Is it September Already?

I mean, we just got done with Christmas and New Year's and all. The year went by too fast. So did my duathlon season. My last race is this Sunday at Portage Lakes State Park. At least I can spend the night before in my own bed. Sleeping at home always makes for a more pleasant night's sleep than staying in a hotel or with relatives.

Just a couple training bits of note for the week. I did two track workouts this week, Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday was the real speed workout and last night only a few miles with the family. Mrs. P is trying to figure out how to reduce her 5K time and increase her endurance. Jr. P also needs to work on his endurance for soccer. He wasn't as interested in running last night as the Mrs. was.

On Tuesday, there were just three of us at the high school, myself and two really fast masters runners. We agreed to just stick with 800 repeats. More Yasso 800s for marathon preparation. I don't have a specific marathon goal time to associate to the 800s but I want to run them as hard as I can. My target time was around a 3:15 to 3:30 pace.

Warm-up - 1 mile
800m - 3:03
400m rest
800m - 3:19
400m rest
800m - 3:08
400m rest
800m - 3:15
400m rest
800m - 3:14
400m rest
800m - 3:14
400m rest
800m - 3:20
400m rest
800m - 3:12
Cool-down - 1 mile

As you can see, my times were around 3:15 for the most part and trended toward 3:00 flat a couple times. Overall, a total mileage of 7.75 miles including the 400m recovery jogs. A workout I'm very pleased with. We were running in mid 80s to 90 degrees with a bit of humidity thrown in for good measure.

Last night however, was a bit on the slow side. We did a mile at around a 12 minute pace. Then we did another mile and a half with interspersed pick-ups, bounding, striders, butt-kickers, and sprints. That was about all she wrote for Mrs. P. While they were walking a half mile cool-down, I went and ran a 7:13 mile. It was supposed to be a cool-down mile, but ended up being a fast tempo pace instead. The geese on the infield were giving me the eye whenever I came around the back corner. They were literally about 10 feet from the track. I could have veered right into them and they wouldn't have been able to move quick enough. But that whole flock suddenly took off a few minutes after I finished because a pug was running around on the track. A PUG! It was having a good old time just running here and there, but those geese were gone!

That's it for now. I'll be back after Sunday's race.

Mr. P