I had a workout date with Billy Shue scheduled for this morning, yet with Jason G. Holder's bachelor gig this weekend up in the Big Apple (the city never sleeps!), I had a feeling that he wouldn't show...
When I pulled into McAlpine there was no Billy Shue...no worries! The posse was in effect and I knew I would find one brave soul to workout with me. Enter Sandman (aka Mikey Kahn!) Mike was gracious enough to help me with my workout. It consisted of: 2000 meters, 1600 meters, 1200 meters, 800 meters, and 400 meters all with a 400 meter recovery. I felt good throughout and I felt myself getting stronger as the workout went along. I didn't realize how compatible Mike and I are for training...it just worked! The only segment that I timed was the mile which was a tick under 5 and a half minutes...
My plan for the rest of the week is to run a 10 mile recovery run tomorrow, possibly take Thursday off, easy 8-10 miler on Friday and then break 17 on Saturday. If I'm feeling fresh (which is a rare occurrence), I have a shot! Some type of long run on Sunday...
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
7 times 1000 meters @ UNCC with Billy & Joe!
Billy Shue was nice enough to reach out to me for a workout last Friday at UNCC's campus track. He even offered to pick me up at my house at 5:30am...I was ready!
We would be meeting up with Joe Nicolini (another Piasan!) at Jack in the Box for a track workout consisting of 7 by 1000 meters with a 400 meter recovery.
When we got to our meeting spot, there was no Joe! After waiting around for 15 minutes...he finally shows up! Oh to be 24...Ha! He still had to put on his socks and shoes and finally we started our 2 mile warm up on the path that would lead us to our execution (workout!) I was concerned because I know how strong Billy is right now and Joe looked fit. I'm not exactly chicken shoot! I was trying to remain calm yet getting worked up at the same time.
#1 takes takes us through all together in 3:23, #2 has us together in 3:17, For #3, Joe has a meeting in the men's room and I hit 3:17 again with Billy seconds up. #4 has Joe and I in lock step at 3:17 along with #5 (3:17), #6 brought another bathroom break for triathlete Joe as I hit 5:15 (I was working). For #7, we decided to run it on the way back as Joe and I were lock step as we hit 3:15 with Billy looking spritely at around 3:10...great stuff!
Cool down and we were good to go...
We would be meeting up with Joe Nicolini (another Piasan!) at Jack in the Box for a track workout consisting of 7 by 1000 meters with a 400 meter recovery.
When we got to our meeting spot, there was no Joe! After waiting around for 15 minutes...he finally shows up! Oh to be 24...Ha! He still had to put on his socks and shoes and finally we started our 2 mile warm up on the path that would lead us to our execution (workout!) I was concerned because I know how strong Billy is right now and Joe looked fit. I'm not exactly chicken shoot! I was trying to remain calm yet getting worked up at the same time.
#1 takes takes us through all together in 3:23, #2 has us together in 3:17, For #3, Joe has a meeting in the men's room and I hit 3:17 again with Billy seconds up. #4 has Joe and I in lock step at 3:17 along with #5 (3:17), #6 brought another bathroom break for triathlete Joe as I hit 5:15 (I was working). For #7, we decided to run it on the way back as Joe and I were lock step as we hit 3:15 with Billy looking spritely at around 3:10...great stuff!
Cool down and we were good to go...
Friday, August 19, 2011
When Birds Attack!
Absolute bizarreness!
Wednesday morning, I'm 7 miles into a 10 mile easy run just chillin'! I'm on Sedley Road in Foxcroft on the shoulder when I run under the over hang of a tree and I felt what seemed to be a branch scrape the back of my head. I didn't think that I was that close to the tree. No sooner did I think that when I look to my right and see this HUGE bird (Hawk, Owl, whatever...) fly off in a rage! I FREAKED! So now I'm goosed-bumped out of my mind, dropping F-bombs in front of the tennis courts, and it took me about a mile to calm down. At this point I feel violated (I love that term...it's for all of my liberal friends!)
I told my kids what happened and they told me not to tell Mom (I did anyway...)
Wednesday morning, I'm 7 miles into a 10 mile easy run just chillin'! I'm on Sedley Road in Foxcroft on the shoulder when I run under the over hang of a tree and I felt what seemed to be a branch scrape the back of my head. I didn't think that I was that close to the tree. No sooner did I think that when I look to my right and see this HUGE bird (Hawk, Owl, whatever...) fly off in a rage! I FREAKED! So now I'm goosed-bumped out of my mind, dropping F-bombs in front of the tennis courts, and it took me about a mile to calm down. At this point I feel violated (I love that term...it's for all of my liberal friends!)
