Fartleks

Another brisk morning, temps in the high 30's, clear and cool. Good running weather. I set out with Brian and Rich for our fartlek workout on the 7 mile loop on the trail, and we were positioned in last place, trailing a large pack that included Richard, Carrie, Frank, Marci and a host of others. The easy 20 minutes was actually easy, a little over two miles at 9:30/mile pace. Once we started the 2:00 acceleration / 1:00 recovery jog pattern at that point, the group got all jumbled up. The three of us moved through a good bit of the crowd ahead of us, and picked up Richard as we did so. We ended up trailing Frank and Marci by a little, and stayed ahead of the others. We were doing a good bit of talking as we ran along, as usual, and generally enjoyed the morning's run. We did not take any water breaks this morning, and ended up finishing the fast section just after the footbridge at the one mile marker. After that, we eased the throttle back, and did an easier cooldown run from there, just under a mile of that at 9:14 pace.

The pace for the fartlek section of the run was 8:07/mile. We covered almost exactly 4 miles during that time, and did 11 accelerations. Our mile splits during the faster running were 8:28, 8:16, 7:49, 7:53, which was some pretty good running. I felt pretty comfortable out there, and I'll take that as more good mental ammunition for Sunday's race.

After a few striders (3 x 100m), we joined the rest of the gang for Gilbert's balance drills. I had fun with those, and then it was time for the day's efforts to end. It was another good day of running, and so I headed to the gym for the split portion of my weight routine remaining from yesterday.

GymStuff

Today at the gym, I started off by doing the Roman chair leg and knee lifts that I skipped yesterday, and added the floor crunches that I'm supposed to do after every run while I was there. After that brief core workout, I did the full leg stretching regimen, since my legs were still a bit sore from the Meriden hillpeats on Monday. Then, I headed over for upper body weights. I managed to do my 2x10 reps of bench again at 95 lbs., so next time, I'll try the even 100 lb barrier. Everything else was as usual, but I did add a little more weight to the tricep extensions. While I was there at the gym, I saw another Gazelle, Brandon (he's primarily a really talented triathlete) and his girlfriend, Amy. The internal DJ in my iPod did an excellent job of programming during this workout, by the way.

Thursday will be a shorter recovery run, maybe 40-45 minutes, and then a reduced leg weight workout at the gym. Friday will be a short core/upper body weight workout and maybe some easy indoor cycling. Sort of a mini-taper for Decker...