12 myles - no time

Daniels Park - 7:00 AM

40s, clear, dry

mind/body - clear/strong

Hard effort

Coming off a "day off" is always a good mini test to see what race day is gonna feel like. I ran 9 days straight with 118 myles prior to yesterday so yesterday was refreshing.

The air was crisp this morning but felt good. 4 mile w/u and c/d to and from "the hill". And then 10 x 1 minute @ 10% grade. And just for my future reference here are the splits: 1:03:01, 1:02:87, 1:03:44, 1:01:19, 1:01:25, 1:02:19, 1:01:50, 1:01:50, 1:01:31, 1:01:25. The trend is that I was getting faster and that's what I wanted. On each one the legs were getting heavy the last 20 seconds with the last 3 sets above LT. I figure the last 3 is where I started to build up my LT a bit. Last time I did this workout during my marathon build up I was hitting 1 minute flat but that was after 5 weeks of speedwork so these numbers today are a good sign.

On another note, check out this photo below. My father in law sent me this photo of this guy taking a self portrait recently in South Dakota. He had no idea the cat was there until he got home and saw the photos. Makes me wonder how many times cats are watching me.

The eyes on the cat are just creepy

And last, what do you think of the latest BCS rankings? What a terrible system! OU goes from 6 to 1 over Boise State and TCU? Not to mention Oregon! C'mon. The system is seriously flawed. I guess Boise State will just have to beat OU, again....

10 myles - 1.10:35

HR urban trail + hill sprints - 9:00 A.M.
60s, clear, dry
mind/body - feeling good
Hard effort

Today was a much needed confirmation run. Confirmation that I am back on track. Last time I did these hill sprints before ZG I suffered mightily (gombu) barely hitting a 1:07 avg. Much different story today! I had a casual run to and from the hill with a 7:03 pace intermixing short sprints to get the lungs working. Once on the hill (350 meters - 10% grade), feeling good, I decided to make each one progressively faster: 1:06:47, 1:05:57, 1:05:46, 1:04:05, 1:03:55, 1:01:80. A few seconds doesn't seem like a big deal but when you're at the red line each time, it's a pretty big deal.

The sun is shining and Myles has been waiting for it... so has DAD.

10 myles - 1.10:43

HR urban trails + hill sprints - noon
40s, raining, muddy
mind/body - just OK
Hard effort

First time I really used the lungs in about 3 weeks time and I have to admit - it hurt! Not only that but my times on the hill sprints were slower than usual so that tells me I'm still recovering from that dreadful bug. Usually on this hill (350 meters and 10% grade) I will hit between 1:02 - 1:05 with my fastest being 0:58. Today: 1:08, 1:06, 1:06, 1:08, 1:08, and 1:06. I'm coming around but it can't come fast enough... I just watched a video that was taken on the ZG course a couple weeks ago... fun. But it's gonna test every bit of my lungs and legs.