Training Recap (That's What I'm Talking About)! Week 10: Feb 5 - 12

This week included a mix of the usual work and training grind, but a rare opportunity for a long weekend away with my family. We rented a condo in Campton, New Hampshire and visited Waterville Valley for a beautiful day of skiing. We also got to visit our friends we met at UNH and who now live in northern NH, Thad and Joselle (Germano) Presby (remember her name, see the end!). They treated us to some great company and a fantastic dinner. As we discussed the near perfect skiing weather we enjoyed (and anything else worthy of significant appreciation), Thad would say now that's what I'm talkin' about! I agree, it was one of those great weekends!

We also visited my family in my early childhood home town of Ashland, NH on the way home (more on that too, in the Sunday workout!).

Here were my workouts this week, 46 mi tot:
M: 5mi in 33:44. Something got into me here with splits 7:04, 6:55, 6:47, 6:26, 6:33
T: 6.9mi tempo intervals: 1.4mi warmup, then 12x {400m at tempo effort, 200m recovery}, cooldown home. Intervals done in 3 sets of 4 at half marathon, 10K, 5K, 3K paces (something like 6:30, 6:05, 6:00, and 5:50/mi).
W: 11mi at "recovery" pace. Completed in 1:19 tot, 7:10/mi. Final 4 miles were sub 7:00/mi.
T: 6mi + 6x 150m strides, 6.6mi tot in 47:34. Again had the legs going just fine, with the final 4 miles of the 6mi run at 7:05, 6:57, 6:42, 6:19
F: off/XT (skiing the bunny slopes with Danielle & the kids)
S: off
S: 16.8mi point-to-point Campton to Ashland: 3K warmup, 4x {5K at goal marathon pace, 1k recovery} (runningahead summary/map). What a cool run this was! I love designing a point to point course, and thankful to have a supportive family willing to accommodate my adventures and pick me up at the destination! This ended up being a crazy challenge for several reasons:

• It was only 8 degrees F with sub-zero wind chills
• I left my energy gels (GU) at home. So this left me with a sports bottle I filled with Gatorade that would become frozen slush by the end (delicious orange slush)!
• I had to be very certain of my route in a relatively unfamiliar setting, so Danielle could follow my intended course in the car, and make sure I was alright
• The planned workout was very aggressive, calling for 5x 5K intervals at goal marathon pace
• The terrain ended up being a more extreme version of the Boston Marathon course, with a large elevation drop followed by a large elevation climb. It was all down from the mountains, but then UP to the lakes!

After the first 4 5K intervals and completing the fourth 1K recovery my watch started beeping again giving me the "go" signal for number 5. I knew that the next segment of the course was going to send me upward once again. I was at a convenient stopping point (a covered bridge by Little Squam lake beach in Ashland) and so I called it a workout. My watch read 2:00:00 when I stopped and I pulled out the cell phone to call Danielle who had driven by just a few minutes prior.

Me hanging out with the best support crew in the business!

all ready to go at the starting point in Campton

Summary after 13 weeks of training for Boston:

And now for the trivia portion of the blog post, and to wrap it up - Joselle Germano as it turns out was the woman who was the top woman finisher in the Bay State Marathon in 2001. I had forgotten that she is a very accomplished runner because I know her first through Danielle and our studies at UNH and we have not talked much about running over the years. You can see her outstanding performance in that race here:

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/01/ma/Oct21_13thAn_set2.html

Joselle in the last mile of the Bay State Marathon - victory is near!

Mt. Washington finish