Friday, May 25, 2012

May 20th to 26th

Weekly Summary
68 miles in 8 runs. Had one pretty good workout and two average or below average workouts.

Saturday
24 * 200 with relatively short rest. It was really windy out at the track when I did this workout. After each 200 I either ran forward 100 meters or backward 100 meters, so I wasn't running into the wind as much. When I ran forward to the next 100 mark, I took about 33-35 seconds rest. When I ran backward 100 meters, the rest was closer to 40 to 44 seconds because it took a little longer to get turned around. The first 12 200s I ran at about 31, the next 10 at 30, and the last 2 at 28. After the workout, Sierra, Rowan, and I all drove to Butte to watch the state AA & C track meet. Sierra and I hadn't eaten all day, so we went to Silverbow Pizza and devoured a large pizza at about 4 before driving back to Bozeman. (9/68)

Friday
Easy run of about 10 miles in the evening after driving back from watching the state AA & C track meet in Butte. (10/59)

Thursday
Went back to the old 5 * 1200. It went ok, but not great. (9/49)

Wednesday
Easy run of 6 miles in the morning. In the afternoon, I ran another 7 miles or so. (13/40)

Tuesday
5 mile tempo. It was ok. Ran just over 26 minutes on the slow and windy course. (9.5/27)

Monday
Warmed up over to the track with some thoughts of doing a workout, but once I warmed up I realized it would be better to wait on the workout for one more day. One of the MSU guys was doing a little workout so I did a little of it with him, just for a little bit of a shakeout. I did 3 times 200 and 2 times 400 at mile pace. This little workout felt ok, but not great. (6/17.5)

Sunday
Easy run of about 11.5 miles in the afternoon after driving back from Missoula in the morning. (11.5/11.5)

Thursday, May 17, 2012

May 13th to 19th

Weekly Summary
Ran about 65-70 miles this week in 7 runs. Only one very light workout.

Saturday
Had a 6am flight out of LA and back to Missoula, so I was up at 4am after getting to bed at about 12:30. It was an amazingly short trip as I was only in LA for 12 hours. I slept for about 3 hours in once I arrived in Missoula then did about a 16 mile long run from about 8:30 to 10:30pm.

Friday
Ran the 3000 meter steeplechase at the OXY High Performance meet. The two weeks leading up to this race had been very busy and my training was almost non existent. However, I still had a feeling my race would go ok. My flight left Missoula and arrived into LAX at about noon. I tried to go check into the motel room early at about 2pm, but the room wasn't ready until about 4 so I had to hang out out and about. The 17 mile drive to the track took about 90 minutes because it was Friday afternoon in LA. Anyway, once I was at the track and I heard the rabbitt in the steeple was going to run the first mile at 8:19 pace, I decided the back of the pack would be a pretty good spot for me for the first mile. I came through the mile at about 4:32 which is 8:32 pace. I started passing people the last 1200 even though I wasn't speeding up. I ended up finishing with a new PR of 8:30 in 7th place overall after passing two people the last 70 meters. The time also qualified me for my third Olympic Trials in the steeplechase because it is under the Olympic Trials 'A' Standard. It was surprising I was able to run a PR because I didn't feel I ran all that well, it was just a fast race. This is the 3rd steeple in a row that I have felt afterward that I could run faster. I have gone from 8:40 to 8:35 to 8:30. Hopefully I can keep that progression going! Afterward I did about a 4 mile easy run. Anyway, here is a video of the race:



Watch more video of 2012 USATF Oxy High Performance Meet on flotrack.org


Thursday
Easy run of 6 miles in the morning. Drove 3 hours to Missoula in the evening to catch my Allegiant flight to LA on Friday morning. This will be the first time I have ever flown and raced in the same day. Laying in bed on Thursday night it was hard to wrap my head around that I would be racing the next day in LA. Was a little nervous and took me a while to get to bed, but did get some pretty good sleep.

Wednesday
Easy Run of 12 miles. Finally feeling normal again after the busy and irregular schedule of last week.

Tuesday
Had a dental appointment in the morning and had to have a root canal. So, after that, I was not feeling great, but I did a couple of 1200s in 3:24 just so I did a little something before the race on Friday. The mileage for the day was about 7 miles.

Monday
Warmed up for a workout, but was really not feeling great, just really fatigued. Decided to wait until tomorrow to do a workout. All in all, this run was somewhere between 8 and 11 miles.

Sunday
Easy run of 9 to 11 miles very late at night. Ran late at night again because there was a recruit in town. This makes it 4 out of 5 days where I ran between sometime between 9:30pm and 1am.

May 6th to 12th

Weekly Summary
This was quite a week, but all in all, things went well for the conference meet. Didn't get much sleep with the late runs and early mornings. Not exactly perfect preparation for a fast steeple this coming Friday, but there isn't much I can do about it now. Ran 58 miles in 6 runs.

