla years back that most likely my workout would be derailed by unleashed dogs.  All the tracks would be too much of a trek from midtown.  There’s always the flattish stretch between Engineer’s Gate and Cleopatra’s Needle, but again a little far.

Finally, on a suggestion from a teammate, I settled on the measured half-mile on the lower loop between just south of Tavern and the carousel.  Warmed up for about a mile to the park, did some strides, and got to work.  Was tough keeping my head in it going about it solo, and there were some points where I had to dodge others (read: not always a perfect tangent.)  Then again, having other parkgoers may help…I do remember on the third one, the guy who passed me and said “good job” and I tried to keep him in sight for the rest of the interval 🙂  And I saw other Flyers in passing too, so I definitely couldn’t look like I was slacking 😛  Anyway, how it went:

Split	Time	Distance	Pace
1	3:15	0.50	6:33
2	3:22	0.53	6:19
3	3:17	0.51	6:31
4	3:25	0.52	6:32
5	3:23	0.51	6:43
6	3:25	0.51	6:39
7	3:17	0.50	6:34

All in all, I was pleased. This was the wrap-up that I sent my coach (and his reply indicated he was pleased too):

“Yes, I know #1 was too fast 🙂 I think the clockwise ones (2, 4, 6) may have been net uphill-plus those I was running in the “wrong” direction, therefore not really being able to go close to the curb and run the tangents. But pretty good considering I was flying solo and didn’t have the group to push me or pace off of. (and still better than any 800s workout I did last year. yeah.)”

Next “hard” workout would be today’s long run-12 miles, first 9 easy, last 3.1 on the rez @ 8:30-8:35.  And the first 9 were pretty easy, kept it on the CP roads, between 9-9:15.  Saw quite a few of my favorite Flyer guys in passing too 🙂  The “progression” part at the end…the story told by me.

“good news-long run done and feeling good
bad news-i was a bad girl during the last 5k 😦

splits for that last 5K-8:12, 8:12, 7:55, 1:15 (for .16 mile-or so Garmin said.) 
estimate the 2 rez loops were 12:58/12:37.

i did truly intend to target 8:30s…I think given the rez is a slower surface than you think (it seems like whenever I do workouts on the reservoir, my times turn out to be slower than target)-I may have misgauged effort a little in the early going.  the first loop really did feel easy though (so i just decided to go with it instead of slowing it down) and I think the last .75 mile I was getting annoyed with the tourists on the rez so I wanted to be done :)”

Yes, I was one of those people I hate.  But I owned up to it.  Only good take-away from this was that my legs really didn’t feel spent from it.  But just in case, I spent some quality time with the foam roller today and am wearing my compression socks as I speak (type.)  Onward!

Oh and today during my run I wore what I think may be my new favorite shorts ever-Lululemon Speed Shorts.  The fit and the length could not have been better (or more flattering!) and they have 2 gel pockets in the waistband and a zippered pocket in the back!!  And nothing too revealing like the infamous “naked shorts” 😛  Could possibly be my new go-to long run short…and marathon race day short too?  We shall see 🙂

So this coming week, the highlight is obviously gonna be the Club Champs 5-miler on Saturday.  This will of course mean I will not be partaking in the Underwear Run on Friday night, but hey I gotta take one for the team, right? 🙂  (BTW-whoever it was this past week who found my blog by googling “nyflygirl underwear”…I don’t know whether to say “thanks” or “you perv” 😛 )  No set time goal in mind just yet…let’s wait and see, shall we?