Hall begins

his Chicago Marathon training officially. Can't wait to see him on 10/10/10 for his quest at a World Marathon Major! Speaking of Chi, the Rock 'n Roll 1/2 Marathon was there this previous weekend - Patrick Rizzo and Tera Moody won their respective titles. And finally, the future of American running - German Fernandez is healthy and ready to tear it up at OSU this upcoming season!

On to my running week - Monday, did easy 50-55 minutes outside late at night. Weather has been a significant factor this week, and has taken a turn for the worse with some bad conditions and major heat advisories, so has been a struggle to schedule in workouts. Felt pretty good - just did a loop around the streets of Glen Carbon. Nothing much to report, sweated a good 5 lbs. away (seriously). Total mileage: ~5.5-6 miles - total time out was 50-55 minutes.

Tuesday, got up to the track pretty late and did my scheduled track workout. Pat and Crystal joined me to do their respective workouts, so was nice to have company. Because of the conditions, I modified my workout slightly and didn't jog in between reps basically because I was having trouble breathing through the heat/humidity. Thought I would place more emphasis on trying to hit my splits and really rest up in between, so walked 200 meters in between reps. So the workout was 7X600 - kind of eased into the first rep, but immediately got into a good groove. The majority of my workout felt surprisingly easy, which was awesome given the conditions. Hit the splits I wanted (around 5K pace), had a little fun on the last one and took off. Cooled down with Pat afterwards. Total mileage: 4 miles - 600 meter splits were: 2:09, 2:05, 2:04, 2:05, 2:06, 2:03, 1:58.

Wednesday, was just killed at work and so was my motivation. Was wanting to get out after work to run, but it was just nasty outside and ended up completely crapping out on my run. Planned on switching off days with Friday. Thursday, ended up working late, was dead when I got home and decided to switch my workout of 2X2 miles at race pace with 2X2 glasses of wine at dinner. Crap, move this to Friday morning. Woke up this morning and was for some reason unbeknownst to me really sore in my left knee. Dragged my sorry carcass outside, where it was absolutely gorgeous and felt a lot more cool than it has been. Because of time constraints, just started the workout immediately and took off. Felt pretty lethargic and had trouble finding the pace, but settled in ok. Ran towards the trail and the hills kind of beat me up, but really pushed through to finish the first set. Felt like garbage, and didn't want to kill myself with tomorrow's long run so improvised the workout and did a fartlek back home (1 minute on, 1 minute off). Not very pleased with myself for that, but I guess it was better than nothing. Total mileage: 4 miles - first (and only) split was 12:07 (6:03, 6:04).

Well it has been a bad running week to say the least, and I hope a solid weekend will round things out. Still will hit close to 40 which isn't bad, but in a sense still easing into this aggressive session so I am not too discouraged yet!