January 8th thru 14th

“It’s like a car starting. There’s an immense amount of energy you need to start the car, but once you’re rolling, it’s easy.”        John Landy

I’ve been experiencing the truth lately of John Landy’s quote above.  Each day as I get out to run I feel as though my legs will not be able to provide for me the energy I need to do a significant workout. But as I push on through the first 20 to 30 minutes of the workout my legs begin to respond positively. The second half of the workout is more enjoyable, faster, more relaxed and decidedly more confidence building. I’m beginning to think as I enter the 1 hour mark of these recent workouts that maybe my true calling is the 10k race.  That is yet to be determined, but I am enjoying my recent running efforts. To summarize the most recent week;

Friday the 8th was a rest day.

Saturday I ran 3 miles in motion on the roads, still recovering

Sunday the 10th I had fun running on the beach with Winnie and Gracie. It did not amount to a lot of distance but it was about an hour in motion.  Basically recovering.

Monday was a really good workout on the cinders. I covered 10000m in about an hour and 5 minutes with frequent surges. My mile times were 12:14, 11:14, 10:46, 10:46, 10:26, 10:35.

Tuesday the 12th I ran 4 miles on the roads in 5229.

On Wednesday the 13th I tried a new workout plan that I have been reading about. Consists of running 24 minutes in the following manner; run6 minutes  mile Pace X, 12 minutes at Mile pace ex-, and 6 minutes back at mile Pace X. Wasn’t very scientific but I did run 2.9 miles in 30.58.  I was hoping to run at 12 minute pace, then 10 minute pace, then back to 12 minutepace. But I actually ran a bit faster. It was more like 11 minutes, 9 minutes, 11 minutes. They was more demanding than I had anticipated , but it was not totally exhausting.

Today, Thursday the 14th, I woke up with achy legs after having some leg cramps during the night. I did not expect to get much done today when I returned to the cinder track. But once again as time went by a legs responded and I was able to put it in a fairly good workout of one hour in motion with twelve, fast, speed segments covering 4.2 miles.  I was very surprised at how quick I was able to run the approximately 100 meter speed segments with paces averaging below 6:30 minutes per mile quite frequently.

Thus, another week is in the books.  I am planning to run a mile time trial at the end of this month in a virtual competition. I haven’t decided yet whether I will be trying the mile run on the school rubber track or simply at the cinder  track. I’m thinking it might be fun to put on some spikes and run on the rubber track if the weather is cooperative.

Stats have been very consistent and quite satisfactory. Weight, sleep, and diet have been excellent.  I experienced some calf cramps on the night after the 6-12-6 workout, but was ok on the run next day. No plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendon or knee issues….