Never satisfied... : Spring Cycle

Spring has Sprung!

I came home from vacation and continued to relax a couple more weeks with some extra pounds and in need of detox. I started a new 16 week cycle at the end of February with a few goal races on my list.
1. USATF National Half Marathon Championship
2. a May 5k
3. Freihofer's Run for Women

The half marathon championship, April 30th, is a bit of a stretch for me right now, but I figured this was the year to do it. For one, it's the first time I have run a sub 1:18 half to qualify, secondly, a lot of distance runners are still coming off trials and may not run. Therefore, I am hoping for a decent overall finish place in the national championship event!

A May 5k... So that's the goal, but I want to find the perfect one. I want to get my 5k time down significantly with the goal of a sub 17 sometime in the next year or so. My PR is only 17:29, but given when that race was during my schedule I know for a fact I wasn't peaked for that race. My coach gave it to me as a workout, in which I drove 3 hours one way to it, and had a workout after the race. I hate when people say they're doing a race as a workout, but only run the race. If you're running a race as a workout, it should be extended by further repeats, otherwise you just ran a race hard and raced. I also had come off a 10k race the Saturday before, long run Sunday, decent effort trail 5k Monday and then the race was Thursday in the midst of high marathon mileage so I was totally exhausted running on tired legs. After the race had something like 5 x 3 minutes hard. With all that said, I think lowering my 5k a significant amount is totally within reason.

Freihofer's- I have never run a FRW that I was happy with. Since I'm not going to do a marathon this spring I want to try to get some speed back in my legs and attempt a good freihofers this year. I always say I'd rather watch this race since it draws so many top runners, but given its a team race, I do it every year.

The cycle so far:
It's nice not having to do long runs more than 16 miles right now and not be running 90 mile weeks. That being said, jumping from 0 miles, to 20, to 30, to 45, up to 68 miles a week I was tired! I've been around 68 the past couple weeks and feel better now, this week I will be in the low 70's. Last Tuesday's workout went great and then I went to Colorado for a huge slap in my face. I was there for 1 week, got in 9 runs which included 2 doubles, a long run and an attempted 5k. It was the most miserable experience. I wanted to break 19, (my first 5k at altitude was 21:35 when my sea level PR was 18:45). While I lived in Colorado over the next 14 months my altitude 5k went from 21:35-20:48-20:02-19:06 to finally 18:35 after 13 months of living there. So I knew it was going to be hard, but I had ran a 2:50:01 marathon right after running the 18:35 5k at altitude, so figuring I'm in 2:45-46 shape I should be able to break19. WRONG. I felt the oxygen completely deplete after the first mile and I hit a wall there. It was so painful and left me so sore the next few days. The course was flat, yet I felt as if my quads had just experienced a downhill marathon.

Despite the painful 5k (19:17), I had fun and my long run post wedding on Sunday morning wasn't slow for my altitude long runs. I think if I had run something that didn't require so much anaerobic energy, I would have faired better, as the aerobic stuff doesn't bother me too much in Colorado.

We celebrated Pi Day on Monday with a group run sponsored by Pearl Izumi and Runner's Roost Fort Collins. I got to hang out with my friends, including my coach and his family Sunday night. I came back to NY after a week and ended a long day of travel with a second run for the day with Nick. The next day I had a workout on the track. It was awesome. Fast. I puked. It's been awhile since I did that, I left it all out there. Mile repeats on 90 second rest averaged 5:40.