March 4th to 10th

Sunday
Long run 17.5 miles. Ran around town mostly and was even able to run on some trails, even though they were pretty muddy in the areas with no snow. It was 50 degrees out so it felt like a heat wave! Felt the back to back workouts before this run a bit. Was one of those runs which felt good to be done with, but wasn't a death march or anything. (17.5/17.5)

Monday
Easy run in the morning of 7.5 miles. Was pretty fired up during the morning run. Already getting excited to race again. In the afternoon, I ran an easy 6.5 miles with Seth Grossman. After the run, we did hurdle mobility and hurdle skill. (14/31.5)

Tuesday
Today's workout consisted of plyos and hill sprints. It was and had been snowing before and during this run. There were maybe 3 inches of snow or so and the wind was blowing, so it was snowing rather sideways. I was trying to figure out when to do my plyos because the Fieldhouse was pretty much closed. I decided to do them on the athletic practice fields. It had to have been quite a site to the casual passerby. I was out in the middle of a large grass field which was covered in snow, with snow coming down sideways, while doing plyos. It actually worked out pretty well because the snow made for a softer landing. I really did quite a lot of plyos. Twice through the regular rudiment circuit and then some frog jumps and pogo jumps. After I finished the plyos, I ran over to Kagy Hill and did 16 times 100 meter hill sprints. This was a pretty good workout, but I am likely to be sore from it! (6.5/38)

Wednesday
Easy runs of 5 miles in morning and 9 miles in the evening. During the evening run, I had a headache and later in the night was really not feeling well. I started to think I was getting sick. (14/52)

Thursday
Glad to not be sick when I woke up this morning. I must have just been really dehydrated. --Two times 4 mile tempos. I took about 3 minutes between the tempos. A little sore all over, including the upper body from the plyos, but not too bad. Pace was 5:10 to 5:15 per mile. The venue was South 3rd, to Peace Pipe, and Graf. In the afternoon, I ran an easy 5 miles. (17/69)

Friday
Easy run of 6 miles in the morning. In the afternoon, I ran an Easy 8 miles with Grossman, Asay, and Turner. Actually felt pretty lively during the afternoon run. (14/83)

Saturday
I went ahead with the hill workout on the schedule of sets of 200-200-400 with job back recoveries between everything. During the warm up I felt really sluggish, so I went for a long warm up run. After about 32 minutes of easy running, I started the workout. It seemed like the hill workout went pretty well. It is easier to get in a hard effort by myself in a hill workout than on a normal workout. Maybe it is because even if you aren't going extremely hard, the effort level is still high when running up a hill. After the workout, the family went on a day trip to Yellowstone. We had lots of fun, even though Rowan wasn't helping us look for wildlife! :) (12/95)

Weekly Summary
95 miles in 11 runs. Good volume and a couple of solid workouts this week.

Weezytale
This week's Weezytale happened on Thursday. The MSU men's team pranked Jake Turner and Jacob Kirk into thinking we were doing a 1.5 mile time trial and I really got into it helped the joke succeed. A surprise 1.5 mile time trial really made no sense (especially considering no one had their spikes), so everyone had to do a really good job of selling it. Somehow the two Jakes really bought into it. Before the fake time trial was about to start Jacob Kirk was visibly upset about having to do it and Jake Turner seemed a little nervous, taking multiple trips to the porta-potty! Anyhow, I started the race and most everyone went out really hard, but slowly dropped back until almost everyone had dropped out by 400 meters. Jacob Kirk slowly realized what was happening, but Jake Turner had taken the lead. Everyone dropped out at the 400 meter mark and Jake continued for another 50 meters before he turned around and realized he was the only one still running. It was quite a solid prank!