Work it

It was back to Highline Canal over the weekend for a tempo run. I haven't done a real run workout in awhile. Ofer, Dan Mackenzie and I ran it together. I made some tactical moves that proved fruitful for this workout. Dan was coming off his wedding and honeymoon and while he's in solid swim shape I was guessing I could get him at the end of the tempo. With Ofer I had to resort to trickery since he's in far better shape than I. He was under the impression it was a 20 minute tempo but we were really going 4 miles. So like the miler he is, he started pushing at 19 minutes. Once he stopped at 20 I went by and told him we were doing 4 miles. Gotcha! Or as Amy would say Hra Hraaaa!
Yesterday Sean laid it on with a killer workout. 8x300y. Lane 1 on the 3:50. Lane 2 and 3 on the 4:05. I went into lane 1 since for some reason I thought it was 1:20 pace. As soon as I ducked under the rope I realized it was more like 1:16 pace. But once my head popped up in Lane 1 I was commited, the guys would laugh me outta there if I tried to weasel back to Lane 2. I would endure snivels and insults the rest of the week. So I stuck it out in Lane 1 and luckily had a very good day, I managed to come in on the 3:40's at 1:13 pace and get 10 seconds rest before doing it again and again and again. It was tough, especially with a Jersey Mike's 14" Cheesteak sittin around from lunch.
On those short rest sets I always fine the first couple to be the worst. It's friggin hard and I wonder how the hell I'm going to maintain this for a long ass time. Once I get that picture outta my head and take them 1 at a time then I can hold it and get through.
Now my arms are feeling crushed and Sean says we have a "doozy" of a set today.

Back on Track

Amy and I just got back from a 2 week tour of our ol' stomping grounds in the Northeast.
We skied a day. Terrible. It's like my lil bro Alex' friend said once "Yeah, I don't really understand Eastern skiing." Amy and I felt like snobs but it really was terrible. Granted it looked like they hadn't gotten much snow all year so maybe that's what it was.
We spent a couple of days in Boston and lo and behold there was an all comers track meet at Boston U while we were there. I've barely been running - 20 miles a week over 3 runs and no intervals since before Portland Pro Nats in September. I couldn't pass on a chance to get on the old indoor track though.
I got in the 2nd fastest heat with the 9:12 seed time I drew of of my hat. Got through the quarter in 72 and it was smooth so I knew I could hold that and make some moves. It was like old times, I sat back early on and stuck to the rail to run the shortest distance. Hit the mile in 4:44 and a couple guys broke off the front. Moved up and caught them but they seemed to be slowing so I went around and into 2nd. 1st place fella had about 25m on me. I was slowly catching him and then all the sudden it was 400m to go and I HAD to go if I was gonna make a go of it. Managed a 66 last quarter to finish it up in 8:50 (about a 9:28 2 mile) and win the heat. Not spectacularly fast, I ran 8:20 in college, but I was pumped to me in that shape off my current run training. Good to know that the swimming is keeping me fit.
My college teammates mixed it up in the fast heat, Paul Ryan got 3rd in 8:29 and Liam Revell ran 8:35.
Awesome to be back in Colorado now. Ready to swim hard and start building in some good bike efforts to get ready for the season.