Week 3 Training Recap: Mar 26 - Apr 01

Week 3 was busy to say the least. I was on a business trip to Monterey, CA through wednesday. In addition to very long days attending conference presentations I managed to get in some early a.m. training runs.

M: 4.5mi in 32:20 along Monterey Peninsula Recreation Trail.
I was surprised and encouraged to see a large number of runners wearing ARMY T shirts running in the opposite direction from me. I continued until the end of this huge procession and decided to turn around and join them. We continued along this paved trail and eventually went out on the roads toward what looked to be a park entrance. "Great - a park!" I thought, "someplace different to run without getting lost in the dark"! Well, when we rounded the corner into this "park" I noticed a sign for the entrance to the US Army property and figured I'd keep myself out of trouble by turning back!

T: 7.3 mi tot: 5x {800m, 2 min recovery}, then 4x {200m, 1min recovery}.
I started out on the Monterey roads finding to a decent hill on Cass St. There I did a warmup and decided it would be good (in a challenging sort of way) to start my first 800m interval from the bottom. Not the best idea, as I found out this hill is about, oh, 800m in length! I did 400m of the next interval going up to the top again. After this I decided it was best to get back to sea level and finish there.

W: 12mi in 1:28:46 with some awesome hill climbing.
I had to venture out a bit more in order to get the planned distance without too much monotony, while also not getting lost in the dark. So I went to Cass St. from tuesday's run and improvised from there. Well, as you know in California it wasn't long before I found myself a monster hill climb! Two words best describe the workout: Skyline Drive. The link below has a map and here is the elevation profile.
Skyline Drive run Monterey, CA

T: off - red eye flight back to Boston - I know, excuses excuses
F: off

S: 24.6mi in 3:00 - final long run (a near marathon itself) before tapering for Boston!
2K warmup, 10K@7:21/mi, 10K@7:05/mi, 10K@6:58/mi, 4K@ "max effort" that turned out for me at this point in the run to be 7:22/mi, ~3.6K cooldown that turned out to be 8-9 min/mi - survival mode to the finish!

This was a real milestone of course for the distance, but also because it marks the (near) end of a huge amount of training for Boston. Training partners Joe Loureiro and Will Swenson were waiting for me after finishing the run a few minutes earlier. It was a great feeling to have the run completed, and also to reflect together on how far we've come along in the last several months. Joe and Will, I really appreciate your interest and ever present support in my first attempt at the marathon. I was feeling the love after that workout - thanks you!

S: 3.1 mi in 30:36 Run for the Troops 5K in Andover, MA
http://www.runforthetroops5k.com/
I really enjoyed running this one with my wife Danielle and our daughter who ran her first 5K ever! She had a goal to get 30:00 for the race. This is not a bad effort and I was proud to help her try to get it! Danielle also had not run a race in a long time and has been working out very hard for several months with tons of cross training and some treadmill work. She was very excited to be able to handle this race without any real difficulty and I was very happy for her.

Also attending the run and making the day very enjoyable were training teammates Joe and Will, their families and Team Red Cross members Karen Teller, Paul Garcia, and Susan Driscoll. Karen and Susan staffed a table providing information about services that the American Red Cross provides to US military personnel.