Weekly Report

I finished up my week with some nice easy workouts, a bit of sleep, a lot of coffee, some weight lifting and some quality time with my wife and son.

Friday morning I got up early and ran 4 miles around town in 34:33. I had splits of 8:58, 8:28, 8:33 and 8:34. It was a cool morning and I wore a jacket for the first time in about a month. The Weather Channel said is was 39, calm, with 87% humidity. I felt pretty good except for a big knot in my right butt cheek from my circuit training routine. I do squats, lunges, hamstring presses and hip bridges and my rear end isn't used to it. It got better during the day and using "The Stick" on it helped out alot. If you don't have a "Stick" I recommend it because it is pretty cool. Here's the website: http://www.thestick.com/.

I had a leadership class at the hospital Friday morning and then worked on the floor in x-ray the rest of the day. I'm getting my x-ray skills back now that my students are on break. I don't get much chance to actually take a radiograph of a patient when they're around because they are all over the work when it comes in. I had a pretty good group of students to start off with but they are all rotating out in July and I'm getting a new group. I'm sure the next group will be good too but I'll be sad to see this group depart.

Friday night my mother-in-law watched Nathan and Kim and I went to dinner and a movie. We ate at some sports bar on the west side of Springfield and it was decent for the money. After I ate my cheeseburger, good runner fuel, we went to see Spider-man 3. We both loved it. If you haven't seen it and like the other two you'll probably dig the latest installment.

Saturday morning I ran a 10 milers on the Interurban Trail. I start at my driveway and run towards Springfield and when I hit the I-72 overpass it is exactly 5 miles from my house. I generally turn around there, although when I was training for my marathon I did run all the way to Old Navy a few times during my 18 and 20 mile runs. I like the trail because I don't have to worry about cars and if I hit the trail early enough I generally don't have to worry about bikers, walkers or other runners. I have run up on deer, raccoon and opossum a few times and the birds are usually pretty. I see geese by the lake, an occasional heron and other assorted song birds which I detail to Nathan when I get home. Last summer when Nathan was born I would go on my long runs and count things so that when I got home I could tell him that I saw 3 walkers, 5 runners, 4 dogs, 2 cats, 7 trucks, 8 SUVs, 9 cars, 5 bicyclists, a motorcycle and a choo-choo train. He seemed interested but my wife made fun of me for being able to remember all that stuff. "Is that all you do on your runs? Count things? Running sounds real exciting!"

I ran my 10 miler in 1:22:18, which is faster than the 8:32 pace I'm supposed to run on my easy days. It was 50, with SW winds at 6mph and 56% humidity and it was a pleasant day. I ran to my turnaround point in 42:22 and ran the last 5 miles in 39:55. I ran 2-3 two-minute surges miles 6-7 and got into such a nice rhythm the last few miles that I just went with it and made sure I was running comfortably without too much strain. It felt nice.

The rest of Saturday involved going to the mall so Kim could do some shopping and getting some stuff at Sam's. We ate steak and wine for dinner and sat on the patio with the rest of the wine and our little fire pit going and went to bed about 2300 hours.

Nathan and I woke up around 0630, we ate breakfast, he had oatmeal and I had coffee. When his mommy woke up I did a 25 minute Core Secrets workout and then swept and mopped the hardwood in the kitchen, dining room, sun room and foyer. I just realized that I am a very boring man.

I covered 30 miles this week and brought my yearly total up to 523.25 miles which is 105.75 miles ahead of last year at this time. Week 20 of last year I covered 33.5 miles with my key workouts being a 4 mile tempo run that I completed in 30:43 with splits of 7:49, 7:44, 7:31 and 7:37. What a difference a year makes, I ran my 4 mile tempo run almost 3 minutes faster this week. I also did 8x400 in an average of 1:29.4 with 200m. recovery jogs between instead of the 400m. jogs I did this week. I also did a nice ten miler in 1:26:13 where I ran 44:01 on the way out and 42:12 on the way back in.

Next week calls for a ladder type workout on the track tomorrow where I will run 2x200, a 400, an 800, a 400 and 2x200. The times I expect to hit are: 200=43, 400=1:27 and 800=2:55. Tuesday calls for an easy 4, Wednesday is 2x2400 in 10:16 with a 2 minute break between them. Thursday is an off day, Friday an easy 4 and Saturday 10. I may shuffle the order this week because I have to work in CT over the weekend and I don't relish the though of getting up at 0330 Saturday morning to complete my long run before work. I'll cover another 30 miles this week in preparation for a 10k I'm going to run in Jacksonville on June 2nd.

Before I close, my friend, Jordan Patterson qualified for the State Track Meet in the 3200 by taking another seven seconds off his time and running a 10:02. He won by over thirty seconds and came back with a 4:44 mile to just miss qualifying for the 1600 as well. A 10:02/4:44 double is pretty darn awesome. I think he has an outside shot of making all-state next weekend, the competition is pretty stiff but if Jordan keeps running smart he could drop another 10 or 15 seconds and sneak into the top-nine. I think 9:45 will get it.