Champaign Eve

Abdi, Kenyan Olympic Team announced!, Jenny Simpson, and Jackie Pirtle-Hall.

So the Kenyan Olympic Team was announced.  Not overly surprised to see Kipsang (London Marathon champion last weekend) and Kurui (2 time reigning World Champion) make the team, but Moses Mosop over Geoffrey Mutai?  Mosop did finish Rotterdam in 2:05:02 on a crappy day, so a great addition to the team but I still think Kenya is making a huge mistake by not inviting Geoffrey Mutai, who I believe is the best marathoner alive.  Regardless, a stacked team, so we'll see how things pan out this summer.

Monday, April 23th - 4.5 miles + drills and strides.  Group run with Crystal, and partial drills and strides at DuBourgh afterwards.  Kind of a pain, since there was a youth track practice going on, and they weren't too good about sharing lanes.  Legs were a bit beat, so laid off the lunges and concentrated more on the form drills and strides.  36:02 for the run portion.

Tuesday, April 24th - 9 miles (3 up, 2x2 miles tempo, 2 down).  Ran with Crystal and Sunny after work at Forest Park.  Hadn't run this nasty 2 mile loop in a while, so was definitely not looking forward to this workout.  Wanted to hit around 10K pace in a controlled workout, and not tax myself too much with the 10K coming up this weekend, so decided on 6:20-6:30 pace, depending on the conditions.  80 degrees and slightly breezy, but definitely a hot day!  Warmed up around FP, then ran an extra mile while the girls did their first rep (opted for 2x2 vs 3x2 because of race week), then jumped in.  Felt amazing on the first rep, and was definitely moving around very well but too fast.  Tucked in behind Sunny and kept clipping her feet - oops!  Intentionally scaled back the last rep, and felt ok but the 2nd mile (hiller) was tiring and had to push at the end to keep up the pace.  Slow cooldown, then hard stretching afterwards.  All in all, very pleased with this workout.  Felt controlled, and pretty strong.  2 mile splits were: 12:19 (6:10, 6:09), 12:34 (6:15, 6:19).

Lots of easy running this week, and stretching.  Making it a point to watch nutrition and get more sleep.  Leaving for Champaign on Friday morning, so more to come...