Cobwebs (OR: In which the intrepid authors refuses to make a litany of excuses)

Ah, hello, my infinite audience of, um my high school coach and maybe the WayBack Machine. This is one of the tough blog posts to write because I had a great week of training up until Sunday, when BU had a dual meet against Florida State. I guess I was a little rustier than I thought, because I really dropped a stinker this morning- 26:25 for the Frankin Park course, one of the slowest 8ks I've raced in college. I could go on about my shoe coming untied, or feeling the sniffles, or the capricious whims of the Western wind, or the stars being all crappily aligned. . . but eh, then my blog title for the week would be all inaccurate and stuff. Instead, I'll say that I ran a slow race, but ran my hardest, which was tough to do knowing how slow I was running. Next time, it'll be the same max effort, but faster. If it's not, well, there's always the time after that. That's the best thing about running! I know training is going well, sometimes races don't click. It sucks, but I'll get another shot at the New England Championships in a couple weeks.

The log-

Monday- 9mi easy on the river with the guys, felt fine once I got going.

Tuesday- 12mi moderate/hard with Rob, Ken, and Peter to the Brookline Arboretum and up all the hills Rob knew of, then back. Really great run today, just cruising along. I really love doing these good hard runs.

Wednesday- 10mi very easy; I would have guessed 75min, but apparently, we were under 70. Who knew?

Thursday- 3up to the BC Reservoir for an easy pre-meet workout. Most of the team ran together and did 4(2)3(2)2(6)4x1:00 (90) min hard (recovery jog). We still averaged a little under 5:40 pace for 3 laps of the Res, so not a bad effort. Had to hammer the 3mi home because I was almost late to work.

Friday- 10mi easy on the Brookline Farm loop with Rob, Elliot, and Terence, felt good; it was almost "chilly" out today, and I love that weather.

Saturday- 8mi easy with Ken and James, including 4x100m fast strides on the track. Felt kinda blah, didn't sleep great Friday night.

Sunday- 10AM- 3up, 8k @ Franklin Park, 26:24.5, 7th BU, not sure what I was overall. In addition to what I said above, it's a starting point- nothing more, nothing less. 3mi down with special guest runners, U-Mass Darmouth's finest.

Tot- 71

I think a day off is in order this week, since I haven't taken one in a couple weeks. Now that I think about it, this was a pretty rough week in terms of non-running stuff; in addition to class, I worked every night this week, meaning I was gone from my apartment from 8:30am-9:30pm most every night. Not sure it meant anything for the race, but I gotta ease back on the 13 hour days before I get sick or something. Another annoying side effect of the busy days was that I didn't have time to do "real" food shopping, so I ate a lot of poptarts and take-out Chinese food. Again, it meant nothing for the race, but I spent all week feeling like a greaseball was growing in my stomach. Fortunately, I got to the supermarket yesterday and picked up all manner of my favorite "not going to make a nutritionist cry on sight" foods- yogurt, fresh green vegetables, unpolished rice, lean meat, bananas. Actually, now that I think about it, I think I'm going to go make a giant salad and eat a frozen banana (try it- it gives 'em the consistency of ice cream! just peel it first, or it's a bitch to get the banana out). Have a great week, everyone!