Start Time: 7/13/08, 11:00am
Location: Thomas Jefferson Community Center Half Mile Loop
Distance: 2 miles & 3 miles
Average Pace: 9:43min/mile & 7:44min/mile
Total Miles For July: 36.5 miles

Ok! On Sunday I vowed that I’d get back into my full running schedule (since Saturday’s run went well-enough). The schedule had a quarter-mile repeat workout, but I didn’t feel like going to Washington-Lee to use their track. So instead I picked the next one on the list, which was the half-mile repeats, and headed over to TJ since I’d recently discovered they have a half-mile loop on their grounds: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2080706

What’s nice about that loop is that about half of it is shaded, so when the sun is bright, you aren’t constantly in it. The schedule said to run 10 half-mile repeats, but I accidentally slept in a little too much and the heat had gotten up to the point where I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to hit that. So I ran my mile warm-up, then decided that I’d keep running them until I hit 4:05 or slower… which turned out to be 6 of them. Considering after the second one I wanted to pack it in, I was happy.

It was blazes hot out, and one odd thing? When I got there at 11am the loop only had a couple of runners. When I left at noon? Right around then, a whole bunch of runners (and they weren’t in a group so far as I could tell) had shown up. As stupid as I felt for starting at 11am, starting when it was even hotter seemed rather insane.

warm-up: 9:35
half-miles: 3:41, 3:47, 3:52, 3:50, 3:59, 4:05
cool-down: 9:52

Start Time: 5/31/08, 7:00am
Location: Washington-Lee High School
Distance: 1 mile & 4x1200m
Pace: 9:30min/mile & 7:02min/mile
Total Miles For May: 55 miles

(Oops! I actually wrote half of this entry yesterday. Then the power went out briefly due to a thunderstorm and I just this morning remembered I didn’t finish it. I’m normally even later with this sort of thing but darn it, I was on time for a change.)

The idea for our latest workout was to run three laps around the track, and to stay on pace throughout the entire run. So at each lap you can gage how you’re doing, and try and get back on track. That’s when Emma and I learned two important things. First, if I run behind Emma, I find myself speeding up a tiny bit to stay on track with her even though she is going faster than I. And second, if Emma runs in front of me, she starts speeding up a bit to try and stay in the lead. Finally on the last one, she stayed about five paces behind me (and “concentrated on [my] shoes”) and lo and behold, perfect pacing. Go figure. (5:15, 5:20, 5:14, 5:16)

Start Time: 5/10/08, 7:00am
Location: Washington-Lee High School
Distance: 1 mile & 200/400/800/600/400/200m
Total Miles For May: 13.5 miles

I didn’t end up with my Tuesday or Thursday runs this past week; one of my calves was mysteriously tight on Tuesday, which made me scrap any running plans, as well as Wednesday’s spinning class. It actually was feeling about 99% better on Thursday morning, but I decided to not push things and held off there as well.

It was a wet, nasty morning on Saturday, and it honestly took a lot of willpower for me to actually get up and go. Fortunately, the longer we were out there, the less it stopped raining. And as an added bonus, no running up and down the bleachers (for fear of slipping and falling).

We ran meter-repeats again, and the originall schedule was 200/400/600/400/200m. However, after the 400m, Fred told me, Emma, Laura, and Tracy that we were going to run 800m next. What? No 600m? Why was he torturing us so? *sigh* Sometimes it doesn’t pay to go fast.

Except, what Fred apparently REALLY meant was, “You’ll run 800m, but only after you run a 600m, so you won’t be running it next.” Which none of us got from his statement, unfortunately. Oops! Ah well. It went well enough, although all four of us were amused that after the 800m we all were of the opinion that we didn’t feel terribly good.

200m: 0:41
400m: 1:24
800m: 3:13
600m: 2:20
400m: 1:24
200m: 0:37

(No run on Sunday due to monsoon rains. Darn.)

Start Time: 5/3/08, 7:00am
Location: Washington & Lee High School
Distance: 2 miles
Total Miles For May: 7 miles

I got to this morning’s workout a tiny bit late and missed a bit of our warm-up, but as it turned out… I made it up later. After the warm-up run (plus some stairs, ugh) it was time for four 400m runs—as always, each faster than the previous. Emma wasn’t there this morning so I ended up taking the lead, which was both good and bad. It feels good to be up in the front, but at the same time with no one to pace off of… well… Here’s how those four went: 1:44, 1:31, 1:28, 1:21.

Yeah, that jump between the first and the second? A bit daunting. But I kept it up, and really went all out on the last one. So that’s when Fred casually said, “So, who wants to run an extra one?”

Huh? Really? Then someone said they would… and the next thing I knew, six of us had lined up for a last one. And the end result? 1:20. Phew! The difference of a second could have just been clumsy fingers, but hey, I’m taking it as a victory.

Start Time: 1/26/08, 8:00am
Location: McLean High School
Distance: 2 mile & 12x200m
Total Miles For January: 35.5

12x200m: 51.90, 53.95, 45.93, 49.57, 47.30, 45.78, 43.08, 43.80, 42.71, 43.50, 42.76, 41.89