week of 12 October

Congrats to Mindi on a great race! I know she must be thrilled with her time and negative split. It's always good to exceed expectations.

Mystery coach, bless his soul, sent me a new chart based on my workouts from last week. If I'm reading correctly, it reflects a 10 secs/mile pace increase.

Without further ado here are the stats for the week.

| Date       | Dist (mi) |     Time | Pace | Avg. HR   |
|------------+-----------+----------+------+-----------|
| Monday     |      6.20 |  0:57:42 | 9:18 | 124 (62%) |
| Tuesday    |      9.31 |  1:21:07 | 8:43 | 138 (69%) |
| Wednesday  |     12.09 |  1:49:05 | 9:02 | 133 (66%) |
| Thursday   |      5.40 |  0:49:15 | 9:07 | 136 (68%) |
| Friday     |     14.31 |  2:01:38 | 8:30 | 148 (74%) |
| 6:23 AM    |     11.33 |  1:34:03 | 8:18 | 150 (75%) |
| 6:22 PM    |      2.98 |  0:27:35 | 9:16 | 141 (70%) |
| Saturday   |      5.38 |  0:49:25 | 9:11 | 138 (69%) |
| Sunday     |     22.51 |  3:17:03 | 8:45 | 152 (76%) |
| This Week  |     75.19 | 11:05:15 | 8:51 | 142 (71%) |
| Last Week  |     71.62 | 10:29:29 | 8:47 | 141 (71%) |
| This Month |    203.00 | 30:01:42 | 8:53 | 140 (70%) |
| Last Month |    278.72 | 40:44:19 | 8:46 | 143 (71%) |

My heart rate was inexplicably high on Friday PM and Saturday. I brushed off Friday because I never run well in the afternoon and the HRM messed up the first mile. Nevertheless the last mile of that run was 9:27/136, which isn't good. Then Saturday, was OK, I suppose (the 138 avg mostly comes from a wonky HRM -- 167 bpm first split), but it still wasn't quite right.

I did 23 today. Well, the garmin gave me credit for 22.5, but the conventional wisdom (and my friend's calibrated bike) say Burke Lake is 4.6 per lap and I did 5 laps. I had to thread the needle timewise to get this one in because my wife is out of town and I had 3' 40'' between dropping the kids off and picking them up. 10 minutes from drop off until running and a 10 minute ride to pick up left 3:20 for the run, so the goal was sub-40 per lap (a little under to allow for bathroom breaks and water refills). The laps went 39:57/140, 39:39/145, 39:03/149, 38:56/156, 39:27/164.

Except for the length (22.5 versus 20), this was almost an exact replica of this run on April 13 (3 weeks before my 3:21 at Frederic). In fact, through 4 laps, my times were 2:37:35 today and 2:37:32 then. The third lap today was 38:56/156 versus 38:27/157 then. In other words, I'm the same (or maybe a little slower).

I really felt like I had lost some of my recent mojo from the beginning of this run. The HR seemed too high for the pace given my recent expectations. You have time to think while you run and my slightly runny nose, tight chest rekindled a theory about why I've drastically underperformed at MCM for 3 years -- maybe it's mid- to late-October allergies. This is almost the exact time of year that I follow a confidence-boosting workout (10/16/07) with a bad long run (10/21/07).

I do take one positive from today. Despite the fact I didn't quite have it in the pace/hr department, I didn't hesitate to head around for that 5th lap. My endurance seems pretty good.