JohnK

8 miles easy and almost immediately afterwards jumped into the car and drove to Atlanta, where I watched our son play two games in a soccer tournament (tied the first 1-1, lost the second 3-2 so it wasn't too successful). Hope to be up to a hard run tomorrow but my legs feel really dead tonight.

13 miles, first 2 as warm up then 15K on UGA track in 59:49 and ~2 miles cool-down. Goal was to begin with ~6:40 the first 1600 and gradually drop the pace (maybe :04 per 1600) to finish under 60:00. I ended up running 6:37, 13:09, 19:37, 26:00, 32:21, 38:41, 44:59, 51:16, 57:32, 59:49 (= 6:37, 6:32, 6:28, 6:23, 6:21, 6:20, 6:18, 6:17, 6:16 + 2:17). So I started a bit fast but basically it was what I set out to do. I'm not quite where I want to be fitness-wise but this wasn't too bad. I guess running even pace, in a race, I could at least go sub-59:00 for 15K.

8 miles easy. Felt some fatigue from yesterday but not too bad.

9 miles, mostly easy but with several pick-ups. Felt better than expected but still glad I put off 1K repeats until tomorrow.

12 miles, first 3 warm-up then 8 x 1K road loop in 3:42, 3:41, 3:39, 3:40, 3:40, 3:41, 3:43, 3:39 (all w/ ~350m jog recovery) and 2.25 mile cool-down. Ave. 3:40.6. Felt good, pleasing workout.

8 miles easy. Nice relaxed recovery run and I felt pretty good.

3 miles easy early a.m. Only five hours of sleep last night and tonight will be similar, so not the best preparation for the 10 miler tomorrow.

Only 4 hours of sleep last night after 5 the night before (due to our daughter's Nutcracker performances, 5 shows total Fri.-Sun, which require early mornings and late nights for all of us!). So, I was feeling really tired as I drove the 2.75 hours from Athens to Dalton, GA, up near Chattanooga, TN. But I've been wanting to run this race for quite a few years, so even though I knew I'd be less than 100% I didn't seriously consider bagging it.

Weather was pretty good:  about 50 degrees, overcast, noticeably humid with a breeze that picked up some during the race. The course is rural and surrounded by mountains (low ones by western standards, of course) and has rolling hills throughout -- course profile on the race website looked nasty but I guess the scale of those things can do that. It wasn't a fast course but not a killer and I liked it, an out and back with start/finish at and elementary school. There were about 200 in the 10 miler and maybe 100 in the accompanying 5K.

I thought I'd be able to run about 1:02 or a tad faster but really wasn't sure. Mile #1 was 6:07 which was a little fast but I blame the 5K runners. I over-compensated with a 6:29 for mostly uphill mile #2 (12:36). Then it was 3 in 18:49 (19:30 at 5K), 25:02 for 4 and 31:30 at the 5 mile turn-around. I was feeling okay but a little weak. Fortunately I had two guys to run with for several of the middle miles. 6 in 37:58 and 10K in 39:22. One of the two guys pulled away a bit in mile 7 (44:27) and the other went with him but I eventually caught and passed him back. 8 in 50:54. It was definitely slower than I'd hoped but the course was challenging although the hills weren't all that long or steep, just frequent. 9 in 57:33 (really slow mile there, so I became determined to at least keep it under 1:04) and 15K in 59:44. (Ouch -- I ran 15K in 59:49 on my own on the track last weekend! But that was flat with little wind.) I worked pretty hard over mile 10 to finish in 1:03.50. Not real pleased with the time but considering how tired I came into it and getting up at 4:30 for the longish drive I'm not too surprised. I was 9th overall and 2nd master, which was somewhat disappointing as this was the RRCA state championship. (A guy from Tennessee came over the state line and took home our Georgia masters title!)

7 miles easy. Felt okay, somewhat fatigued from yesterday's race and lack of sleep.

9 miles, mostly easy but threw in 6 x ~150m strides and also a few longer pick-ups. Felt pretty good.

10 miles total, first 5 easy ending up at UGA track. Had planned a hard workout of 8 x 1,000m but my legs were feeling really heavy -- probably a combination of still recovering from the 10 mile race Saturday and doing fast strides yesterday, plus not enough stretching lately. Anyway, I ran a 1,000m in 3:45 and it felt way harder than it should have. So I jogged 2:00 then ran 4 x 400 none too hard:  went :88, :86, :84, :82 (all with 1:30 jog recoveries), then finished up with another 1,000m in 3:41 and an easy 2 mile cool-down. Not exactly a powerful workout! Kind of disappointing, but I hope to re-group in time for an 8K race this Saturday.

7 miles easy.

