15 Down, 3 To Go

It's coming down to the wire on my Boston training, and while I'm gaining more and more confidence with just about each run, it's hard to crowd out the thoughts of uncertainty. I had a pretty good week this week, coming off a big total last week, even though I had a cold.  I started off Monday with the thought of just wanting to stay loose, and did just a few miles at the gym.  Tuesday I woke up feeling like crap, and bagged it trying to get better to run the track workout.  Wednesday was a small group on Baker street.  Most of the others were doing a 2 mile, mile, 800 kind of tempo thing.  My plan called for 10 x 400, and the only one looking to do something like that was Andy.  I wasn't too sure if I would be able to make the whole thing with my chest cold, but if he was willing to wait for me on the recovery laps, what else could I do but give it a go.  My first 400 seemed easy until just up to the turn, but I knew I was going out too fast.  I was able to recover pretty well, and I kept all the others to 1:24 or so, and I was very satisfied with that.  The cool down wiped me out until about the end when I felt strong and picked it up a bit to catch up to Boj.  On Thursday, Patrick from Turn it Up called and wanted to know if I had a good hill workout.  We headed out to Old Concord Road to do 6 x 3 min hard up with 3 min coast down.  It's a great workout, because like on the track, people of different abilities can be running together and get the same workout with out ending up miles apart.  Plus, you can put yourself in as much pain as you can handle in each 3 minutes of hard running uphill.
Friday was The usual FART group, and an easy few miles to stay loose for Saturday's race.
The Fast Friend's Race is a tough 4.5 miles. It's just hard to fully recover from the hill at the start of the 2nd mile, and the last mile is a slight uphill that seems to take the last gasp of wind out of most people's sails. My time was about 35 seconds slower than last year, but given a fairly tough week and I was still feeling the effects of the chest cold, I was happy with it.  I had pretty good splits for me, 6:25/6:38(hill)/6:21/6:42/3:15. The 6:21 for mile 3 was encouraging, giving me hope to go for 19:30 at the the Sports Medicine Center 5K.
Sunday called for 15 miles as the long run.  I only got in a few early miles before meeting up with the Brewbakers crew.  We headed out for the Chapman loop, and Julie, Jeff and I went pretty hard up the hill. a little more than half way up, I wanted to push it hard, and made it to the top with a very sustained effort for me.  When the others made it to the top, Julie and I went off at another good clip down to Old Concord, then steady back to Brewbakers.  I still had about 5 more miles to put in, so I did the double George loop at a 7:30 pace.  That was a good way to end the week.
Next week will be my final 'hard' week of training, and I am really going to try to push each workout. 8 x 800 on Wednesday, a solid tempo and long run, and a couple of days running at marathon pace.  Then the Blessed Taper.

Week of 3/21-3/27
MON. : 3 mi @ gym

TUES. :-sick-

WED. : 11 mi w/ 8x400 (thanks Andy)

1:18/1:24/1:23/1:23

1:22/1:24/1:22/1/24

THU. : 7 mi w/ hill repeats

FRI. : 6 mi

SAT. : 10 mi w/ 4.5 mi race(29:24)

SUN. : 16 mi w/ hills and last 5 @ 7:30

TOTAL FOR THE WEEK: 53

TOTAL MILES FOR 2011: 474