January 22nd to 28th

Sunday
Easy run of 9 miles. Sat around, watched football, and hung out with the fam the rest of the day. (9/9)

Monday
Workout in the Fieldhouse with Dan & Carl (pronounced Karrr). The workout was 1200s with equal rest. Dan led the first one and then I led the next four. I woke up in the morning with a stomach ache. I thought for a while I wasn't going to be able to do much of anything, even on the warmup. However, once the workout started, I didn't feel too bad. I should have done a 6th 1200, but was happy to get anything in after how I felt beforehand. Also, I intend on coming back with another workout tomorrow and then take two easy days before the race on Friday. I ran the 1200s in 3:25, 3:25, 3:24, 3:21, 3:21. 1200s are a really challenging workout. They seem so much harder than 800s and even 1000s. (8/17)

Tuesday
Went with a mix workout like was on the schedule, but changed it up a bit. It snowed overnight, so it was pretty slippery out. I did two tempo miles outside with 1 minute rest. Then I headed in the Fieldhouse and did 1 more tempo mile. Then I changed into my spikes and did 8 * 400 with 1 minute rest. Obviously, the 400s were the most difficult part of this workout. Actually, they were brutally difficult. The two outdoor tempo miles were at about 5:15 pace because of the footing, the indoor tempo mile was 5 flat, and the 400s were all at 61 except one I hit in 62. Going two days hard in a row and with the tempo miles beforehand, the 400s were really tough. In the afternoon, I ran an easy 4 miles. (13/30)

Wednesday
In the morning, I ran a really slow 9 miles. I was definitely tired and my calves were barking or I guess mooing at me. In the afternoon, I ran 5 miles easy. (14/44)

Thursday
Easy runs of 8 miles in the morning and 6 miles in the afternoon. (14/58)

Friday
Easy run in the morning of about 3 miles. In the evening, I ran the 3000 meters at the MSU Open and ended up running 8:20 (the NCAA would convert this to 8:09 or something for altitude, whatever that is worth). It was a pretty disappointing race. I led from the gun and attempted to run 66 second 400s on the indoor 200 meter banked track. It was difficult to hear the splits and I often didn't know exactly where I was time wise. I ended up coming through the mile at 4:28. After the mile, I tried to start running 64s which I did for a while. I led until the last 600 meters of the race or so when Dan Jackson who had shadowed me the entire race passed me. To be honest, I was a little surprised Dan was still there based on his workouts up to this point and he kind of caught me off guard. The discomfort in the last bit of the race was also a bit shocking. It had been a while since I really tried to run a race fast. So now looking into the future, I believe it is going to take me a couple of races in order to really race well again. It was a pretty frustrating experience for me, but it ended up helping Dan to a great time. Dan really ran a great race, works hard, and continues to improve. (10/68)

Saturday
I didn't sleep well at all the night after the race and was not feeling well at all. So, I took my first day off in quite a while I believe.

Weekly Summary
68 miles in 10 runs. This week looks a lot lower volume wise than it really was because I took off the long run on Saturday and instead did the long run on Sunday the next day. If the long run were counted in this 7 day period, this would have been an 84 mile week. It was nice to get in a race to get a benchmark. Looking back on the race it might have been better to be more conservative in this first race and then try to run faster at a later date.