Week of 09/21/2008 - 09/27/2008 (Base Week 28)

I'm actually too tired, too sleep deprived and too stressed to rant about anything this week.

Sunday 09/21: 1:30:06, California to yellow gate at JPL and back around the other side of the RB. Pretty easy but picked up the pace a little bit towards the end. Woke up early to go before moving, so it was nice and cool. Feeling a little bit stronger these days. Moved furniture and ate delicious fish tacos with Kangway and Mark later.

Monday 09/22: Off, shots. This was a really crummy day. I'm really, really, really tired and sleep deprived and overworked.

Tuesday 09/23: 1:21:47, Bailey to Connector, real easy. Took the HR monitor again, I dunno how I feel about this. It's probably good for me, but low HR training can be so very frustrating... Basically kept a lower HR profile this time, staying below 180 until the camp, then 180-185 past there, 193 on the steepest parts. Actually felt easy and relaxed most of the way, but the time sucked, 29:16 to camp, 48:35 to the sign. I mean, I guess its good that I can do this challenging run and still be under threshold, but lack of improvement on the run-time makes me nervous. After all, first place doesn't go to the contestant with the lowest heart rate... it goes to the person who runs fastest.

Wednesday 09/24: 46:18, Monterrey Recovery Loop, saw Scott run by as I was parking. For some reason, legs seemed to want to pick up the pace, so ran a little bit faster than usual. Felt good, not too tired from yesterday.

Thursday 09/25: 56:30, RB perimeter to yellow gate at a moderate pace. Didn't sleep well and felt really inordinately horrible in the morning, but the run was actually pretty good. Started easy then picked up the pace about every 10-20 minute increments, but it didn't really feel like a progression run, maybe the variance in speeds wasn't large enough... though this is my fastest time for this loop by a substantial margin. Legs are feeling really good these days, the rest of me, a bit rickety. I think I'll survive though, as long as I don't contract Kangway's plague.

Friday 09/26: Off, shots. Oh, the end is in sight! I think I'm a few weeks away from graduating to the once per week shot schedule, imagine that. Gotta be careful though, in terms of rocking the boat, it's been a good 6+ months on the 5 day week, not sure how the foot will handle a whole extra training day.

Saturday 09/27: 1:13:51, a tempo run that just wasn't mean to be spectacular... Really having trouble sleeping lately, felt pretty crummy in the morning, then I got to the gym and the North Field was closed (grrr!), the gym--ergo the bathroom was also closed (GRRR!!), AND there were about 15 racewalkers milling about the track (GGRRRRR!!!)^2. As a result, I was feeling not entirely chipper as I started my workout, and decidedly less so after discovering that my L lower leg was pretty tweaky today, foot was a little sore and my calf was tightening up quite a bit just on the warm up.

Nevertheless, after 12 laps of the South Field as a warm up plus a jog to the park bathroom, felt mostly okay to go. 6:53, 7:01, 6:59 for 20:53, pretty disappointed, mainly because I'd set out with the goal of doing 4 miles this time. Maybe this week of poor life/work/eating habits is catching up to me. Or, maybe I shouldn't expect improvement so soon, since the 3 mile tempo only became completely under control and good feeling last week. Bleh, this wasn't a catastrophically horrible workout, but I still felt pretty bummed out for some reason...


Training this week: 5:48:32
Goals: To avoid being completely crushed by the weight of overdue work...