I told my kids what happened and they told me not to tell Mom (I did anyway...)
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Gettin' after it with the Big Boyz!
I'm sorry Megan Hepp Hovis but that was awesome!
So the e-mail circulated last week for a workout this morning of: 3 miles followed by 4 by 400 meters. Fair enough.
And then I heard who was going to show up and I started to drool (for their running abilities...certainly not their looks!) the group included Paul Mainwaring, Aaron Linz, Ben Hovis, Billy Bob Shue...and Me! I knew I had to bring my A-game...
We ran our 2 mile warm up out to the 1 mile mark at McAlpine and back at a solid clip. After a little circle jerkin'...we were off!
Since we started at 5:30am and it was really dark, my concentration level was at an all time high (I didn't not want to trip and fall on a rock, divit or root.) Aaron got us out well and I was working early. Paul seemed content to let Aaron lead, as Ben, Billy and I followed close behind. At about a half mile, Paul pulled up to Aaron, and I pulled up to Ben as Billy followed close behind. At the 1 mile mark, I got my legs under me and decided to lead and do some of the work, as Ben responded and got next to me and we worked together to toe the field through the 1 and a half mile mark. Approaching Monroe, Paul had enough of this Jersey Boyz' antics and shot to the front with Aaron and the rest of us in close tow. We got to the 2 mile mark (which was the start of the Footlocker cross country course for those of you reading from out of town/state) all together and at that point Aaron was helping Paul and Ben was helping Billy and me as I was at my limit! My goal for the next mile was to stay on Ben and Billy as I did as they were only able to put 1 second on me by the time we hit the 3 mile mark (it must be noted that Ben is 1 week into his training which is a scary thought!)
Here are the numbers: 5:35, 5:41, 5:35= 16:51
We followed that up with 4 times 400 meters around the lake with a 200 meter recovery and my guess is that I ran them in 75 seconds. On these, I was merely a spectator...I simply have no speed which is okay!
A long cool down followed as we ran Paul back to his house and discussed who we thought in the running community was hot!
So the e-mail circulated last week for a workout this morning of: 3 miles followed by 4 by 400 meters. Fair enough.
And then I heard who was going to show up and I started to drool (for their running abilities...certainly not their looks!) the group included Paul Mainwaring, Aaron Linz, Ben Hovis, Billy Bob Shue...and Me! I knew I had to bring my A-game...
We ran our 2 mile warm up out to the 1 mile mark at McAlpine and back at a solid clip. After a little circle jerkin'...we were off!
Since we started at 5:30am and it was really dark, my concentration level was at an all time high (I didn't not want to trip and fall on a rock, divit or root.) Aaron got us out well and I was working early. Paul seemed content to let Aaron lead, as Ben, Billy and I followed close behind. At about a half mile, Paul pulled up to Aaron, and I pulled up to Ben as Billy followed close behind. At the 1 mile mark, I got my legs under me and decided to lead and do some of the work, as Ben responded and got next to me and we worked together to toe the field through the 1 and a half mile mark. Approaching Monroe, Paul had enough of this Jersey Boyz' antics and shot to the front with Aaron and the rest of us in close tow. We got to the 2 mile mark (which was the start of the Footlocker cross country course for those of you reading from out of town/state) all together and at that point Aaron was helping Paul and Ben was helping Billy and me as I was at my limit! My goal for the next mile was to stay on Ben and Billy as I did as they were only able to put 1 second on me by the time we hit the 3 mile mark (it must be noted that Ben is 1 week into his training which is a scary thought!)
Here are the numbers: 5:35, 5:41, 5:35= 16:51
We followed that up with 4 times 400 meters around the lake with a 200 meter recovery and my guess is that I ran them in 75 seconds. On these, I was merely a spectator...I simply have no speed which is okay!
A long cool down followed as we ran Paul back to his house and discussed who we thought in the running community was hot!
Monday, August 15, 2011
Long Run with Various & Sundries...
These 2 a days have me oversleeping every morning!
I was at the Panther game (don't worry...I'm still a Viking fan!) Saturday night when I noticed on my Crackberry that a large contingent of runners would be meeting up at McAlpine for a long run...I'm in!
So we're supposed to meet up at 6am yet when I look at my watch on Sunday morning, it already shows 6:06...that doesn't work?! Without hesitation, I get up and brush my teeth, bathroom, shorts on and head out the door. As I'm driving over to Old Bell, I'm trying to figure out which way the group went. Low and behold but who do I see on Sardis...Paul Mainwaring! So I park and head back up to run with him and as we're running back down, he said that he was done and that he knew where the group was. So after leaving Paul, I head up to Alexander and as the pack see's me I hear..."SPADA!" which is always very cool...
