Valentines Week

A busy week at work and with Valentines Day left me little time to post on this blog but luckily there was enough time to run.

After a 1.5 months of mostly easy runs I am trying to inject some speed at least once a week. I am not usually consistent with this but I am going to try and turn that around the next couple of months. I started Monday with a sort of tempo run.

My goal was not to nail my tempo range which is predicted somewhere between 6:10 and 6:20 but to get the pace somewhere between marathon and tempo pace, around 6:30. Without the 1/4 mile marks of Kelly Drive, I was forced to run totally by effort on the rolling hills around Chestnut Hill. The more workouts I run without a pace guide the more I realize that this is the way I should do speed work, by feel.

So I set off at an easy pace and after about 10-12 minutes I started to pick things up. I made the mistake of not mentally marking my starting point and time so I'd at least be able to calculate the pace after mapping the run, but I have an approximation.

Got going to what seemed about 6:30 pace and I felt great. Cold clear night, light winds, and not much traffic. I was panting on the uphills, and recovering well on the downhills. In between I was working just hard enough that things were still comfortable. Having run this Chestnut Hill loop several times in the past few weeks I had an idea of how far I was going so I tried to run at least 5 miles at this pace. I ran past my envisioned endpoint just to make sure I got my distance and also because I felt good.

I ended up at 7.8 miles with 5 - 5.5 miles somewhere between 6:20 - 6:30 pace. I was very happy with the effort.

Tuesday - Bad weather and sleeping in forced me to DNR

Wednesday evening- 7.5 easy miles with Heather on the Chestnut Hill Loop. Usually Heather is the one dragging me out the door on nights I don't feel like running, I am always grateful 2 miles into the run. This time it was me dragging Heather out the door and she was happy I did.

Thursday evening - 10.5 miles in 77 minutes. I had a few hill repeats in mind for this run and I found a decent spot 20 minutes into the run. An old road that looks as if it functioned as a driveway at some point in the past but now is closed off. The paving is starting to go but it was good enough for my purposes. 30 very hard seconds of running to the top and an easy 60 secs to get back down. 5 repeats and I was on my way again. Not a killer workout but I have read that just 5-10 short repeats on a steep hill and can have a large benefit. Why not give it a shot?

Friday morning - A slow run into the sunrise. 5.2 miles in 43:00 minutes.