I stayed with Paul!

I always feel good after a run and after a good race I feel even better. Needless to say, after Saturday's race I was pretty stoked and decided to go a little longer on Sunday (22 miles). Paul had e-mailed me asking to run 10 with him and then I ran another 12 on my own which included 7 at the park and then the 4 back to my house. Boy was I JUNK on Sunday afternoon (my quads were like jelly!)...

Monday I went out early and ran an easy 10 miler and it took me about a mile to get going. That doesn't bother me for 2 reasons: One reason is that it meant that I was/am tired from stress that I put my body through/under, and two, after reading Toby Tanser's "Train Hard, Win Easy", it seems as though the Kenyan's do it on most of their progression runs (there would be no progressing for me on this morning). Meanwhile, my legs are still jelly. Two other points, one is that I know that I have 4 easy/recovery runs this week (thanks again Mark!), and more importantly, I needed to get ready for Wednesday(this) morning's workout...

Tuesday morning I met up with the crew for our "Miner's Run" which included Megan (coming off of a 60 minute 10-miler up in D.C.), Bill Shires (fresh off of his World Duathlon qualifier!), Mike Beigay (3 days after a 5k road PR) and Paul (more on him later). The pace was quicker than I would have liked and I managed to hang. I got 11 miles in...quads still like jelly! That 22 miler took me 2 hour and 40 minutes so I guess it was like running a marathon...

So we have our conference meet on Monday and I had a communion rehearsal last night so I didn't have dinner until 9:30pm and then a milkshake at 10:30 with Fox News. As I take the dog (not a dog person) for a walk, I check my e-mails (nobody calls me anymore and boy do I need to get used to that!) and there is the e-mail from Paul M. And it wasn't from Paul...it was from Budic! Oh no!!! Now Tim doesn't know me but I still guessed his 10 mile time from last week (I think I was off by 5 seconds). Anyway, the workout called for: 4 X (1K/400m)- 400m jog between rep/ 3:00 rest between set. (sorry for you non-track geeks that can't follow the jargon). Truth be told, I have no business running with Paul as he is in a different class than me (he is very gracious non the less)...

We decided to meet over at Providence Day's track and since I got up early I decided to run the 3 plus miles over there (smart move)...Paul did the same. When we got on the track, we immediately went into 4 strides (a la Brad Hudson) and I noticed that I was able to stay with Paul on the last one (was that a good sign?) I didn't know...

Here's the workout:

1st set: 3:14/75 (right on his tail)...wow!

2nd set: 3:10/72 (right on his tail)...o.k.

3rd set: 3:06/72 (right on his tail)...that was really tough!

4th set: 3:05/72 (2 seconds back on each)...I tried.

Paul...you lead like a champ!

2 easy days are in order...

thanks for reading