This pack included: Nathan, Aaron, Jason, Mike, Alex, Josh, plus a new guy named Tyler (there were more). So we head back to the park and pick up the Hadley's and run to the 4 mile mark at which point I see Ben, Jordan and Justin. So what do I do since I'm a running snob, I go with that group. That was fun as we were rolling 6:20's. Nothing spectacular, however, it felt like a Sunday jog...very cool. Of course, Jordan was doing 90 second pick ups at which Aaron couldn't resist jumping in on a few...Ha!
Ben Hovis was just happy to be running and Justin, who I just met, was gearing up for the Detroit Free Press Marathon...
I went an easy 8 this morning because we're gonna get after it tomorrow morning (me, Paul and the Shue!).
I am just starting to feel like things are coming together with my running. That is a good sign with the weather being as stifling as it has been. This should bode well when the weather does break. One thing that I am doing is really trying to let the workouts and the paces come to me. What I mean by that is that I initially had a much more ambitious schedule on tap yet my body was telling me that I needed more sleep and to run less that what I had planned. I'm sure Caitlin for one would agree that this seems to be working.
Can I run a 16:59 in 2 weeks at Greekfest? We'll see..
Thanks for reading!
I was at the Panther game (don't worry...I'm still a Viking fan!) Saturday night when I noticed on my Crackberry that a large contingent of runners would be meeting up at McAlpine for a long run...I'm in!
So we're supposed to meet up at 6am yet when I look at my watch on Sunday morning, it already shows 6:06...that doesn't work?! Without hesitation, I get up and brush my teeth, bathroom, shorts on and head out the door. As I'm driving over to Old Bell, I'm trying to figure out which way the group went. Low and behold but who do I see on Sardis...Paul Mainwaring! So I park and head back up to run with him and as we're running back down, he said that he was done and that he knew where the group was. So after leaving Paul, I head up to Alexander and as the pack see's me I hear..."SPADA!" which is always very cool...
This pack included: Nathan, Aaron, Jason, Mike, Alex, Josh, plus a new guy named Tyler (there were more). So we head back to the park and pick up the Hadley's and run to the 4 mile mark at which point I see Ben, Jordan and Justin. So what do I do since I'm a running snob, I go with that group. That was fun as we were rolling 6:20's. Nothing spectacular, however, it felt like a Sunday jog...very cool. Of course, Jordan was doing 90 second pick ups at which Aaron couldn't resist jumping in on a few...Ha!
Ben Hovis was just happy to be running and Justin, who I just met, was gearing up for the Detroit Free Press Marathon...
I went an easy 8 this morning because we're gonna get after it tomorrow morning (me, Paul and the Shue!).
I am just starting to feel like things are coming together with my running. That is a good sign with the weather being as stifling as it has been. This should bode well when the weather does break. One thing that I am doing is really trying to let the workouts and the paces come to me. What I mean by that is that I initially had a much more ambitious schedule on tap yet my body was telling me that I needed more sleep and to run less that what I had planned. I'm sure Caitlin for one would agree that this seems to be working.
Can I run a 16:59 in 2 weeks at Greekfest? We'll see..
Thanks for reading!
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Being flexible...tempo gets moved up!
Yesterday, my original plan was to do a medium long run, and then go easy on Thursday and tempo on Friday. I think what happened was that Caitlin was heading out of town on Friday so the tempo got moved up a day. No problem. Instead of running a 14-16 miler on Wednesday after running mile repeats on Tuesday and having the tempo run this morning, I decided to go 8 miles easy on Wednesday (8:30 pace) to be somewhat ready for the uptempo progression run.
Starting August 1st, the difficult thing for me is that 2-a-days started with football so needless to say, work (which I love) has been hectic. Which brings me to this morning. When I opened my eyes and looked at my "old school" Timex Ironman watch I saw 5:50am...eeck! I was supposed to meet Eric, Billy and Caitlin (and any other knucklehead) at 6am at the tennis courts by Freedom Park. What do I do? I casually got up, weed, got my stuff, got in the car and took off. My only hope was that they waited for me. I got on QRW at 6:02 and at the courts at 6:05. I heard, "that's Spada!" They f*****g waited!...I couldn't believe it!
I get out of my car, lace up my shoes and get over to the group which included Carolyn Maye! Short warm up means get ready mentally quick! I'm ready...
