Week Starting Monday, November 22 (Week 7)

Sunday, Nov 28
Mark: After the longer run yesterday I’m just gonna back it off for an easier week to just keep me fresh physically and mentally. So today I ran 30 minutes pretty early with Tim nice and easy. This next week I’m looking to work out on Wednesday and Saturday with maybe a slight increase on a couple of the recovery runs, maybe up around 40-45 minutes, as well as 1 day off this week, probably Tuesday or Thursday. Although we still havnt revisited the monopoly or sorry battle, we did play a couple games of Lord of the Rings Risk, but I wont mention those results as I dont need to further publicly damage Matts confidence...but the 3rd game was alot of fun and a very good game.

Tim: Finally!!! I am back. Not feeling 100%, however, I felt good enough to run today. Ended up running 30 minutes with Mark. I still feel weak but hopefully I will be able to workout by Tuesday. Until then...

Saturday, Nov 27
Mark: Usually I try and get the runs out of the way earlier in the day, but today i was feeling really lazy so I watched a movie and played some risk online with a friend from college (yeah I know sounds pretty lame) and ran in the early evening. I have been alternating hill repeats and hilly long runs each week so this week was a hilly long run day. It took about 10 minutes to get to the hills and then I ran 30 more minutes in the hills. Then I jogged down to the dirt track and did 5x200 with about 2 min of jogging recovery in 30-31 type efforts. Then I finished up with a 10 minute jog home for 50 minutes on the day. Now I really just need to start getting a couple swims in each week and I will really be doing well...and i have slacked off on the core this week, so I will get a good session in tomorrow. As of now, I feel like I am behind where I was last year, but I have been a bit more consistent so far and I havnt gotten sick yet (knock on wood) and I got really sick twice last year (once in the fall for a couple weeks and at Indoor Nationals last year as well).

Tim: Again, no running for me. I watched Harry Potter tonight... It’s kinda weird when you haven't really seen any of the other ones, except for maybe 2 of them. Gosh, I am tired and need recovery!!!

Friday, Nov 26
Mark: I dont know if Tim is gonna run today, and Matt is doing some meet coverage for Runnerspace so it was just me (and Adriane for the first 20 min) today and I ran 37 min real easy. I wanted to recover from the pace run and I am doing a longer run tomorrow through the hills so I want my calf to be feeling good for that, but if it hurts still I just wont go into the hills. Also my heel and the lower part of my achilles have been bothering me for a couple weeks, so I hope thats not really anything. So yeah, I had a great Thanksgiving and its about time to start reheating some leftovers. Also, the current monopoly and sorry standings between Matt and I are the same as the last post...havn’t gotten a game in a while now.

Tim: Feeling a ton better today, but still not gonna run. I probably could begin running lightly tomorrow, but I really wanna make sure I’m at least 90% before I get back into it. I know this break sets me back a little bit, but I realize that I really only get sick once a year, so I am not too worried about it. I am gonna try and run Sunday.

Thursday, Nov 25
Mark: Tim still sick, so I woke up early and just took off for the run just after 8:00. Usual warmup and cooldown of 1.75 miles for pace run days. It was definitely the windiest day we have had since I moved to California, but I wanted to get faster each mile running something like 5:30-5:25-5:20. The first mile I started out a bit more relaxed than normal, as Tim usually just takes off at like 4:30 pace for the first 400 but I wanted to be more relaxed the first mile. So I settled in nicely and ran 5:29 for the first mile. The second mile I continued to stay really relaxed and I came through a little slow through the first half, so I picked it up a bit and hit 5:31 for the mile. The third mile I was feeling really good and I still wanted to hit the 5:25 average so I picked it up pretty good and hit 5:16 for the last mile. Afterward I was pretty tired and my calf was really tight and bothering me a bit and I have had it get messed up there in the past, so hopefully it feels better tomorrow. I’m so excited for the insane amount of calories that I will be consuming very soon :). Happy Thanksgiving!! And later this afternoon I made my usual stop by on LetsRun to peruse through some current running news and I saw Webb ran 13:36 or something today....makes me feel pretty good about my pace run this morning lol.

Tim: Definitely not feeling well enough to run today. So I’m not gonna. :( or should I say :) Happy Thanksgiving. Inger and I wrote an awesome Thanksgiving song about a Turkey dieing for our gluttony on Thanksgiving. It was really cool. :)

Wednesday, Nov 24
Mark: Woke up and had a bowl of Lucky Charms (that’s right, not Marshmallow Mateys..they had a sale of 5 for 10 bucks on selected cereals so I got 3 of the Lucky Charms and 2 Cheerios) and went for a 33 min run. I felt super good today and ended up dropping the pace pretty nice (for me, not a normal runner lol) but anyway hopefully I feel this good tomorrow on the pace run; and its not gonna be at a race cuz I dont wanna do it alone. Matt and Tim decided to be smart today (or lazy, your call) with their diseases and injuries so I ran alone today.

