Ups and downs...

So to recap: Thursday was a good run, followed by a good massage. I decided to do my double Friday and save the off day for Saturday. My back was acting up from carrying things up and down Geoff's staircase, so I bailed on that, and basically spent Saturday doing nothing.

Sunday I "raced" 10k...I put that in quotation marks because it was for sure the worst "race" I have run in a while, at least in terms of meeting my expectations. I figured, based on my 5k from early January, and 4 solid weeks of training since then, that I'd be in 33-33:30 shape by now. The course is not that tough: a double out and back with the first k uphill (but very gradually) and the middle ks on a golf club road. The status of the golf club road is the key really. I had heard that it was in good shape, so I decided to just run the 10k, and try to run fast. It ended up that there was a thin layer of snow that was enough to slow the field down by quite a bit. The winner, Baghdad Rachem, was just under 32min. He's basically a 31min guy, so there's at least a minute slow down on the course. I ended up 35:43 (it pains me to even write that), which was WAY slower than I was hoping for. Given the conditions, I would have been happy with anything up to 34:59.

Probably I was tired from the 100mile week last week. I did cut back the week before the race, but I guess it wasn't enough. I was telling Eliza (while she was gleefully twisting her thumbs into my calf) that I have a well-developed sense of what is going on in my body. For example, I can wake up with a sore throat, but then go eat a meal, and then it will be better. I can feel myself going from sick to not sick. I think most people can feel this too, but most maybe don't take notice. I can sense almost to the minute when I've recovered from training or racing or whatever. I was pretty tired last week, pretty down emotionally, too. At about 7pm on Sunday, I felt it click. I was recovered. So it was about 9 hours too late for the race.

I decided that if I am going to be putting in this kind of volume, I need to match that volume in my workouts, as well. Now that I've had a cycle to get used to running 13-15 miles a day, I figure I can do that. This week, though, with the race, I only have one workout. I did that today: 5x1mile with 200m recovery. I was pretty pleased with this one. I averaged 5:17, and actually went 5:22, 5:17, 5:17, 5:19, 5:13. I negative split all of them, and on the last one I managed to stay at 39-40secs per lap the whole time (the others I had 41s and 42s laps). All this after a 15miler (1h56) on Monday and a double last night (12 and 5). So I am pleased. Two hour runs are to become the new normal.

I wonder, though, what is the point of the 5mile run. I added one last night (actually it was closer to 6miles), and I'll do one tomorrow as well, after a 2 hour run in the morning (not sure how far I'll get, with the snow, so I'm just going to run for time). It is 5% of my weekly total for a 100 mile week. If I were running 60 mile weeks, would I do a 3mile run? I don't think I would. I think it is useful in that I felt very good, and it gave me confidence that I was recovered, since I wasn't dragging my ass. As far as how useful it is aerobically, I don't know. But for now I will stick with the plan.

Here's a pic of me post-race:



And one of the very successful Concordia squad:



Flavio (support crew); Christina (1st woman in the 5k); Sofiane (3rd in the 5k). Second row: Dan (3rd in his age group in the 10k); Simon (first in his age group in the 10k, and 6th overall, one spot behind the coach); Antoine (PB in the 10k).