October 23rd to October 29th

Sunday:
Long run up Cottonwood Creek Trailhead. Drove to and back to Missoula for Montana State Cross Country meet yesterday. It was an early morning and lots of time in the car. Anyway, I felt horrible on today's run. I was going to go two plus hours, but I was feeling horrible. The pace was slow and I turned back at 55 minutes for a total run of just under 110 minutes total. (15/15)

Monday:
Easy run in the afternoon. Feeling much better. (12/27)

Tuesday:
8am workout. I did 4 times 200 meter hill sprints with a walk back recovery. Then I did a 21 minute tempo and then 4 times 30 seconds at rep pace. I was going to do the last 200s I tried to do them on the track, bit it was freezing out and there was a frozen frost on the track and it was too slippery. I just did 30 second segments on the flat trail system. The tempo was at 5:15 to 5:20 pace. (10/37)

Wednesday:
Easy run 7 miles, felt fine. (7/44)

Thursday:
Progressive 5 mile tempo with Carl and Dan in the morning. We started too slow the first mile. Here were the splits as best as I can remember 5:55, 5:35, 5:15, 5:15, 5:00. I felt pretty good and the run felt relatively easy. In the evening, I ran an easy 6. (15/59)

Friday:
Easy run 5 miles. Course preview at Idaho State. (5/64)

Saturday:
Did a time trial of the ISU cross country course the morning before the race. It ended up being just Carl, Dan, and me. We started as soon as it was semi light out, about 7:45am. I ended up running a pretty quick time. The course is very hilly and tough. It is two 3k loops and then a 2k loop. I was quite a ways out front and didn't run quite as well as I wanted to on the last loop, the 2k. My finishing time was 25 flat or so. If I had run a little harder on the 2k, I would have been 24:40 or so. Anyway, it was a pretty good effort and my fitness is getting better. (9/73)

Weekly Summary:
An average week of training. I wanted to run more mileage, but was really busy with things this week. Oh well, at least I got in some workouts and a time trial. 73 miles in 8 runs.