easy day at the rock
easy pace today and felt good. for some reason we ran from the visitor's center to sleepy hollow to do a calibration mile which only depressed us and made us feel crappy. we were going really easy and consciously slowly and it was 6:50. blech. finished up the 10 miler up the big hill to the parking lot. felt ok on that but no steller. did some good strides after. hopefully will feel fresher now for tommorrow's workout.

PM avg day at the rock
shiny new shoes (bo classics) for today's run and felt really good and fresh the whole time. basically cruised for 9 miles at a solid clip which andrew calibrated at some point to be a little under 6:30 but who knows. felt light on my feet and finished strong. did drills afterwards. 15 miles on the day.

AM run at preseason
morning run at the rock. legs felt pretty good and the pace was decent the whole time. did the last 1.5 miles of the 6 miles total barefoot on the track and the pace was under 6:30 but it def felt really easy and my stride wasn't that open. legs felt really crappy on the uphill strides afterwards and i've been walking around all day at work so the pm run probs will be terrible and depressing.

tough run at the rock
ran with brewster legend and princeton stud frank macreery at the rock today. he's def in great shape as he was cruising and i was laboring. def faster than my distance pace for 9.5 miles of a not so fun summit run. i don't know why i chose to do that. we started out at a solid clip and it didn't waver up the hill, he estimated at slowest 6:20 pace, faster at times. enjoyed running with someone who clearly dominates me in terms of aerobic monstrosity as he's doing 90 mpw in singles. finished strong up the big hill to the parking lot and did a couple of bush league strides until i pulled the plug after some minor pains in my groin. good day on the whole even though low mileage. going to try to make the week more even than the last.

avg day at cornell
really was expecting this to be one of the worst runs ever after being pretty dead from a tough week of running and a pretty late night. andrew and i drove from our hotel in ithaca to cornell to do a really good 10 mile run on trails in the rain. althouh our shoes reached saturation quite early on, we were feeling good, rolling and having a good run. i closed with 2 miles on the track with super heavy shoes just cruising in 6:16, 5:58. felt good. i also saw the captain of my hs track team from my frosh year while running there, weird.

70 miles for the week but i only ran 6 days this week because of our weekend excursion up to ithaca. really good week in terms of volume but my under distance speed is def lacking. not too worried though, the season is long and it is still pretty early

goals for next week: hit 75 miles in 7 days, do a good tempo run or threshold workout, get a good day in the pool

workout at the rock
did a threshold workout with andrew at preseason this morning. legs were pretty dead from the past few days but eh, we warmed up 3 miles and then did 5 x 1200 m loops with 1 min rest afterwards. i didn't really plan on going too hard today because it's even earlier for me than it is for andrew and it was my first workout all summer. the threshold pace is just below lactic levls so you should be straining but not too exhausted which is why you get 1 min rest. my legs were dead but we were relatively consistant with 4:09, 4:12, 4:15, 4:14, 4:14. the times are pretty slow but the effort wasn't that hard. my legs were just dead and it was hot as crap. 3 miles warmdown for 10 on the day. 60 in 5 days. i think i'm no longer in that good shape. hoping for easy running this weekend as i am heading up to ithaca. sorry for the rant.

PM run at the rock
started out easy to get rid of the sluggishness from the morning's run. after about 3 or 4 miles, i really was feeling good but the pace was in control. i totally cruised up the big hill to the parking lot and was barely exhasted by it. we tacked on another mile or so to round out 7.5 for the run. 14 for the day. 50 miles so far in 4 days. drills afterwards.

AM easy run at the rock
went to preseason with andrew for an easy morning run. was feeling pretty sluggish and the pace felt really slow until we got back to the track and finished up with a few barefoot laps. it felt over 7 min pace but we were rolling around 6:40 which was good for the ego which was faltering during the run. did some nice accelerators for a half mile to make it 6.5 miles for the morning. hope the legs aren't so tired for this evening's go. because i'm going away this weekend, i've been trying to frontload a lot of my mileage and i just hope it doesn't come back to haunt me for tommorrow morning's workout. ok bye.

recovery day at the rock
Mood:  smelly
looks like i am getting into better shape. i talked to my coach today and he cleared up a lot of my doubts as to my goals and plans for the upcoming season. so i'm going to keep the mileage to develop a good base and maybe jump in a race or two later on to test out my fitness. that's good news.
yesterday's mileage was validated by the fact that i didn't feel bad today. planned on something short but did a swell old 9 miles. after starting out easy i ended up getting into a very relaxed yet in control decent pace. was feeling good and really enjoyed the run. did strides afterwards which were really money.

