Oct 27th - Nov 2nd: Strappin in on again

Here's how my week went down:

10/27 7.5 (52:10) Easy shakeout around Pleasant Lake trails. Hip flexors were a bit tight from the long run the previous day. HR 112

10/28 10 (1:05:58) River/Summitt loop in St.Paul w/ RnF guys

10/29 10 (1:08:04) Resneau loop, effort was up too high for that pace. HR 140 and legs felt flat. Full core/balance/active stretching circuit.

10/30 13 (1:30:06) Tamarack double loop from home. HR 142 Weather was so nice I didn't need a shirt for this one! 4x150m strides on grass w/ spikes on...can I still run fast???

10/31 7.5 (52:16) Pleasant Lake trails easy. HR 108.

11/1 9ish (56:27) 8 miler prior to MN State HS XC meet. Ran quite a bit during the races but the extra mile is from the cooldown I did with R.E. after a tough character test. Go cougars.

11/2 11 3 miles warm-up, 8k race, 3 mile cooldown. I didn't get splits on the watch but heard:
1 mile 5:22
4k 14:05
5k 17:11
finish 27:23 but the front-runners took the wrong finish loop that ended up to be 150-200m shorter than the correct course and of course I followed. I went in thinking sub 28 was reasonable and that's about where I likely would've ended up. The weather was warm if not perfect. I felt fine cardiovascularly but never quite felt like my legs were under me. Is that a good sign? Have I run all the speed out of my legs to the point where I can't coax it out anymore?

Total 68 miles in 7 sessions
October Mileage 278 in 29 days of running

It's been a while since I've strapped on the XC spikes (Nov 2005?) and it showed today. To close out a decent week of training where I found myself feeling tired pretty often, I ran the 8k Rocky's Run on the UofM golf course this morning(results can be found here. It's a good thing I'm not expecting to see or feel big gains in fitness after just a few weeks of consistency, or today's effort would be disheartening. (Really, I just wanted to beat my former roommate and teammate Pat )Instead, I'm pleasantly surprised that I was able to feel pretty comfortable at much faster speeds than I've even been thinking about in this phase of training. A little improvement in pace over the TC10but felt much better physically even on a challenging course.

From an aerobic standpoint, I'm making progress as needed and I don't feel any physical injuries other than occasional soreness in my calves and IT bands. Flexibility and core strength are going to be my main focus in the next few weeks to ready my body for higher mileage and strength gains. I'm starting to work soon (finally!) and hope that it only inspires me to get workouts in regardless. I'll be building a business as a personal trainer and nutrition coach. Will I be good enough to be hard on myself? We'll see.