Sunday, August 1, 2010

New England Prep XC Camp, Pt 1

Hello, friends. I'm posting from a dorm room on the Northfield Mount Hermon Prep campus, having just finished my first full day as a counselor for the camp. So far, things are going awesome- I have charge of the 2nd cohort of roughly 10 high school cross country runners, named "Team Craigslist" in what I'm told is my honor. I have a bed, free food, great trails, and people to run with- what more could a broke-ass, mediocre college miler want?

Most of the early part of this week was taken up be me making extra careful I rested up from my ten mile tempo, then the latter part of the week was taken up by travel from Boston to Derry, then Derry to Northfield. My mother, brother, and I drove through Keene for the first time since I transferred, and even though we only stopped for about 15min at the Walmart to buy me socks, a razor, and one of those travel-shampoos, it was still kind of a strange experience to be back. I'd like to hit up some of the old trails at some point, but we'll see how it all fits into the fall schedule.

I think I had something of consequence to say (zounds!) but I've forgotten what it was. Here's what I put in the bank last week:

Monday July 26- 8:30AM- 5.5, first 3 with Eric up Comm Ave and around the Res. Great weather! 5:30PM- 8.5 easy around Fresh Pond from the house, tired but not sore. Saw Inception with Joe. DAMN.

Tuesday July 27- 9:30AM- 5mi easy, stop at FitRec for 45min of strength/core. 7:30PM- 10mi easy + strides + drills with Jeff, started with Eric. Felt great!

Wednesday July 28th- Noon- 4mi easy, hot but dry. Studied Latin in the morning to try to weasel my way out of a foreign language requirement and save myself 4 classes. 7:30PM- Studied microecon all afternoon to get a leg up on being a late start to econ. Studying in the summer? Gross. 3mi up, 8x3min hard, 1min medium around the BC Res, + 2:17 after the last one to finish up 10k (4 laps). Ran 34:17 for 10k, which is 5:31/mile including the rest. Good workout, but I ran the first 3 hard bouts WAY too fast. D'oh! 3mi down.

Thursday July 29th- OFF, because the Boss Man commands it.

Friday July 30th- AM- 4mi easy with Billy "the Grizzly Bear" Whelan. Noon- Bus back to Derry. 7:30PM- 10mi easy progression run on the Dbl Lane Road loop. Roughly 3.5 easy, 3.5 steady, 3mi a little faster. I averaged ~6:50 for the warmup, ~6:10 for the steady part, and ~5:35 for the last 3mi. I always thought this run was right on 10, but I measured it for kicks and discovered the last 3mi is actually 5k, so my regular 17:00-17:30 finishes are a little faster than I thought there were. 63:12 for the loop.

Saturday July 31st- AM- 6mi easy on the r/r beds in Derry, didn't wake up early enough to do more and pack. PM- 4mi easy on the trails in Northfield, Mass with the other counselors, didn't eat all day, very dizzy.

Sunday August 1st- 10AM- 35' easy with my campers, had to run a little shorter to return a lost youngin' to the track. Call it 4.5 to be safe. 4:30PM- 77' easy with most of the other counselors to start after our camply duties were attended to, then the last 52' with Brian Fuller of Springfield College, who is a veteran counselor and knows the trails. We got down to a pretty respectable pace for the last half hour.

84 miles, one day off
1 strength/core session

Not bad, not bad. This next week will be pretty low on quality, so I'm just going to accumulate plenty of slow miles.

2 comments:

  1. How long do you think it will be before your blog on Track Talk is up and running?

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was supposed to be two weeks ago, but Track Talk is growing so fast that the administrators there have more pressing issues to attend to. My answer, then, has to be the vague and unsatisfying "as soon as possible."

    ReplyDelete