Tim: You guessed it... I’m sick! Every year around this time I get sick. It’s inevitable. Last night was horrible... tossing and turning the entire night. I plan on not running for a few days. Normally I train through my sickness and I end up dragging out my sickness.  I don’t desire that at all this time around. I remember being in Eugene a few years back and doing just that. Gags warned me, but I was always too proud and would come back to early. Irv would say the same thing. So now that I am on my own... I guess I’ll listen. :) My goal is to workout next Tuesday. Until then, it’s time to rest. I may jog on the weekend,  but only if I feel superb.

Tuesday, Nov 23
Matt: When I woke up this morning I knew I was going to run the 800-400 x4 workout with Mark and Tim instead of the 1200 x4. The thing was there was some pain in my foot on my warm up to the dirt track. I didn’t like that at all but I was already at the track and we were filming for this week so I wanted to still run. Of course when we start the first interval Tim takes off the first 150 meters and we roll through the first 400 on 4:40 mile pace when it should be more like 5:20 pace. I took my heart rate after my first 800 and it was around 200... But I settled down and got in a pretty good groove. By the third set parts of my body were beginning to fatigue and I could feel my left calf slowly getting tighter. (it’s my left foot that is hurt). So I decided to stop after the third set and call it a day. I’m glad I did because I think we figured out more of the problem with my foot. A tendon on the outside of my foot is aggravated but I think the issue extends all the way up my calf, which is a reason it wasn’t getting a whole lot better with just rest. I need to be massaging out my calf to relieve all that stress and tension going on in there. But after today I still think I can continue to work out as along as I’m taking care of the issues and running isn’t making it worse.

Tim: Last night around 8pm I felt like I was getting sick. I knew it was coming because every year around this time I seem to get sick. I had a bunch of emergen-c and soup last night to try and fight it off... but when I awoke this morning I knew it was gonna be a tough one. The workout today; 4x1 mile with 2:30 rest. At first I thought I might just be smart and take the day off... then I remembered that we were training old school today; on a dirt track. So I figured... I would run because people back in the day didn’t take days off when they were sick. BOOYAH!!! I shot for 5:10-5:15 and ran 5:05, 5:06, 5:10 and 5:06. I still feel kinda outta shape, but at least my times are coming down. It was good to have Matt out there as well. 3 people working out makes it easier to train. Good job Matt!

Mark: So originally we were planning to do some mile repeats on the course we use for mile repeats, but we can’t be Playin In Dirt if we keep avoiding the ol’ Pierce College oval so we decided to mix it up. After a 15 min warmup, we jumped right in, you can see the workout in the video but my times were 5:23-5:20-5:21-5:15. The first one really just killed me, we went through the first 400 in 71 which was way too fast for me and I just never settled in and relaxed; so even though it was my slowest it was by far the most energy I expended on the day. After 2 I was honestly just planning on doing 3 cuz I was hurtin’ pretty bad, but the 3rd one I really felt smooth and just relaxed in the pace so I was able to finish solid. Also with the inside being really messed up, we were out in lane 4 so it was hard to judge how far we really ran..and although it doesn’t matter aside from assessment purposes, I think that 4-5 seconds could be subtracted from the times we ran. And yippee ki yay for Matt being back and running with me today! Definitely helped me having him with me.

Comment on the Video! CLICK HERE

Monday, Nov 22
Matt: I woke up today to a knock on my bedroom door. I’m not sure what time it was but it was somewhere in the 9-10am range. It was Mark wondering if I was going to run with him and Tim. I would have except they were literally 2 minutes from leaving and I was still half asleep and hardly knew where I was. Needless to say I passed, but I did get in a 30 min run around 2pm in the afternoon. I have a tendency to run faster than I should when I am by myself and today was more of the same. Hopefully it won’t take too much out of me for tomorrow’s workout but it’s so easy to run hard when you feel fresh. Looking forward to doing an actual workout tomorrow though. It’s been 5 or 6 weeks since I’ve had that opportunity. My workout will still be a game-time decision tomorrow. Sammy put up some pictures on facebook of all of us from Saturday when we were out for my birthday. Here’s one I thought was really good and an accurate indication of the fun we were having.

Tim: 35 min run for today. Except this time, Mark and I added 4x80m strides at the end. That felt really weird. I haven’t run fast like that in forever. Well... at least that’s what it felt like. Mark is still trying to convince me to race indoors. Honestly, I am on the fence about the whole racing thing. Right now I am just having fun and I guess if I begin progressing faster... I may consider it. I still only feel like a half-runner. I have to work at 2 today and I’m not really looking forward to it.

Mark: 35 min easy jog with Tim....during the strides we did I noticed Tim was rolling pretty nice so I told him hes definitely doing indoors, so look forward to seeing him finishing some races on my heels this year :)