Big Week to Start on an Up Note

Hullo there, Internet!

I just finished up the 2nd Annual Big Week, which is something my roommate James and I started last year. When we both came back from school last year over winter break, we were alone in the house and bored, so we ended up running a bunch. We accidentally got in even better training than usual, had fun, and passed the time. This year, we were a little more formal about it, in that we said "we should do another Big Week!" and ran a bunch in order to save our brains just a little more from hours and hours of TV or Internet or video games. That being said. . . we got in plenty of that, too.

Anyway, here's what I got up to this week:

Monday 1/3: 3:30PM- Out and back toward Spy Pond but not there, 64min, with Matt and James. Felt tired, heavy. 9:30PM- 4mi easy indoors with James, drills, 6x150 buildups with 50jog, couple minutes down for 5. Running 7:15-7:20 pace felt like a walk, and I felt particularly awesome on the strides.

Tuesday 1/4: 3:30PM- 3mi up, 4mi dreadmill tempo, 21min (5:15/mile, 1% incline), felt crappy, mostly because I sweat like a whore in church on those things. Did the first and last half-mile on the indoor track (both in 2:36) because it saved me a mile on the damn thing. 4mi down.

Wednesday 1/5: 10:00AM- 4mi easy with James. 4pm- 10mi easy on the River with Matt and Eric, 66:30 + strength routine at Fit Rec afterward.

Thursday 1/6: 2PM- 12mi easy/moderate, first 9 or so with Matt and Peter, working from 6:45 to 5:45/mile, ran to Jamaica Pond a different way because of the iciness of the paths, then slowed down to about 6:10-6:20 pace with James and added on 21 min for a conservative 73min. Felt good, decent weather. 9PM- 5mi easy, first half with Sean, one of my roommates (out to fight the retired-from-running-lethargy), whole thing with James.

Friday 1/7: 3:30PM- 10mi easy with James, started with Peter and Matt but they were feeling salty, so we kept things around the 6:30/mile range and rested. On the way home from Fresh Pond, we ran into a high school buddy of mine who goes to Harvard and was finishing up his own run, so our 9mi became 10mi in order to run with him a little. 6x150 buildups in spikes indoors, plus a short cooldown to make it an even 11. Felt really good on the strides. 9:30PM- 5mi easy with James indoors, time went by really quick. I don't like running indoors, but it was pretty icy and crappy, so I gave in.

Saturday 1/8: 3:30PM- 3mi up, 10 strides of varying lengths, 1000m total, drills, 6x800 avg 2:16, recovery 2:30 jog. This was my first track workout in 5 weeks and I was pleased to get it under my belt with nothing particularly worthy to note. It wasn't too hard, but it wasn't particularly easy, either. 3mi down, 10 on the afternoon counting the ~7:00 paced jogs in between the 800s. 9:30PM- 2.5 easy with Sean and James, then I added on another 18min solo. I felt good during the solo part, so I crushed it, which means it was probably just shy of 3mi as opposed to 2.5. Call it 5mi anyway.

Sunday 1/9: 2PM- 10mi, first 9 with James, first 400m of the run with Peter and Matt, but we got dropped like bad habits. We still hit about 58min for 9, though, so I guess we weren't jogging too hard. I added on a mile inside and was bored doing those laps, so I ran it in about 5:30 to minimize the monopoly. 3 sets of strength after with Matt, Peter, and James. I've been doing 2 sets for a while, so it was good to bump things up. 9:30PM- 6mi moderate solo, felt really good after feeling like a slug all afternoon, ended up working things down pretty hard the last 2mi or so. Ran out and back on the river, because it's lit at night and free of cars.

Total- 105 miles
13 runs
2 strength days

Not bad, Internet. Lest some of you think I'm being foolish, let me reassure you: tomorrow I'm running 5mi in about 40min, and that's IT. I doubt I'll be above 80mi again for a couple months. Also, since I had literally nothing else to do (no work while school isn't in session, no class either) I was sleeping about 11 hours a night and more or less constantly eating delicious healthy food, since cooking was also a good way to pass the time. For example, today, I've mostly subsided on Leftover Soup, which is exactly what it sounds like. I took the remaining carrots, potatoes, green beans, onion, and red pepper I didn't use this week, cut them all up into little pieces, added about half a cup of rice, threw it in a crock pot, covered it in water, added chicken bullion and assorted seasoning, and ignored it for 4 hours. Voila!

Have a great week, everybody.