So it's a 5 mile tempo making loops around the booty loop which is a fair course. Good topography. I go with Carolyn for the first half mile, then I dart behind Caitlin, then get frisky and throw in an early surge, they come up to me, I throw in another surge and Billy catches up to me, then we run together for a while until he gets 2 meters on me, then I work to close the gap and we finish together for a total time of 30:25. Great stuff! Without a Garmin, my guess is: 6:10, 6:00, 5:50, 5:40 and 5:35. Cooled down back to the tennis courts, and then the group asked me if I could cool down more and I did. We ran the path that runs parallel to Kings Drive and then I turned around at Tarjaye and we said our goodbyes...
Easy 8 miler in the morning as well as Saturday and then long on Sunday.
Starting August 1st, the difficult thing for me is that 2-a-days started with football so needless to say, work (which I love) has been hectic. Which brings me to this morning. When I opened my eyes and looked at my "old school" Timex Ironman watch I saw 5:50am...eeck! I was supposed to meet Eric, Billy and Caitlin (and any other knucklehead) at 6am at the tennis courts by Freedom Park. What do I do? I casually got up, weed, got my stuff, got in the car and took off. My only hope was that they waited for me. I got on QRW at 6:02 and at the courts at 6:05. I heard, "that's Spada!" They f*****g waited!...I couldn't believe it!
I get out of my car, lace up my shoes and get over to the group which included Carolyn Maye! Short warm up means get ready mentally quick! I'm ready...
So it's a 5 mile tempo making loops around the booty loop which is a fair course. Good topography. I go with Carolyn for the first half mile, then I dart behind Caitlin, then get frisky and throw in an early surge, they come up to me, I throw in another surge and Billy catches up to me, then we run together for a while until he gets 2 meters on me, then I work to close the gap and we finish together for a total time of 30:25. Great stuff! Without a Garmin, my guess is: 6:10, 6:00, 5:50, 5:40 and 5:35. Cooled down back to the tennis courts, and then the group asked me if I could cool down more and I did. We ran the path that runs parallel to Kings Drive and then I turned around at Tarjaye and we said our goodbyes...
Easy 8 miler in the morning as well as Saturday and then long on Sunday.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Mile Repeats with 2 Live Crew!
So I started my marathon training on Sunday with the twenty miler. Yesterday I just ran an easy 8 miler as a recovery run.I averaged over 8 minute pace which was just fine by me!
On Monday night, Miss Caitlin Chrisman reached out to me to see if I would be interested in running mile repeats with her. You have to understand, Caitlin is a strong and confident runner so if she wants to run with me, I'm usually in! We have developed a strong working relationship where if she ever wavers, I'll have none of it. Conversely, if I'm struggling, she doesn't let up (Paul M. is like that!)
We, along with Billy Shue, decided to meet up at McAlpine and got a nice and easy 30 minute warm up in before we started the first mile. Our goal was to do 5 repeats with a quarter mile recovery. We had no takers from the rest of the Miner's...too bad!
Because of the early start, we ran the first mile repeat on the first mile of the cross country course. After opening with a 96 second (6:24 pace) first quarter we ended up running 5:47...good start. We followed that up with a 5:34, 5:33, 5:31 and finished with a shot of adrenaline for a 5:28...I think we were all pleased!
2 mile cool down followed with the company of Megan Hepp Hovis (in the middle of a down week). So there we were, 2 Olympic Trials qualifiers, one PR setter race after race, and me...
This workout worked out well for me because I had interval day on my schedule (anywhere from quarters to 2 mile repeats).
On Monday night, Miss Caitlin Chrisman reached out to me to see if I would be interested in running mile repeats with her. You have to understand, Caitlin is a strong and confident runner so if she wants to run with me, I'm usually in! We have developed a strong working relationship where if she ever wavers, I'll have none of it. Conversely, if I'm struggling, she doesn't let up (Paul M. is like that!)
We, along with Billy Shue, decided to meet up at McAlpine and got a nice and easy 30 minute warm up in before we started the first mile. Our goal was to do 5 repeats with a quarter mile recovery. We had no takers from the rest of the Miner's...too bad!
Because of the early start, we ran the first mile repeat on the first mile of the cross country course. After opening with a 96 second (6:24 pace) first quarter we ended up running 5:47...good start. We followed that up with a 5:34, 5:33, 5:31 and finished with a shot of adrenaline for a 5:28...I think we were all pleased!
2 mile cool down followed with the company of Megan Hepp Hovis (in the middle of a down week). So there we were, 2 Olympic Trials qualifiers, one PR setter race after race, and me...
This workout worked out well for me because I had interval day on my schedule (anywhere from quarters to 2 mile repeats).
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