Bringing you up to date

So Cleveland was great. The XC was a blast. It was raining sideways, cold, windy, great XC weather! The course was pretty immaculate though. I was able to wear flats even. Spikes would no doubt have helped me run faster but discretion played the better part of valour! As it was, Tim rolled to come home 12th out of 98 in 19:54 and I had a solid race behind finishing 28th in 20:35. It was great fun racing in a pack the entire race constantly overtaking and being overtaken- bit of a difference to the road races I run week in week out!

Sunday we went for 18 miles so it was good to get a solid long run in on tired legs. It was also a chance for Tim to show off all the local loops and trails he runs. Without question the Cleveland Metro Park system puts anything Charlotte can offer to shame!

Monday we headed back. I ran 4 miles either side of our 9 hour plus journey

On the way back texts were being exchanged between Jay in New York, Billy in Charlotte and I arranging the Tuesday am workout. Mike Beigay joined us too and by 7 am Tuesday morning another solid workout was in the bank- 3 miles in 16:22, 2 miles in 10:39 and a mile in 4:59 (800m jog recoveries)

The rest of the week until Saturday was spent easy running, getting some nice miles in the bank and recovering the legs for the first real marathon workout of this block that was taking place that morning.

The workout on tap was 20 miles with 10 of those at AT pace. For this one I headed up to the Huntersville business park to workout with Bill, Mike and Nathan's training group. These guys always head down to Charlotte to run with us so it was nice to run on their 'territory' for once. Spada, Jay and Caitlin also made the trip and we all thoroughly enjoyed both the change in scenery and the outcomes of our respective workouts.

We all ran together for just over 10 nice and easy miles in the dark, the conversation flowing as we contemplated the hard work ahead. After a quick gu, water and change of shoes we started our workouts. Jay and I nailed our tempo run in 58 minutes- good signs at this stage of the cycle.


























So another good week in the books. Need 7 today to complete an 80 mile week. Then some week 1 NFL action and a few brews as the second annual CRC beer mile takes place. Fun times!