What a week

It turns out that the puking my son engaged in last Saturday was the opening shots of a long bout of illness that lasted until late Wednesday. Kim, Nathan and I drove to Peoria Saturday afternoon for the wedding reception of one of my best friends from high school. Nathan spent the night at Grandma Claudia's and when we picked him up on Sunday morning he was looking pretty wimpy. Apparently he puked twice that night but she didn't call us because he seemed fine after that. What followed after that was a sick, mopey kid who had such bad diarrhea that every time he had an episode he would scream. Ironically, or typically, when I took him to the doctor on Wednesday morning he quit having diarrhea and started eating again.

Despite the sick little boy at my house Kim and I were still able to give each other chances to get out of the house for a bit and I managed to fit in a few nice workouts over the last week. Monday evening I ran and easy 6 miles in 48:47 with mile splits of 8:11, 7:58, 8:14, 8:09, 8:13 and 8:01.

Wednesday night was a track workout. I had a nice night with 68 degree temps, 49% humidity and a SE wind blowing at 13 mph. I ran three sets of 2x200 plus 400 with 200 meter recovery jogs between reps and 400 meter recovery jogs between sets.

I started off with a mile warm-up in 8:05 and then ran a mile of strides in 7:28. The goal for the workout was to run my 200s in 41 seconds and my 400s in 1:24.

Set #1:

40.76
(1:10)
41.26
(1:15)
1:25.82
(2:26)

Set #2:

41.40
(1:17)
40.90
(1:28)
1:23.10
(2:36)

Set #3

41.75
(1:25)
40.77
(1:31)
1:23.81
(2:43)

I got a real bad right side stitch the last set that hurt like you wouldn't believe. I'm glad I didn't have to do another set because it would have sucked.

I cooled down with a mile in 8:26 and went home with a total of six miles for the night.

Thursday night I ran another easy six miles after dinner. I left too soon because I felt really heavy the whole run so I've decided that I should probably wait two hours after eating meatloaf and mashed potatoes before running for future reference.

Thursday night was a pleasant 67 degrees that felt much cooler due to the winds blowing out of the South at 19 mph that would gust up to 25. I ran most of the first four miles into that wind as you can tell by my mile splits: 8:39, 8:19, 8:30, 8:10, 8:17 and 7:55 for a time of 49:49.

Early Saturday afternoon I set off for an easy ten miler after putting Nathan down for a nap. I had my iPod Shuffle loaded up with Modest Mouse's "The Lonesome Crowded West" and "Searching For a Former Clarity" by Against Me! The majority of the 1:20:17 it took me to cover my ten miles was eaten up my the incredibly enjoyable "Lonesome Crowded West". Most Modest Mouse fanboys say that "The Moon and Antartica" is their best and while I agree that "Moon" is pretty good I think I prefer "The Lonsesome Crowded West". Highlights for me were the songs "Styrofoam Boots/It's All Nice On Ice, Alright", "Polar Opposites", "Bankrupt On Selling", "Lounge (Closing Time)", "Jesus Christ was an Only Child", and "Cowboy Dan".

While jamming out to Modest Mouse I hit splits of 8:08.84, 8:18.11, 8:19.05, 15:55.42, 16:05.92, 7:47.83, 8:05.03 and 7:37.60 all while running in wind that was out of the WNW at 25 mph and gusting to 32. I'm glad that I didn't run the Lake Run 12K yesterday because it would have sucked.

This week is looking like a 200-400-800-400-200-200 ladder on the track tomorrow, an easy six on Wednesday, a three mile tempo at 6:32 - 6:38 pace on Friday and another easy 6-8 miles on Saturday.

This week I covered 28 miles, on four days of running, to bring my total for the year up to 415.75. I only did lifted once and only did yoga once so I need to hit that a little more today and next week.