Penultimate Week of Summer Training

First, thanks to Mr. Keeley, my middle-school English teacher, for teaching us all the word "penultimate" as part of his "words you probably don't need to know, but might use eyebrows if you use them" vocabulary series. Penultimate is my second favorite one after "defenestrate," from the Latin "fenestra" (window) and means "throw something out the window." Ask about it in Prague (if you get that reference, you, like me, probably didn't have a date this weekend).

Anyway. . .

Monday- AM: Woke up after Ashford, took the bus home, didn't have time to run before work. PM- 10 easy around the lake, hilly course, 67:30- felt better than after the ten-miler but not exactly fresh as daisies.

Tuesday- 1PM- 4 to work, 27:34. 7PM- 10 easy, hilly course, 69:50- felt pretty good but I tried to keep it real easy. It was rainy out instead of humid, which was nice.

Wednesday- 1:30PM- 7 to work, hilly- 47:36, felt fine. 6PM- 9 easy, 58:33, didn't think I was running that fast during the run, definitely felt ready to work out on Thursday (I had been debating pushing it back to Friday if I wasn't feeling it).

Thursday- 9:45AM- Light workout, 3mi up, 8x400on, 200off at the track- averaged 69s for the ons and about 50seconds on the off. Didn't want to push it too hard- still ended up covering 4800m just under 16min. Felt pretty good, especially since I am notoriously bad at rolling out of bed and working out, which is what I did. 3 down, windy and cool out.
7PM- 6 easy, 40min with a nice big group after the Cigna 5k in Manch-Vegas- I just watched and I was treated to my Jackalope Co-Founder Geoff Trethewey run an all-time PR of 14:55- a full 22 seconds under his TRACK 5k pr!

Friday- PM-13 easy/moderate on a hilly course- hit 46:47 through 7 then held just under 6:20 pace or so through the rest, 84:33 tot. Felt fantastic, couldn't hold back any more than that. Tough not to run 6min pace the last half but I tried to keep it easy.

Saturday- 11:30AM- 9 easy out/back on the R/R beds, nice and flat, 62min. Ran solo at noon, it was pretty gross out.
7PM- 5 easy barefoot with Eric and Kev, 35:49, felt great to really chill out.

Sunday- 8AM- With Eric at Hood Field- 3up, 2x2mi, 1xmi with 5min rest. Another great barefoot workout (and while it was gross by the time we finished, it was only about 75 with moderate humidity for the workout itself). Went 9:59 (5:00, 4:59), 9:54 (4:56, 4:57) and 4:51 (2:26, 2:25) and felt pretty darn good doing it. During each 5min rest we jogged half a mile in 3:20-25, grabbed a few sips of water, and jogged a little more. Short cooldown to Hood Pond for a swim, as by that time the weather was quite gross.
7PM- 4 mile solo shakeout, 28:34- was shocked that I was going that fast. The weather sucked, but I hardly felt like I had worked out.

Tot- 97

All in all, a pretty solid week. The quarters really seemed to put some zing in my legs. It got pretty gross out towards the end of the week but hey, we've been lucky this summer. Aside from that, not much is going on. . . I'm moving into Ashford St this coming Sunday, so this will be my last week as a full-time resident of Derry and New Hampshire. From heah on out, I'm a Bawstonian- and moah properly, a resident of Allstahn, chahlie. :)

Have a good week, all- and don't forget to catch as much as the World Champs as possible!!!