Saturday
Not quite a long run, but a longer run. This was also a midnight run. Maybe 13 miles total. (13/58)

Friday
Easy run of about 11 miles. This was another midnight run, after the first full day of conference action. (11/45)

Thursday
The conference meet was delayed because of snow in the morning, so I headed out for a steady five mile tempo run mid morning. I didn't run really hard because of being tired and I still have a bad cough. (9/34)

Wednesday
Easy run at about midnight after the first day of multis at home conference meet. Very busy today and there are still 3 days to go. (9/25)

Tuesday
Tried a workout today. It did not go well. The workout was supposed to be 3 times a mile at 3k pace. I ran the first mile in 4:24 (about 4:18 with altitude adjustment). After the first mile, I started coughing like crazy and coughed the rest of the day and even coughed at night and couldn't sleep. I started the second mile, but quickly realized it wasn't going to happen. Not sure if I am sick or have allergies, but I am going to have to stay away from VO2 Max stuff for a bit. (7/16)

Monday
Did not run. Too busy getting things ready for conference meet (0/9)

Sunday
Easy run in Missoula before heading back to Bozeman. (9/9)

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

April 29th to May 5th

Decided to switch order of my days so the most recent day is at the top.

Saturday
Long run in Missoula of about 15 miles. Sierra, Rowan, and I stayed the weekend in Missoula after the meet. Not exactly what I wanted to do because I really have a lot to do with conference coming up this weekend in Bozeman. Oh well, it was fun seeing some family. (15/75)

Friday
Ran the 1500 and 800 at a small meet in Missoula. About half of our team didn't make the trip because they had finals or graduation activities. Anyway, my legs felt a little sore. Maybe I shouldn't have done the 300s in spikes on Wednesday? I was surprised to be feeling so poor. Anyway, I ran 3:54 (3:51 or 3:52 with NCAA altitude adjustment) in the 1500, but it felt really hard. In the 800, I started out pretty slow because I didn't feel well after 1500 and ran 1:55. I almost scratched the 800, but I guess I am glad I did it just for the training aspect of it. Was a little disappointed in how things went and how I felt, but I guess it doesn't really matter how I felt today in the grand scheme of things. (8/60)

Thursday
Easy runs of 4 miles in the morning and 5 miles at night. (9/52)

Wednesday
Did a little workout today of 3 mile tempo, 3*300 cut down, 2 mile tempo, 3*300 cut down. Started on the track and then went on a loop and back to the track for tempos. My watch had me at 15:04 for 3 miles, but I think my watch was off and it was a bit short of 3 miles. My first set of 300 cut downs was 44, 43, 42 with 1 minute rest between. All the sudden before the second 2 mile tempo a huge wind kicked up. My watch had me at 10:30 for 2 miles. The second set of 300s had 100 meters of each into a huge headwind. My times were 45, 44, 43. The time between tempo and 300s was as long as it took me to change my shoes. I didn't think this workout was going to be that hard, but I was pretty beat the rest of the day. (11/43)

Tuesday
Really busy catching up on stuff after the trip. Went for just a short run at about 8:45 at night. (5/32) 

Monday
Long run around Palo Alto of about 17 miles. Probably ran a little fast because of the excitement of the race and because it was sunny and warm out. Drove to Oakland to fly out after the run. Our plane ended up being delayed over three hours so we ended up getting home real late.(17/27)

Sunday

Ran the steeple at Payton Jordan and ended up finishing in 2nd place in my heat at 8:35. I ran an 8:35 in 2008, but my fastest steeple was 8:33 in 2005. So, it has been a while since I have run that fast. Going into the race I was feeling pretty good all things considered. Yesterday was a long day with the home meet in Bozeman and the late flight to Oakland. Since I didn't get a chance to run yesterday, I ran an easy 2 miles or so in the morning.

My race plan going into the meet was to get out toward the front of the pack and then start picking it up as best I could the last 1200 meters. However, when the gun went off, I didn't get off the line real well and basically had no where to go but the back of the pack. I didn't want to waste any energy with a surge too early in the race, so I just stayed in the back for the first 1200 meters and then started moving up. I wish I had started moving up a little sooner in the race. Sierra took my splits and moved down from the starting line toward the 200 meter start each lap, so these are roughly my 400 meter splits: (68, 70, 71, 70, 69, 68, 67, 31). After being last the first half of the race, I took the lead with 400 to go, but couldn't quite hold it. My last barrier was bad, which basically took me out of the running for the win.

Did a long cool down after the race. (10/10)

Here is a video of the race:


 
Watch more video of 2012 Stanford Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational on flotrack.org