5 Days in a Row

I figured my legs would hurt more after running 5 days with no rest.  I don't remember the last time I ran 5 days in row, but it has been awhile.  Maybe years.  Maybe even dating back to high school when that's just what we did.  We usually ran 6 or 7 days a week.

Today's workout started out as a sauna again, but it clouded up and that made it a little easier.  We ran a 4.25 mile fartlek alternating between 2 minutes hard and 1 minute jogging.  Coach said to run 30 minutes.  It took me 35:17 to cover the course.  I actually walked on a few of the jogging sections just because of the heat.  I didn't feel like I was pushing myself too hard as far as speed was concerned.  It just felt like my head was going to boil over and pop.  There was only a small portion of the course that was covered by trees and by the time I got there, the clouds had already started forming above us and it didn't make a difference.

Once I finished up, the entire group got to drink free Mix1 drinks.  There were a couple girls passing them out to our group, guys playing rugby, and people on the basketball courts.  I've only tried them once and did not like it at all.  I don't remember what flavor it was.  This time I tried a Acai-Pomegranate and it was decent.  It's a small drink that has 10 grams of protein, 10 grams of carbohydrates and a smidge over 1 gram of fat.  They do leave a little powdery residue in your mouth, so I chased it with water.  It definitely helped pick me up a little.

I laid down on the bleachers and rested for about 5 minutes and then decided that I wanted to do a little more work.  I did a few form striders.  I ran 100 meters each and jogged back to the start for a recovery and each run concentrated on different types of strides.  The first one was high knees, the second was butt kicks and the last one was skipping.  Now, my legs were tired.  By this time, you could tell that I only had about 20-25 minutes before the rain was coming, so I jogged 1 kilometer to get the tightness out of my thighs.

Great workout and I am really glad that I have made it 5 days in a row!  Looks like rain is scheduled all day tomorrow.  We really need it.  It is time to turn this sauna into a steam room.

440 Repeats and Form Work

The IOA Corporate 5k is over and that is like the finale to the spring runs for me.  Time to start over and get some form work and some speed.  I need to get my mile time down or I'm never going to break 20 minutes again.  And 40 isn't getting any further away and that means Masters Category.  That sounded like something that would never happen when I started running road races at 14.

I jogged down to Howard Middle School to use their track.  That's 1.85 miles for a warmup.  It took me about 25 minutes which included a few stops for traffic.  I kept it slow, so I wouldn't burn up too much energy and my right hamstring was very tight for the first mile.

Today's speed work...  440 repeats in 1:30 with 220 recoveries.

No problem.

1:22
1:23
1:25
1:22

Were I capable of putting them together, I would run a 5:32 mile.  With these splits, I should be able to run under 6:30 for a mile.

Then came the form work.  I ran 50 yds plus recovery returns of the same distance.

2 sets of high knees
2 sets of butt kicks
2 sets of bounders

It was a great workout.  I had a hard time getting my thighs level to my waist and my sneakers to my butt the last 10 yards of each set.  The bounders were hard period.  My thighs felt like cement the whole 50 of each set.

Of course, that left me with a 1.85 mile jog home.  That took another 25 minutes, but I needed it to get my legs loose again.

Total workout:  just under 6 miles.