Oak Hill fartlek
First day of classes today. i think i might stay in only 1 of them so that's always a good thing. took a short nap before practice. i was a little nervous for my first cross workout with the team but it went ok. warmed up a shitty 3+ miles up to oak hill for the fartlek. did 5 sets of 3 min on, 2 min off on the long loop. i was in the slowest group obvs but i was glad because i didn't want to get in over my head for this workout. it went well and i stayed with the pack for all but the end of the last one where i faded a tad. after the 5 sets, we went back to the start for a short loop so barry could watch us and i did it in 4:12 where pat martha and i broke away from the group. warmed down 3+ again. 12 on the day. 37 for the week so far. not the best workout but i guess i did a little better than i thought i would for my first workout.

PM Boston Lot
after taking a long nap this afternoon, I wasn't sure if I should have doubled today and i sort of wish i didn't and just ran a little longer in the morning. wanted to do around 6 but there were very few people at the afternoon practice and the consensus was to do boston lot which i hate. what a surprise, this 8 mile run did suck and i really hope my legs aren't tired for tommorrow's workout because this is my first test of fitness in front of barry and the team. did some good barefoot strides afterwards where i really rocked the no-speed distance runners just to remind myself that i'm an md dude. 13 miles on the day. 25 in 2 days.

AM recovery
titled, Coach's recovery run, the cross boys did a Pine Park Plus with barry this morning. very easy pace to start and finished easy/avg. 5 miles or so. not really sure what sort of aerobic activity i'll be doing later.

quasi long run
long run today with the team. the team was going either 16 or 10 so i went with the 10 guys and tacked on 2 afterwards. did a big country with ben true and nark and some others. the pace in the trails was rediculously slow and i was like wtf mate? we picked up the pace towards the end and the last mile was respectable. my calibration on the track was under 6:30 so that was good. felt fine but it's tough because i'm not really accepted by the 800 guys because i'm running a lot more miles and i'm not really with the cross guys cuz i haven't been working out or racing. hopefully i'll get into a decent groove soon.

Pine Park + randos
first run back in hanover. was out pretty late last night so i was pretty tired for today's run. i didn't run yesterday, not by choice though, because of packing in the morning and then getting to school late. did pine park (around 5 miles) with '08, Mike Carmody who is a 1:49 800 guy. the dude def has a ton of raw talent. added on a food stop and half mile on the track to do only 7.5 on the day. did 4x100 meter strides after on the track. 61 miles for the week in 6 days.

run at the rock
well since andrew's meet was moved to sunday because of the rain, the rents decided it'd be best to go back to school tommorrow instead. unfortunately, today was my last run at the rock for the year. i felt really good and andrew and i did ended up going down to the hudson. he was taking it a little easier because of the meet and dropped off, i kept the pace pretty honest and got into a controlled picking up of the pace aka a relaxed hammer at the bridge on the way back. finished harder when i realized i was near pr pace so i just nipped the course record of 11:10 to make it 11:07 (although i def think i could have dummied this if i hammered the whole time.) anyways, andrew was waiting for a while at the car so i didn't do strides or drills. 10 miles on the day. 52.5 in 5 days. good last run at the rock.

run at the rock
easy day for me and andrew. it's the first time i haven't run by myself in a while and it was good because usually when i go easy i feel like a huge sandbagger and convince myself i'm running way to slowly. i felt really sluggish and tight in the beiginning and then things started to be ok. the pace was easy and once my legs weren't so crappy the run wasn't so bad. did 9 miles. 42.5 for the week so far in 4 days. did a couple of strides with really dead legs. walked around like a lazy bastard and went apple picking afterwards, in case you were wondering what i did after my run.

PM Greeley
the team sold me out to do this workout so i obvi ran by myself today. i really hate running by myself now because i have no one to key off of and base how fast or slow runs are. so i did a leonard park which is about 6 and then did 5 laps on the track. last mile 5:04. yeah that's a pr for an end of run mile but i'm still really pissed and depressed. i really feel like i'm in a rut and am running really shitty. also it's been really hard not running cross country because my goals are too far off. i have no way of measuring fitness and i'm really losing faith in my training. if this year is the same as last year i don't know what i'm going to do. anyways, 7.5 on for the afternoon. 13.5 for the whole day. did hard strides afterwards with some drills.

AM run at the rock
easy 6 miles. didn't really feel that good. aerobically i feel like shit and this was not fun run. i got my blood test results back and my ferritin is 36 on the new scale so i can't really relate to it. my iron binding capacity is 411 and the highest it's supposed to be is 400 which means that i have a lot of cells that aren't binding with any iron. my dad says this doesn't mean too much but i really think that there's something wrong here. i'm basically really pissed because i hate when there's nothing explicitly wrong but i keep running and i keep running shitty.

Fartlek at WCC
went to WCC to do a fartlek and watch andrew's race. i warmed up on the course but they changed it from my hs days so i made a few wrong turns but still got 3 miles in. did 3 min on 2 min off for 5 sets. because i've been a little depressed about my running i was glad to run without worrying about splits. i felt like it was a good effort, not a killer workout, but hard enough to change up the monotony of 10+ milers everyday at the rock. warmed down 3 miles while watching andrew's race. he won and it looked pretty good. waiting for ferritin results hopefully tonight.
p.s- my life is over without letsrun

the rock
was nice to be back at the rock today. missed my blood test this morning because i got up way too late but it felt good to get a lot of sleep and i'll just stop by to get one tommorrow. the run today went pretty well. i mean i'm not really sure of pacing or anything based on the shitiness of yesterday's run but it def felt like it was at a good clip. i'm not totally ruling out the low ferritin because my breathing was a little bit of a concern today and i didn't feel 100% aerobically. finished well up the big hill (4:40) at the end to round out the 10 mile run. afterwards i spent a longer time with drills, doing the standard routine twice and a couple of bonus ones. gotta start getting more serious about drills and strides.

