It's Friday!

New Nike technology, more with Nike and the Olympics, Meb, Ritz, Sam Adams is partnering with the Boston Marathon (where can I get this beer???), Liliya running in Chi again, Wesley Korir, Haile's last chance to qualify for London, one more Haile article, and the unlikely friendship of Mo Farah and Galen Rupp.

Monday, February 20th - 4.5 miles. Monday group run - back was still hurting, so opted out of the 7 mile loop + drills and did the smaller loop with Pat and Tim. W-I-N-D-Y!!! Went with the group to Southtown Pub for dinner for some delicious BBQ!

Tuesday, February 21st - 7 miles (2 up, reverse ladder (1600, 1200, 800, 400), 2.5 down). Successfully dragged Mike to the track for this workout, and Crystal did her miles and drills to accompany us. Quick warmup on the roads, then decided on this workout. Wanted to get progressively faster as the rep lengths got lesser, which we accomplished. Felt pretty good for the most part - felt a little tired at the end, but successful. Slow cooldown to finish off, then long stretching at home. Splits were: 1600 - 5:52, 1200 - 4:23, 800 - 2:46, 400 - 1:15.

Wednesday, February 22nd - 7 miles. Ran with Megan and Tim at Forest Park after work. Legs were tired (back was better but still a little sore), so ended up pacing Megan through her run. Joey B's for post run dinner - great Lenten menu for Ash Wednesday, and I was STUFFED from fish and pasta! 1:10:48 overall

Thursday, February 23rd - 8 miles (2 up, 4 mile tempo, 2 down). The dreaded tempo run. Perfect night to run (60's and cool), so eventually dragged myself outside to get this workout in. Concerned that my legs were a little tired, but back felt better so I was ready to roll. Ran around the neighborhood for a slow warmup, before jumping into the workout. Started out quick, but settled in. My mind was the biggest obstacle, as I wasn't really focused and it was pushing my body to quit which was annoying. Ended up doing 3+ loops of Village Circle, which was fine but loop courses suck for tempos in my opinion - I get too caught up thinking about how many laps are left, and how tired I am, blah blah blah. Anyhoo, nailed the workout, but came up with an observation that I surge a lot within the miles - I'll start out hard at parts, relax too much, then surge again. I noticed this on the last mile, but maybe because I was tired. Regardless, need to continue to keep building strength and get stronger. Tempo time was 24:51 (6:09, 6:14, 6:15, 6:13). Corework and stretching post cooldown.

Tonight, easy mileage, hillwork on Saturday, then long run on Sunday. A bunch of us are volunteering at the Castlewood Cup (15K trail race), so looking forward to seeing a lot of friends run and giving back to the running community!