PM party at the rock
Mood:  hungry
apprehensive about how i'd end up feeling for tonight's run after a pretty long morning run. i felt a little sluggish and tired but def could have run for a long while. did 7 to get 16 in for the day which is a record high for me. andrew and i cruised back to the sleepy hollow track where we did barefoot 1.75 miles. my last mile was 5:10 with getting faster each lap. did drills afterward. was stretching and saw khalid khannouchi (former world record holder and current american record holder in the marathon) chatting it up with the WTC guys. he waved to us when we left. sweet. good day on the whole and the end of tonights run was a confidence boost as to the shape i'm getting into. holla.

AM pre-season practice
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: my boss' cool accent at work
went to preseason practice with my old high school team. they were doing a tempo run with indian sprints today. andrew was exempt from the workout due to the fact that the team is so bad and he'd rather workout with me. we both did the "workout" with the "fast" group as a distance run. it was pretty easy, proving the rediculously pathetic shape kids on the team are in. got 9 in for the run. was longer than i had hoped for but the tempo was longer than i thought. hopefully this won't take too much out of me for later.

party at the rock
Now Playing: emo on the phone
good 11 mile summit run at the rock. first run with andrew since running camp. really rolled up to the summit, kept a decent pace the whole time and felt pretty good. legs got a little heavy towards the end but cruised up the big hill at the end. good run overall. on the way down from summit andrew and i were peeing and i had the bright idea to run naked in the rain. we held our shorts and did this for about a mile until we saw some people, ducked into a secret and probably magical trail and put our shorts back on. the running sort of hurt but it triggered my nostalgia for the notorious Naked Mile of 2003. oh yeah, strides afterward.

Connecticut
easy 7 to rake up 71 for the week. all time high by 1 mile. nice run and helped my mom run on the no trespassing zone. felt pretty decent. drills and 8 x barefoot stride afterward.

good week of training in terms of mileage and feel for the volume. not really that happy at where i am at in terms of speed or fitness level but hopefully with some tempo runs i'll get fit relatively quickly. hope to sustain this mileage until school starts. ok bye.

Roxbury
Now Playing: boats and waves
6.7 mile "race" at roxbury again. 2 miles before and 2.3 after to round out 11 for the day. really wanted to do a tempo run today but the new course we ran on was way too hilly to get anything productive done. i was cruising the first two miles at a little over 6:30 pace talking to this ex-football player and then the hill came and we both got smacked around. it was over a mile of grueling uphill but it took a little more out of him than me. i put about 200 meters on him during that time but he closed the gap a little bit but i silenced the child (aka older than i am) with a hard last mile for 3rd overall. rediculously bush league. i def am depressed again that i have no under-distance speed and def can't run a decent 5k right now. tempo runs are a must for next week. for now, i'm chilling at the beach.

PM party at the rock
was going to go a little longer but was really feeling crappy even at the pedestrian pace i started at and went short. ended up going 8 and felt ok by the end but the pace felt really slow. i did a barefoot calibration mile on the track and i guessed it would be over 7 but it was 6:45 which made the run much better because i def felt like i was walking. did some good uphill strides afterwards in the rain.

AM swim
really good swim today. i dummied my mile pr by 2 mins, 30:46, and it wasn't a very hard effort. i wasn't sure if i swam 33(there and back) or 34 laps but i gave myself the un-benefit of the doubt and did the extra one just in case to validate my pr. either way it was a sweet swim. i wore my swim cap and fancy new speedo and was like an aerodynamic torepdo of sweetness. i was pretty relaxed the whole time and my flip turns were really clicking by the end.

PM party at the rock
Mood:  smelly
Now Playing: the song stuck in my head- the weight by the band
really great run at the rock. surprised that i felt this good after the crappiness of this morning. alas, i did 8.5 miles to tally up 14 for the day. my form and stride were really clicking too which pumped me up, plus i really rolled up the big hill at the end. did some good drills afterward. chaching! that's the sound of me being happy.

AM run from home
warmed up from home to school about 2 miles. did some glorified strides in the form of 6x200. tetered around 30 seconds finishing in 28. felt much worse than i did last week doing these but it could have been because of the humidity and i was doing them by myself. good to get the legs moving again to recruit some fast twitch fibers lost to the miles i've been doing. easy warm down back home for 5.5 miles total.

party at the rock
not really that sore from lifting this morning but was still really dead at the start of the run. really eased into it but got into a pretty good groove towards the end and was feeling pretty money. finished on the big hill up from the river and was feeling good. 7 miles. drills afterward.

party at the rock
long run of 14 miles. started out easy for the super ultimate summit run at the lowest pt at the rock and climbed for 25 minutes straight. tough but very satisfying. ended up feeling really good and ran at a solid clip the whole time. finished up with a few laps on the track. last mile in 5:40. great day. 5 uphill strides in the parking lot afterwards. i'm the money man.