7 miles easy. Felt pretty good, not great.

6 miles easy. Felt okay. Racing an 8K tomorrow -- should be ideal conditions and a fairly fast course but I feel hard-pressed to even run sub-30:00 (whereas I ran the same course in 29:03 two years ago). Will try to go out around 5:55 and see how that feels.

This is a smallish race in Bishop, GA, just about 15 miles south of Athens. Considering I'd run 29:03 on the same course just two years ago my time of 30:14 today isn't exactly pleasing, but I'm really not too disappointed. For one, I feel I'm not quite recovered from last Saturday's 10 mile race and lack of sleep last weekend. Weather wasn't bad this morning but it was fairly windy (although being an out-and-back course I don't think the wind was that much of a factor). The top three guys took off pretty quickly and I ran most of the race on my own in 4th place so that didn't help much. (1st place was about 26:20, 2nd about 27:15 and 3rd about 27:40.) I think had I been better rested and had someone to run with I could have at least kept it under 30:00. I went 5:58, 12:07, 18:17, 24:21, 30:14. Nothing much in the way of a kick over the final 0.97 mile!

10 miles, mostly relaxed except several moderate pick-ups and one steady mile in 6:35.

9 miles easy. Felt good, though tired from very little sleep last two nights.

9 miles, mostly easy but with several fast strides.

9 miles, mostly easy but threw in a few pick-ups and strides on the track.

Really overslept this a.m. so only had time for a 30 minute run. Might try to get something else in later today but if not I'm not worrying about it -- an extremely easy day isn't going to hurt and might be what I need.

12 miles total, first 1.5 as warm up then 4 x 1200m on UGA track in 4:33, 4:34, 4:31, 4:32 (w/ 400m jog recoveries) then after the last 400m recovery I immediately ran a 5,000m tempo in 19:55 with 1600s in 6:26, 6:24, 6:20 + last 200m in :45. Cooled down with 3.5 miles easy.

I didn't feel so great about the 1200s. It was dark and breezy w/ very light rain but certainly not terrible conditions. Six months ago I did several workouts of 4 x 1200 & 3 x 1600 starting the first 1200 in ~4:30 and dropping a bit each subsequent one, then starting the first 1600 in ~6:05 and speeding up on the next two. Today shows I'm not in that sort of shape, as my 1200s probably averaged :10 slower and I did the 5K tempo rather than the 3 x 1600. But I feel it was a productive workout and I have to believe I can get back to where I was this past summer...with some work!

10 miles easy. Felt okay, a bit tired but not bad. Knee just a tad noticeable.

11 miles pretty relaxed (1:20) on a rainy morning. Temp of 50 was warm enough that I didn't mind the rain, however.

10 miles, first 9 out-and-back going roughly marathon pace the first 4 (27:04 = 7:00, 6:46, 6:38, 6:40) then a mile easy followed by threshold pace the same four (25:08 = 6:26, 6:17, 6:15, 6:10) and the 10th mile easy. Felt good, nice chilly morning about 30 degrees.

Easy 4 miler. Felt very good, would have liked to go much longer but just couldn't fit in more.

Merry Christmas to all!

9 mile fartlek, first 10 minutes easy then went 1-2-3-4-6 minutes "hard" while starting easy/recovery sections at 4:00 and then 3-2-1 (i.e., 1:00 hard/4:00 easy, 2:00 hard/3:00 easy, 3:00 hard/2:00 easy, 4:00 hard/1:00 easy, 6:00 hard) then ~1 mile easy followed by several short pick-ups thrown into the last couple miles. Felt okay, a bit off today from lack of sleep X-mas eve and also last night.

11 miles easy in 1:21, picked up the pace a little several times but basically a relaxed run. Felt good.

8 miles, easy except for 8 x ~100m strides thrown into the final two miles. Felt good, looking forward to a long run tomorrow if the knee (IT band) will allow it.

16 miles in 1:55. A fairly easy group run although the pace dropped below 7:00 for a few miles. This was, surprisingly, my longest run since Chicago Marathon back in early October. I was pleased that the knee/IT band felt good even in the late miles, and this gives me hope for being about to run a marathon on March 1st. But I'll need to begin cranking out the long runs!

6 miles easy in a steady cold (~40 degree) rain w/ some wind, so it was pretty uncomfortable. But after ~10 minutes I had warmed up a bit (except hands -- wasn't wearing any gloves) and it wasn't too bad. Still, I was glad to have gone longish yesterday so I just wanted a short recovery run today.

12 miles mostly easy (total time 1:28) just throwing in several one minute build-ups and working a few hills. Hamstring noticeable but not bad at all, and as it actually became a bit less noticeable during the course of the run I was very pleased.