Easy Week FTW

Mon- Franconia Ridge loop 9 miles 3h20min. run/hike

Tues- Planned day off. I was feeling pretty beat up. I had a sore achilles, and a sore shin and figured a day off might just be what I needed. It was tough to do, I had tuesday off and all I wanted to do all day was go run, but after three days of mountain runs, I figured I could get more out of the day off.

Wed- 7 mile tempo on the Liberty Hill trails. 43:18. This is a PR for this loop, but also the first time I've committed to a tempo, and not just a fartlek. I did well, I got started a little fast and put the crap in my legs pretty early, but only had to back off a bit to recover. I hit 3 miles a little under 18 and 5 miles around 29-30 minutes.I made the first mile of the climb back up Liberty Hill in 6:20 and then got a fly caught in my throat that triggered the ol' gag reflex. I was around 8:00 for the last mile after coughing/puking up that fly and taking about 2 minutes easy before I was able to remind myself what I was doing and get rolling again. Very happy with this effort. I would have been closer 42:30 with out that stupid bug.

Thursday- 5x400, 5x200: 75, 75, 75, 74, 75, 37, 37, 35, 37, 37
Wanted to get a little bit of speed in this week with a 5k coming up on Saturday. I was a little worried about trying to squeeze in back to back work outs but figured something light wouldn't hurt. Pete used to have us do back to back work out days from time to time. I always felt like I responded well to it, but this was more about time.

Friday- easy 4 miles shake out. I've been trying to lengthen my shake out, I always say I'm gonna do 6 this week, but then I get home from work and I'm just like meh, 4 will do.

Saturday- Over the River and Through the Woods 5k, 1st 16:48.
This was the 5th race of the CARS series, and with a 10 am start it was great to sleep in til 7:30 this morning. I saw it was raining getting up and was ok with it. I love racing in the rain, I just don't like standing around in it. I got a bit of cereal in, drank some juice, and a very small cup of coffee before leaving the house. I'm trying to limit my coffee before races, because I've been throwing up so often during my races. Today it seemed to work as I made it through the race without  puking.

Abbey and I got there around 9:15 in pouring rain. We grabbed our numbers and nice long sleeve shirts, said hi to some friends and got out for our warm up. We ran into Ernie Brake and Scott Clark and his son Colby and finished warming up with them. Kinda just sat huddled in the car after putting on our singlet and flats then hopped out and pulled off our pants 5 minutes before the start and jogged over. I did some strides and hopped around trying to stay warm. The gun went off and there was a mass of highschoolers that surged to the front of the race, I just hung back and relaxed and just planned on trying to be around them by the time we hit the bridge over the river, because the walkway we run on is so narrow I thought I'd get stuck behind em. I managed to get by all but one of em, this young runner from Gilford Middle School a town over from me, who's going to be a very good runner I think, he was 18:18 today.  I was still in 4th at this point but I just relaxed and waited til we got off the bridge and then moved to catch back up to Sam Evans Brown who was leading the race. I was feeling good and just decided to keep the move going and wound up taking the lead and trying to build a gap. I went through the mile in 5:25 just before we turn into the woods for about a mile of constant turning, through puddles and mud. It was great! I just kept the gas on through the corners and tried to get away from whoever it was I heard not far behind me. I made it through the trails with out getting caught, and then hit the road again, with just over a mile to go. I knew I had gotten a pretty good gap going, but just kept trying to roll. I felt really good all the way into the finish and had a pretty strong kick when Tom Walton who'd been leading me on the bike pulled off to tell me I was 16: and change just before I hit the "Root Canal". It felt great to get the win, and it was neat watching Colby and Scott come in one after the other for 2nd and 3rd. Abbey and I went for our cool down together and then froze our butts off during the awards. After almost 9 years of going to races together this was actually the first race that Abbey and I have ever won together.  Of course since Abbey is always winning, you can guess who's to blame for the dry spell. Great day though, I felt strong the whole race, and enjoyed another CARS series race with a bunch of friends.