75

(no turning back)

March 6th, 2011 - I accomplished a major milestone in my Boston training this week. The magic number at the beginning of the week was 75.

75 miles was going to be the peak of my mileage for this training cycle, and it ended up being harder to obtain than I originally thought it would be.

I knew I needed doubles in order to have any shot at it, but even then it was nearly not manageable.

Between work, life, drinking, eating, and trying to get off of the phone with Fil, something had to give. Sleep ended up being the sacrificial lamb.

My day started at 5AM every morning this week.

I'm definitely not an early bird, and I'm also not a night owl when it comes to putting in meaningful miles, so logically I opted to do both as much as I could.

I also figured that I might as well put my new BSC membership to good use, so I decided to try to do a morning routine that included a run and swim for as many days in-a-row as possible. I am now definitely convinced that jumping in the pool right after a hard run is helping with my run recovery. It's as close as I can get to an ice bath without the ice and the bath.

Monday: This morning started off with a 7 mile run that capped off another milestone, 250 miles for the month of February.

Tuesday: I knew that I would be running at least 5 miles later that evening on the Bad Times course, so I did another morning run/swim at BSC to go for the first double of the week. I opted to test out a prototype pair of racing VFF's on the treadmill and then again that evening with James at Bad Times.

The originally planned 5 miles from Hookslide's turned into 7 after James and I got lost while playing cops and robbers throughout the Lowell run.

It must be a very odd (or common) sight for an Asian kid to be chasing down a white kid, at break neck speed, through downtown Lowell. The authenticity of it all probably became more convincing when I screamed, "He stole my Garmin!"

Needless to say I got in 13 very fast miles (averaging 6:45's) on the day. Racing VFF's are for real, but I never did get my Garmin back.

Wednesday: This day of the week had been reserved for my usual 16 mile BU Death run over the past month, but I had to be home in the evening to take care of the boys while Rachel went to class. I could only manage a 5 mile run/swim at BSC in the early morning, so I was now deep in the hole for the week, and 75 didn't look like it was going to happen.

Thursday: Things looked a little more promising with another double on tap. 7 miles in the AM at BSC and then the weekly GLRR track workout at Lexington.

The Rat Dome looked different, probably because we hadn't been there in over a month. I forgot how good we had it here (banked track, easier turns), so I'll stop ragging on the Rat Dome, unless of course we get bumped from their schedule again.

The 4 x 1 mile workout plus warm up/cool down miles helped add to my weekly total. 15 on the day and 40 for the week.

The track workout was pretty intense with a very large group of GLRR's in attendance. I fell asleep on the second interval and misjudged my group's pace halfway through, but Frank was kind enough to kick my ass into the correct gear and put us back on track.

The Water Buffalo was on my track tail the entire night, including the redonculous final interval when we hit 5:33 for the 1.07 lap (works out to a 5:13 mile!). I'm convinced that someone made the track longer while we were away.

1st Mile:   6:00
2nd Mile:  5:56
3rd Mile:  5:57
4th Mile:   5:33 (whoops)

Friday: Surprisingly my legs felt OK even after the pretty intense workout the night before. I was actually averaging a faster pace then during Speed Week the week prior when I logged only 50 miles in order to compensate for the intensity of those workouts. It looks like the base building leading up to this week was starting to show its benefits.

After the morning run and the casual Friday at work, I wanted to hit the gym again in the evening in order to take some pressure (and stress) off of my weekend mileage, but BSC was closed by the time I got my act together.

I would now need 28 miles total on Saturday and Sunday to hit 75. GULP!

Saturday: I was looking forward to show off what I had taught myself during the BSC swims at the UML swim lesson. I had previously always ran the 10 miles to the UML pool, but decided to try for a run after the swim lesson in order to save my legs for the swimming. The swim lessons have been getting more intense each week, and plus I wanted to experience what an actual tri would be and feel like.

Paula C. and I were kicking all of the other students' butts today, proving that running stamina was starting to translate really well to swimming stamina. We were both still going strong by the end of the 45 minute swim lesson while the other students were either grabbing the pool wall or getting out of the water completely due to leg cramps.

I managed to finally freestyle swim the entire length of the pool three times near the end of the lesson.

My running plans went down the pool's drain when Rachel opted to skip out on the swim lesson, otherwise she would have driven me to class and I would have ran home. In the end it worked out for the better.

I got home from the swim and quickly transitioned to my run leg. I only had a two hour window to get in as many miles as I could, so I went to Catamount Rd to put in a hill workout.

3.5 miles to the base of the hill, 8 x Catamount (8 miles - 300 feet up and down each way), and 4.5 on the way back home for a total of 15 miles at 7:10 pace for the day.

All of this within two hours, giving me about 20 minutes to walk the dogs, shit, shave, and shower, and then head over to my dentist appointment. In other words, I'd rather be doing another set of Catamounts.

Sunday: I was slightly relieved to know that I only needed 13.1 miles today to hit 75 for the week. I definitely was not relieved to know that I would need to do it on the Stu's 30K course, and very early in the AM to add insult to a good chance of injury.

I had to be out there by 8:30AM to time the actual race, so that meant that I would need to get in my Stu's Half-Marathon run before that. I started my run for 75 at 7AM and calculated that I would need roughly a sub-7 minute pace to finish up my run by the time Richie got to the race site to begin the setup.

I went out about 5.5 miles on the unbelievably silly Stu (convinced that Stu is really short for stupid) course, and came back to the start 11 miles later. Richie pulled into the Clinton Middle School right as I hit mile 11. I told him that I'd be back in 15....

15 minutes and 13.1 miles later I was done.

75 for the week.

(I can sleep when I'm dead...soon enough)

Now to write up what I think will be a very long post for this very long week...

CONGRATS TO ALL OF THE GLRR'S THAT RAN THE ENTIRE STU(PID) COURSE!!