A couple of weeks of running, more of the same, some of the other

Wednesday, just an easy jog at lunch. Very easy. This followed a workout earlier that morning. One of those trying to wake myself up deals.

Met Lucas and Brent Tuesday for a 6.5 -7 mile run thru town. It was cold and windy! We all wore shorts, longsleeves, and gloves. The wind was the problem, hit ya in the face. Anyway we cruised along at an easy pace gradually picking it up. Averaged about 6:50 per mile.

On Friday, I met the high school punks Armon, Patton, and Patrick for a workout over near the Research Park. It was cold again! I even wore tights today, a fleece over my short sleeved under armour shirt, a hat, and gloves. Of course, it did not take long to remove my outer long sleeved garment once we got going with the workout.  First we did an easy 1.5 mile warmup jog, then 4 X 400m, 2 X 200m, 4 X 400m, and 2 X 200m with the same distances for recovery between each. The fun part was they were all uphill. Not a super steep hill, but a good, steady one with the second half of the 400m stretch more steep than the first. We all did ok though considering the hill and cold. Armon and Patton was a bit faster, usually around 1:14-1:16 or so, followed by me and then Patrick. We kept the 200s slightly faster, mine was 33 to 35 seconds. Armon and Patton had a couple of speedier ones, and Patrick did really well on these as well. All three concentrated on good posture and overall form while doing these repeats. We grabbed a swig of water then did a cool down jog in the dark around the Research Park loop.

The weekend started out chilly and then basically it rained all day Sunday. I took this opportunity to rest my legs a bit and did not run. Usually, I take time off after I have some minor injury, and, of course, two day off is not much, but I am trying to be smarter with my running as I get older. So I took two days off when I felt great! I did an upper body workout on Sunday. Mostly a bunch of pushups and dumbbell curls and shoulder presses with 35 lb dumbbells. Was doing lots of reps and super setting stuff. Lots of reps with 35 lb dumbbells for shoulder presses means first doing 15 reps of curls, then about 50 reps of shoulder presses in a row, then another 10 or so reps of curls, then some shrug type deals, then some pushups (slightly elevated with my hands on the dumbbells). Interspersed this stuff with loud music, weird drawing and painting, and some lively stretching!

Monday, COLD!! At least for Mississippi. I again met Patton, Armon, and Patrick for a workout as they gear up for the USA Track & Field XC Junior Olympics South Regional Meet this coming Saturday. We met at 4 PM and ran the main loop in Longmeadow, a wonderful residential neighborhood with little traffic. We all wore long pants, jackets, gloves, and hats today. I had CWR running tights on under my warmup pants, and a short sleeved shirt under a long sleeved Under Armour shirt and a loose Nike running jacket over that! I lost the jacket pretty soon, but was happy to have everything else on. Today was the last “real” workout for them. Nothing crazy. You don’t get better the week before a race and you sure don’t want to hurt yourself! So, we started with a warmup jog of 1.25 miles. Needed that warmup too because it was in the mid 30’s F and quite windy! After the wamup, we did some leg swings and light stretching.  So, yep, then we did 4 X 25 second strides to loosen up those legs a bit. Then some mile repeats at tempo pace with 2 minute rests. I had Patton and Armon, who have been running a little more and a bit faster than Patrick, do 4 of these. I wanted them to be around 5:45 each, and they were spot on averaging about 5:46. Patrick and I did 3 of them. I wanted him to be about 5:55 to 6:00 minutes per mile, and he also was spot on averaging about 5:55 for each one. Mine were 5:54, 5:46, and 5:44. Patrick’s shins were a bit sore, I think from running in some VERY worn out Saucony Kinvarras, which should have been replaced two months ago! PATRICK! That was partly why he only did 3 of the mile repeats. Anyway, we finished up with a cool down jog around the neighborhood. Did some leg swings and light stretches and got out of there just after dark.

Tuesday afternoon I met Brent, Patton, Armon, Patrick, and Lake Spradling for a 5.8 mile run thru town. Lake is the star runner for Starkville Academy. He is a sophomore with lots of potential. He and some of his SA teammates will be traveling to Nashville, TN this weekend to participate in the Cross Country Coaches Youth National Championship. This is a fun deal and one of about 5 different national meets in the USA. Of course, the other three high school boys running with us will be at Choctaw Trails in Clinton, MS this Saturday for the USA XC regional. Cool. And cool also described the temps again today. About 37° when we started and closer to 32°F when we finished. Brent and I wore running tights, jackets and gloves, Armon also wore long pants (warmups), a hoodie, and gloves, but the other three wore shorts. Lake even wore a short sleeved shirt and seemed fine. I was way fine in my tights though. Easy run today, started super slow and ended with about a 6:55 average. I had the high school punks finish off with 6 X 200m strides. They are all looking really good right now.

Patton, Armon, Lake, and Patrick

I did not get another run in until Saturday this week, as I traveled to Savannah, Georgia to pick up Joseph for his rather lengthy winter break. When we got back, we both snagged an easy 7 mile run with Brent Wallace Saturday morn at 11 am at the refuge. It was beautiful! Run was harder than usual. I think the fast out and back trip to Savannah played a part in that. In fact, my left calf was pretty sore, I think mostly from the 18 hours spent driving. Still we averaged 6:34 per mile fairly easily.

The high school kids ended up first, second, and fourth at the South Regional meet in Clinton, easily qualifying for the national meet. I should mention that hardly anyone actually runs in this south regional. However, lots of awesome runners do participate in other regions and there will be some quality runners at the national meet. I met one such runner, Ammar Moussa, about four years ago when I took Joseph and some other high schoolers to the national meet. This young feller now runs for this year’s and last year’s NCAA I national champion xc champion University of Colorado’s team. In fact, he came in 5th at this year’s national meet himself leading his team to a second straight national championship!

Did not get to run Sunday, but did work out. Did an easy 5 miler on Monday at a 7:27 average pace. Still recovering from trip and being somewhat sore. Not bad today.

Tuesday, just me and the kid, 6 miles thru town at 6:39 pace. Wednesday, a repeat of the same route with Brent and Joseph at 6:40 pace. Felt ok.

Did not run on Thanksgiving day. Back to it on Friday with a 4 mile run in Sessums with Joseph at a 6:25 pace. Planned on getting in a nice run on Saturday, but did not. Worked out, of course. Sunday at 3 pm, I ran with Joseph and Brent again. I was feeling a bit dehydrated today, but managed to make the 6 mile loop at 6:36 pace. Hard though. Combination of low energy and not enough water the last couple of days. Can’t complain about 6:36 pace too much though.