Week 6 - Week of December 6th

First of all, I'm at 43% of my fundraising goal!  Thank you to all who donated to help fight cancer!  Your donations motivate me even more to train during the cold mornings.  I increased my mileage with some tough workouts.  I ran four times this week, which goes against my three-day week training plan.  I usually train hard for Boston after the new year, but I really want to set a PR on that course!  I'm continuing with my core workout, which at this time is only sit-ups.  I'm up to 150 a day (three sets of 50) and plan on progressively increasing  them to strengthen my core to do other core exercises.

WEEK 6 - All runs at John A. Phillips Park, unless otherwise noted.

Dec 6 - Easy Run. Ran 5 miles in 39.10 (7:49 p/mi).

Weather - 28/17/54%; WSW15; Cloudy

Weight after run - 148

Shoes - Nike Zoom Elite4 (green)

Dec 7 - Marlboro Retro Fitness

Attempted the Ryan Hall's Newton Hill Simulation Run in preparation for Boston's infamous hills that begin at around mile 16.  It's a tough workout, but I know that I can do exactly what Ryan does, but not as fast!  The 0% incline that I noted is supposed to be at 1% under Ryan's workout.  Also, it calls for running a total of 16 miles before starting the hills, for good reason!  I ran 9 miles, then got into the hill workout!  I'll get there eventually!

8 miles in 1 hour (7:30 pace); 1 mile at 7:20 pace; then the following is supposed to be all at the 7:20 pace, but needed to slow down at the 0% incline to recover!  Whew!  This workout kicked my ass!

Mile  0.0 - 0.7 @ 3% incline

Miles 0.7 - 1.7 @ 0%

Miles 1.7 - 2.0 @ 6%

Miles 2.0 - 3.4 @ 1%

Miles 3.4 - 3.8 @ 4%

Miles 3.8 - 4.4 @ 0%

Miles 4.4 - 4.8 @ 6%

Followed with 1.2 miles in 8:06, then cool down of 1 mile barefoot for about 12 minutes.

Total mileage = 16

Weather - Indoors

Weight after run - 146

Shoes - Nike Zoom Skylon (orange)

Dec 9 - Easy Progression Run. Ran 6.21 miles in 45:36 (7:20 p/mi). Splits = 7:54, 7:46, 7:35, 7:17, 7:04; 6:40, 6:11)

Weather - 25/15/43%; WNW11; Clear

Weight after run - 148

Shoes - Nike Zoom Elite4 (orange)

Dec 11 - Hard Progression Run! Ran 9 miles in 1:00:13 (6:41 p/mi). Splits = 7:08, 7:07, 6:51, 6:50, 6:49, 6:38, 6:29, 6:14, 6:03.

Weather - 27/27/66%; WNW3; Sunny

Weight after run - 147

Shoes - Nike Zoom Elite4 (green)

TOTAL WEEK 6 = 36.21 miles