Washington DC
Finally found the C&O canal path. it's really nice and runs along a canal, obvs, and it's perfectly flat and a trail like surface with tons of amme joggers. it sucked because i ended up doing a perfectly flat out and back 10 miler. it had mile markers and i was really surprised at how slow i was going. i was feeling pretty crappy too. idk what's up. i really want a blood test now because i think i'm showing my old signs of fake anemia/low ferritin that i had last year; dropped out of the last tempo run and i'm just slow. really concerned about this because there's nothing more that i hate than taking those damn iron pills and never having a satisfying session.
ok the wisdos are almost perfect now and with the beginning first 2 days and the last 2 days of the week, i managed 36 miles for the week. i emailed my coach and he said that the short break will be good for me in the long run. he also said he's "looking foreward to seeing what i can run at Keene State." Goddamn, i know it's gonna be ugly.
Goals for next week: 70-75 miles, 1 or 2 workouts, get a blood test

Washington DC
started at emo's appt and tried to find this running canal path that i found from letsrun but i obvs didn't find it. dc is one of the nicest cities to run in though. i found my way to the monuments and ran on these trails that connected them together. it was pretty nice. i then found my way to this path along the patomac river and then to what i think is georgetown, but not the college part. first run since i got the wisdos out, didnt' hurt at all but i couldn't spit cuz i can't make that face with my face and my facial muscles in my face. felt really fresh in the beginning but towards the middle just felt really sloppy and out of shape. not sure of the pace but it didn't feel that fast. felt good at the end though. 10 miles. strides afterwards.
p.s- have you heard that new song by outkast, hey ya? that song is gonna be huge!

Biking on Millwood bike path
ok my cheeks are still pretty swolen but i feel ok so i went biking this morning instead of running because the pounding would hurt too much. got dressed up in my old school biking outfit from my biking trip with the spandex and what not and did 10.6 miles. i know it's short but i didn't want to start bleeding from the mouth or do too much today. i might bike ride later too so we'll see. did the first 5.3 in 22:40 and the last 5.3 (more uphill) in 18 min for 41 min in total. The first part averages out to 14 mph and the last is 17.7, 15.5 for the whole shebang. felt easy but def felt like i was cruising. i'm lance armstrong bitches.

greeley
no comment. worst day of running in a while/life. my wisdom teeth are now out and i've been icing my face all day. i'm pumped for a shitty next few days watching movies.

ok fine. warmed up a deuce. started the tempo by myself and each lap i was breathing way too hard and the pace was really slow. i started getting really pissed/upset and dropped out after a mile. maybe it just wasn't my day or maybe i'm in really shitty shape. not proud of what i did and tried to cry, obvi didn't work. went and did a whip park (4-)in 23:59 (course record?)and twisted my ankle like whoa. super shitty day.

night run at the rock
came back from CT a little later than we would have liked to get a full run at the rock. wanted to do like 10 but got a short 9 in on account of the darkness. it was pitch black the last 20 mins or so which was pretty freaky in the trails. also these 2 pretty high gates were shut because of labor day so andrew and i had to climb them and i got a sweet cut that made me look hardcore with the blood dripping down my leg. other than that, the run was a quasi exploratory run through some quasi uncharted territory and was hilly at the beginning but easy the rest. cruised most of the time and it felt pretty effortless. i guess this was an easy day but it wasn't totally by choice. did only 3 strides on the return to the car.

river road
ran along river road with andrew in ct for 11 miles. first time i've run with a shirt all summer as it was a tad chilly. felt decent i guess and the pace was avg/good for the whole time. towards the end we started to pick up the pace and the last 10 minutes or so was at a good clip. did drills afterwards. took tuesday off because of the hip so i only ran 6 days this week but still hit 75 miles. nice job me.

PM run in CT
went running after a good game of golf with andrew and dad where we all played well except for the pops who got off to a great start with a 13 on the first hole. my only good hit of the game i had a perfect drive and almost got onto the green in 1 shot for a pretty legit hole, distance wise. i obvi got like a 5 or 6 on it after messing up numerous easy putts.
anyways, i ran 6ish miles from the landing and i didn't feel that bad and it was pretty avg, good pace at times, avg at others. did some barefoot strides after. 13 miles on the day. 64 in 5 days so far for the week.

AM Roxbury Mile
got to roxbury a little late so andrew and i only had time to warm up a mile. did a couple of strides and then started the famous bi-annual footrace. some rando shot out to the front and was trying gap us, which he did seizably for the first half mile. andrew and i caught him at the turn at the half mile mark and dropped him. we cruised the rest of the time and raised our arms together at the finish, how cute. we won in like 5:03 i think. obvs i know it's really slow but we weren't tired at all, it was pretty easy even though i obvi got a little depressed because it didn't feel as easy as i would have liked. we did 5 miles after that to make 7 miles for the session.

cruise control day at the rock
basically just rocked out for 11 miles at the rock. i think my mind shut off for like 5 miles while i was working on my stand up routine. felt ok. pretty avg day. nothing too special. getting more confident about my fitness. today was my last day of work too, swizzle pop. strides afterwards. i'm at 51 miles in 4 days so far.