VICIOUS CYCLE

Tuesday night I met my training group for what would be my first (semi-hard) workout in over 2 months – or what felt like forever. After a 2 mile warm-up, we ran 25 minutes of the Twin Cities Marathon hill – at least the hardest part from the Lake Street Bridge to the U of St. Thomas.

Prior to doing the hills someone said they were able to get in 2 reps the previous week. So I started the workout thinking we were going to do 2 hill repeats. As I crest the hill of the 2nd rep, I see that only 16 minutes have passed. Shit. Now I have to go from thinking I’m done with the hills to turning around and doing another rep. Apparently they did a slightly different hill last week.

Oh well…I felt good on the hills. I think that was partially due to being fresh – as in not having a lot of weekly miles on my legs. And partially due to taking more of a hard/easy approach. Prior to hill workouts in the winter, I’d still get in 10-12 miles the day before. This week I just ran an easy 6 miles the day before.

After the hills we headed to the track for “mile” repeats. I ran 3 and was fairly consistent; 6:06, 6:07, 6:08 – consistently slowing down, I guess. I was pretty controlled, so there’s hope for me yet.

This training group finally has a runner that can kick Jenna’s ass. The x-c champion from the local D3 conference has joined the group. He’s also doing tris now, so hopefully that won’t stunt his sub-26 minute 8K speed. And maybe some of that will rub off on me.

Yes the weather has turned pretty nice here lately, so what have I done. I’ve hopped on the treadmill. Actually, that’s mainly due to the Tour de France. I stayed up passed 10 after Tuesday’s workout and there was no way I was waking up at 5. So last night I jumped on the mill for a very easy 5 miles while watching the tour. Again, it lasted past 10, so I decided to run tonight’s harder effort on the mill too – while watching the TDF. It’s a vicious cycle.

Speaking of the tour, yesterday I was purposely avoiding any results because they’re in the mountains now and I knew it’d be more fun to watch if I didn’t know the outcome. Well, I went to the letsrun.com message board at lunch and the first thread I saw said, “Floyd Landis is now 9:25 down on the leaders today!” Thanks a lot for posting that, asswipe!

So today I’m blogging rather than surfing message boards.

Quote of the day;
“During the hard training phase never be afraid to take a day off. If your legs are feeling unduly stiff and sroe, rest; if you are at all sluggish, rest; in fact, if in doubt, rest.” – Bruce Fordyce