Cheering up a Sweat 5K and Mascoutah Meltdown 5K Recap

I don't know about you, but the Olympic Trials have been a lot of fun to watch and very motivating for me to get out and slosh through some nasty miles.  Rio is right around the corner, and everyone is peaking at the right time!  Looking forward to watching the men and women's 1500 and 5K finals this weekend.

Friday, July 1^st – 4 miles.  Legs were tired and nice and easy around the neighborhood for some slow, monotonous laps.  Yoch put the full court press on me and convinced me to do a local 5K with him in the morning.  His reasonings include overcast weather, low 60’s temp, and a course I know very well (trail about 3 miles away).  Not to mention, I’m fat, need speedwork, etc.  So I signed up for it, pretty much making this race the first real speedwork I’ve done in awhile.  My fastest mile post injury has been 6:50.  This might hurt.

Saturday, July 2^nd – 7 miles (2 up, CHEERING UP A SWEAT 5K 19:49, 3^rd overall).  Early morning for me, and got up and outside to check the weather and shake out.  A bit muggy, but cool and ready to see what my old legs have.  Drove over to the Maryville Fire Department, which is less than a 3 mile run for me on the trails.  Warmed up with Yoch, and more or less felt like crap.  Course was changed from years previous, and we looped on the trail through Drost Park on two separate areas before heading back.  Layout was pretty much dead flat with a ton of turns, and as many times as I’ve run through Drost Park I have never looped through it.  Race started out ok, and I was pretty much in second right off the start and trying to maintain a hard but reasonable pace and rhythm.  I had an older guy sitting on me, which was annoying but just tried to pay attention to my cadence and focus on the pain that was coming.  Split 6:10 on my first mile, which I was pleasantly surprised at how good it felt, but just wanted to maintain position and tempo-like effort and not get overly greedy.  Looped around the first loop, before getting back on the trail briefly before turning onto the second loop which went around a baseball field and a lake – the loops were nice just so I could see what was going on behind me, but too many turns meant shifting gears a lot.  I got passed by a younger guy who surged to gap me, but I maintained being within 5 seconds of him the rest of the way.  On the last quarter mile, checked to make sure I had a top 3 finish secure, and coasted in.  Couldn’t convince myself to catch the guy for second, but felt pretty good the rest of the way.  Cooled down with Yoch for an easy 2 miles.  Very pleased to break 20 minutes with 0 speedwork and being overweight.

Yoch and I cleaning up

 Sunday, July 3^rd – ~5 miles.  Out and back early on the trail towards Troy.  Nasty humid, and legs were pretty much shot and kept it nice and slow.  Walked 1 mile with Megan around the neighborhood later on.  Legs were too shot for anything more, and will start long runs next week.

Monday, July 4^th – 7 miles (2 up, MASCOUTAH MELTDOWN 5K 20:52, 9^th overall, 2^nd age group).  Woke up early to go watch Colby run a local 5K, and his son run his first ever race!  We got to Mascoutah, which is a good 20-30 minutes from his house, and I warmed up with him.  The weather was humid and sticky, but overcast with spitting rain and still in the low 70’s.  Colby put the full-court press on me to join him in the fun, so I signed up for the race impromptu and targeted a hard tempo to knock out my speedwork for the week.  The course was more or less a huge square around the city of Mascoutah, which started and finished next to their big city park.  A decent showing of people, and we started pretty quickly and I comfortably hit 6:15 for the first miles but was still behind a pretty big group.  Worked my way up over the next 5 minutes, but my legs started to really feel it about a quarter mile into the second mile.  Shifted gears back to tempo effort to preserve what little precious energy I had left, and got caught in no man’s land between two packs but felt relatively comfortable despite working solo.  Hit the last 2 miles in 6:30-6:40 range, and finished out.  The course was a bit long (thinking around 3.2 miles, according to most Garmins we checked), and the cooldown was pretty rough but finished up another couple miles to call it a day.  Colby finished 2^nd for the age group win, and his son unfortunately succumbed to stage fright and DNFed his first race.  But perhaps he was the winner, as the Mascoutah high school cheerleaders showered him with affection and his first ever race medal!

Unhappy rookie racer

Tuesday, July 5^th – ~4 miles.  Recovery out and back on the trails towards Troy.  Nasty humid and sunny, and my legs were just shot.  Ran somewhere in the 35-40 minute range overall – when the weather is this bad, I don’t even run with a watch just so I don’t psych myself out.  Summer humidity is hitting hard with a vengeance!

Wednesday, July 6^th – 0!  Well deserved rest day.  I did walk 1 mile with Megan around the neighborhood, but my back and legs were feeling pretty sore. 

Thursday, July 7^th - ~6 miles.  Late run because the weather decided to be evil again.  The Olympic Trials were on, and that was more than enough motivation to get me out the door.  Ran my Glen Crossing/Old Faithful loop, which has some rolling hills but definitely makes you work a little.  Within the first 5 minutes, I was drenched with sweat, and just did my best to keep my legs moving despite the tiredness and sluggishness I felt.  Ended up racing the sun as it was setting, and looped in one neighborhood loop to get in ~6 miles.  Overall, felt ok and very happy to get this done.  ~50 minutes total.  Finished up the evening by watching Emma Coburn crush the competition to make her 2^nd Olympic Team!

Friday, July 8^th - ~3 miles.  Early morning run for me, but my body wasn’t having it.  Very humid outside, and did out and back on the trails towards Troy before I saw some lightning and a pretty evil black cloud headed my way.  Normally, not an issue for me, but I had my phone and didn’t want it to get messed up in a messy downpour so headed back in.  Looped small around my neighborhood before calling it quits for the day.

Easy weekend mileage awaits, and would like to get in a small fartlek for some turnover work.  All in all, very tired legs, but I have to keep reminding myself that this is early in the process and I have a lot of work to do just to put myself in position to train properly.