Week in the Rearview Mirror: April 1 - April 7, 2012

All things considered, I recovered very quickly from the race (given that it was just 12 miles...makes a big difference), and other than just some tightness in my left calf that continues, things went very well.

Here is what last week looked like...

Day	Activity	Distance (in miles)
Sunday	Running	12.13
Monday	Rest Day	-----
Tuesday	Cycling	22.73
	Walking	1.70
Wednesday	Walking	1.04
	Running	4.03
	Walking	0.63
	Walking	3.88
Thursday	Running	9.09
Friday	Cycling	22.10
	Cycling	9.01
Saturday	Walking	1.01
	Running	6.10

These are my time and distance totals for the week:

Activity	Time Total	Distance Total (in miles)
Running	4:59:23	31.35
Walking	2:00:45	8.26
Cycling	3:28:55	53.84
--------------	--------------	--------------
Overall Total	10:29:03	93.45

In cross-training, I worked in two days each of pullups and pushups, with one Kettlebell workout. This week had just slightly more work in it than the week before, since I averaged 152 total pushups and 30 pullups per session. I also moved up to 25 pounds and 5 repetitions for the Turkish Get-ups (doing the right then the left until I've done 5 for each side with no rest between).

With my wife doing another long run on Saturday morning, and scheduling conflicts arising, I didn't attend Yoga class this week. I did a "bit" better on the stretching and Yoga at home, but need to get back to it being a daily thing. I also added 25 strict crunches per day to the mix as a part of the 100X challenge, so that is thrown in there as well.

On my run on Saturday I was able to really step it up in the last 1/2 mile of my run to start getting used to periodically running a bit faster. It was tough since I'm somewhat used to sprinting right at the end of a race, but completely unused to picking up the speed for more that a tenth of a mile or so. It was a 6.1 mile run, with the first five miles looking like this:

Mile	Pace
1	9:27
2	9:21
3	9:23
4	9:17
5	9:15

At about 5.6 miles I started to up the pace, and got to a 7:49 pace by 5.7, dropped back to a 8:12 pace by 5.8, then peaking at a 6:13 pace right at 6.0. The last mile's overall average was 8:29, with the final tenth at a 7:19 pace.

 I was actually trying to see if I could max out my heart rate to see where the real limit was, but since my heart rate was still climbing during this entire time (from 156 @ 5.5 miles to 174 @ the end), I don't believe that is the true maximum. Also, I felt like I could have probably gone further at that pace (a little), or perhaps have gone a bit faster to finish it off. I just have no real desire to hurt myself doing this, so I want to ease into it.

Years ago, I pulled a hamstring trying to outrun my Golden Retriever in the park one afternoon when she was about four months old. She never even looked like she was trying...just had this silly grin on her face the entire time she was "fast-trotting" and looking over at me.  When I both felt and heard the snap and went down like an Indy car wreck, she thought I wanted to play and started licking me in the face and rolling around on me. It probably "looked" like fun, but it took weeks to be able to walk straight again. I won't be going "top speed" anytime soon. :-)

However, this week I'd like to see if I can't spend a bit more time in the sub-8:30 pace to see what that feels like....perhaps a mile or more, but we'll just play it by ear.

Happy Running Everyone !!!