Thursday, May 23rd - 6 miles. Don't remember much of this.
Friday, May 24th - ~4 miles. Traveled to Chi in the morning, then settled in for the day. Ben (my brother in law) and I headed out for a quick Lakeshore run on a gorgeous cool fall-like afternoon and headed north on the trail for an out and back. ~8:20's average pace, and felt great.
Saturday, May 25th - 13 miles (SOLDIER FIELD 10 MILER: 1:06:15 (208/12,511 overall). Woke up pretty early and headed out to Soldier Field, where I got a quick warmup and hung out with Schlegel before getting into my corral. Perfect morning for a race - high 40's/low 50's, overcast, and breezy. Went out with some of the elite women and tried to get locked in. Found a couple Chi runners I knew and worked off them for awhile. The course starts at Soldier Field, then literally runs south on Lakeshore before turning around and coming back - very flat going out, and not that much scenary. This year, they blocked off the entire road, so we had 0 traffic worries. Split 32:46 (I thought I was in the 32:20's but apparently not according to active.com) at the halfway and felt in control, but then turned into a relatively nasty headwind which was a pain in the butt. Definitely starting slowing down here, and really started to cramp bad around the 6th and 7th miles and had to slow down the pace to regroup. The 9th mile was pretty much the finishing blow for any P.R. attempts, as I clocked a ridiculous 6:59 mile, then tried my best to regroup on the last mile (6:28) before making the kick going into Soldier Field. This was the second time running the event, but the impact of running into that stadium was still phenomenal. Not to mention, I had an entourage of people out there cheering me on! Met up with Larry and Jamie afterwards who both had nice races, then off to enjoy the rest of the Memorial Day weekend. Talked with Kyle afterwards, and was disappointed in my time but it wasn't an awful time. I didn't blow up, and felt relatively strong. Just didn't hit my time goals, but still a relatively decent performance and working my way back to where I want to be. B- performance...
Sunday, May 26th - 0! Scheduled off day. Hung out in Chi all day and ate and drank too much. Ate at Bill Kim's Belly Q restaurant, which was an Asian place that brought me back to my childhood with amazing flavorful Korean food! Fun times, fun race, Macklind Mile prep begins. 41 miles this week, 165 miles in May, 848 miles for 2013. Gotta pick this up - too many skipped days!
Monday, May 27th - Friday, May 31st - 18 miles. Ran solo, ran with Yoch, dead legs and postponed my workout a few times during this process. Motivation isn't the best right now. 183 miles in May, 866 miles in 2013.
Saturday, June 1st - 5 miles (1 up, 1 mile time trial, 4x400, 1 down). Delayed this workout as long as I could, but needed to knock this out. Crappy rainy morning, so waited until the rain subsided. A big apology to Crystal and Colby, who I dumped my scheduled run with to hit my workout, then found out they ran in the pouring rain to try to support me, while I was still in bed waiting for the rain to stop! Weather eventually cleared up, and it was 60's and windy but cool. Anyways, ran out quickly to the track (6 people up there all walking or jogging in lane 1, but all graciously moved over after my talk with them), warmed up, then went right into the workout. I had no idea of what type of mile shape I was in, so strategized to hit as many 80 second quarters as possible and see what happened. Well, was right on pace through the 2nd lap and feeling amazingly not awful before my legs started to tire/burn when I hit the first straightaway, then was pretty much all arms and fumes the rest of the way. I forgot how much fast effort HURT, and took a bit to get my breath back. The burning sensation/lactic acid was stinging for awhile, and I had a whopping 5 minutes to try to recover before I had my 79 second 400's I had to hit (2 minutes rest). Well, made it through the rest of the workout but was hurting a bit, but was overall very pleased with my efforts. Expected to hit 5:20-5:30 on the mile, so I hit the better end of this and obviously the last couple months of work strengthened me up. Splits were: 5:22 (79, 81, 83,79), 78, 77, 78, 77.
Sunday, June 2nd - 9 miles. Slept in, then tried to catch up with Jon or Pat since I knew they were out on the trails. Megan dropped me off at Meridian, then I back tracked on Old Faithful and actually caught up with Pat, so we ran a couple miles together before I jumped back onto Home Depot trying to catch Jon. Missed him, but got in some mileage. Legs were dead, but it was a nice 60 degree morning to run nonetheless. 8:40's pace overall. 32 miles this week (ugh), 14 miles in June, 880 miles for 2012.
Monday, June 3rd - 5 miles. Late night loop around Glen Carbon. Beyond perfect day to run - just felt loose and enjoyed a long overdue late night run. It had been awhile since I had done one.
Macklind Mile work is well underway. Got some bad news last week, and I did not make the NYC Marathon which means I need to consider a charity entry for the race. Lots of think about, and I need to lay out the rest of 2013 to see what races to target and train for.
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| Jamie and I post race |
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| Almost done! |
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| Entering Soldier Field |
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| Street Festival off Sheffield |
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