March 16th - 22nd, 2009

This week was interesting, I definitely saw some of the fruits of my labour paying off, I also got into an impromptu race of sorts in the park and finished the week off with a free exfoliating treatment.

On Wednesday I had the day off from work so rather than running in the morning, I went out in the afternoon to enjoy the warmth and the sun while I ran. I ran to Golden Gate Park and as is the norm, there were lots of people out walking kids, dogs, etc and lots of runners as well. One runner in particular was a ways ahead of me on the path, he was an older guy, maybe in his mid to late 50's and looked to be jogging at a leisurely pace. Well, it didn't take long for me to catch up to him and pass him, but as soon as I passed him, he proceeded to pass me back! Well, now he was just a step ahead of me and I wanted some space so I proceeded to pass him again and he kept picking up the pace to prevent me from doing so! I could not believe that he was doing that, I mean really??? So I ran up along side of him and turned my head to start a conversation and he wouldn't even acknowledge me so I decided to give him a run for his money and see how long he could keep this up. I kept picking up the pace until we were running around 6:30 or so and then finally after about 3/4 of a mile of this game, he peeled off...and I declared victory!!! Well, this run was supposed to be 14 miles and I had not planned on turning it into a tempo, but once he bailed on our little game, my legs wanted to keep moving, so I ran 4 more miles at sub-7 pace and was pretty pleased with how good I felt and where my heart rate was. I finished up the rest of the miles at a decent pace, so thank you to the stranger in the park who helped me run a really good unplanned tempo!


Monday
Off

Tuesday
AM - Recovery
3.80 mi, 9:12/mi, 120 bpm
My left foot was sore this morning so I aborted the run to try again later in the day.

PM - VO2
6.26 mi, 7:35/mi, 156 bpm
I wore my Brooks Glycerin for this run and my foot did not hurt. My Mizuno's may be getting close to retirement. This was a good run, did 5x600's.

Wednesday
Med-Long with Tempo
14.01 mi, 7:48/mi, 148 bpm
7:32 (143)
6:57 (157)
6:51 (162)
6:58 (161)
6:47 (162)
Great run!


Thursday
Recovery
9.14 mi, 9:28/mi, 119 bpm
Pretty sore, slow recovery run.

Friday
AM - Recovery
5.21 mi, 9:20/mi, 119 bpm
Still a little sore and tired from Wednesday's effort.

PM - Aerobic
7.09 mi, 7:28/mi, 154 bpm
Wow, that morning run must have really helped out because I felt really great for this run, the legs were just flowing. I ended up running faster than I planned, but hey, sometimes you just have to go with the flow!
7:30 (148)
7:29 (153)
7:19 (158)
7:07 (161)
7:16 (161)

Saturday
Recovery
5.03 mi, 8:47/mi, 123 bpm

Sunday
Race + Long Run
18.01 mi, 8:29/mi, 140 bpm
Did a 12k race today at Chrissy Field, and wow, it was windy! 27mph with gusts up to 32mph! The wind kicking the sand up and in my face made me feel like I had just had an exfoliating treatment done! I wasn't expecting to go too hard in the race since I already had 3 hard runs this week, I know, I should have saved myself for the race, but when I feel good, I want to go with it. Anyway, the first mile or so of this race was OK, then my legs started getting sore, I was really thinking of just dropping out since it was really a low-key local race etc, but then I thought what the heck, I am here anyway and have to run today, who cares if my time sucks! So on I went. There was a really big hill in this race, just one, most of the course was flat aside from that. The terrain was a mix of packed sand and pavement, however, three was a section on the path with 3 sets of barricades that you had to navigate in a zig-zag around twice, so that was a bit of a slowdown. Anyway, halfway through the race, my legs started coming around and I started picking up the pace even into the strong headwind and started to pick off a few people. Once we hit the final turn around, we finally got a break from the head wind and now it was at our backs which was great because my legs started moving faster and faster and I was passing more people. With less than a half mile to go, I saw the 2nd place women ahead of me, so I picked it up and flew past her, so I ended up 2nd. After the race, I still had 10 more miles to run, but there was no way I wanted to stay by the bay since my face was already burning from wind and sand, so I drove back home parked the car and did the rest at Golden Gate Park.

Total:
68.55 miles
Avg pace 8:25/mi
Avg HR 136