First Week Of Boston Training In The Books

Things went pretty well with the first week of training for Boston.  17 weeks to go. My training plan is only a 16 week plan, so I am going to do the first two weeks twice.  That should ease me into it, and get me thru the holiday season.  I started off with the first short tempo run on Tuesday.  Somehow I had my times mixed up in my head, and I was thinking I needed to keep it at a 6:15 pace.  It was a nice afternoon, and I went out with Jeff Petro (original FART member) for an easy 2 mile warm up.  At the top of George Street I started out on my 2 mile at what seemed like a good clip for me.  But every time I looked at my watch, I couldn't get the average pace below 6:30, which is what I clocked for the first mile.  I ran hard the 2nd mile, thinking I needed to pick it up.  But I had been struggling with a chest cold the last couple of days, and giving it just about all I had made it a 6:32 pace (13:05 for 2 miles).  I was a little bummed, because if the first run was this hard, and I couldn't even make the pace, maybe I was in the wrong training plan.  I jogged back to meet Jeff, and we finished up with a couple more miles easy.  When we got back to Brewbakers and I went to log my run, I realized I only needed a 6:34 pace, which is basically (INC) what I did.

The next day was with the Keenyans, and while my chest kept me from doing the last 1600 I had planned, I was able to keep the others right at pace.  Today I went out early in Greenfield for a 13 mile run.  The first mile was easy, with the puppy, then I went out at a 7:45 pace.  Miles 2-4 were uphill to the top of Poet's Seat, and I was having a hard time keeping it at 8.  At the top, my average pace was 8:07, but I figured I'd pick that back up on the downhill back.  When I got back to town at about mile 6, my average was sill only 8:00, so I had some work to do the second half of the run. My head kept calculating and recalculating the paces I need to drop my times.  I figured I had 15 seconds to drop, and 6 miles to do it in, so I had to go down 2-3 seconds/mile.  It was hard, but I kept making progress, and by mile 10 I was at 7:48.  The last few seconds would be hard to whittle down.  But when I finally saw 7:45 back on the GPS, I got a lift and ran the last mile hard, clocking a 6:52. That brought my average down to 7:42. I felt good having run hard and faster the 2nd half, but I keep wondering how I am supposed to run twice as far at 30 seconds faster.  Gotta keep with the plan.

Here are the weekly totals:

MON. : 3 mi & Nautilus
TUES. : 6 mi, 2 @13:05 (6:33/mi)
WED. : 8 mi & workout (2 x 1600m/4 x 200m)
THU. : 0 mi

FRI. : 5 mi FART (10 runners!)
SAT. : 5 mi
SUN. : 13 mi, 12 @ 7:42 (1:32:20)

TOTAL : 40 mi