Post Ukrops recovery week

Last week was a fairly low key recovery week. From Monday to Friday I managed to hit my four fave CRC group runs all in one week (Case of the Mondays, Miners I, Thursday Dowd, Miners II) covering about 40 miles in all. Saturday I was ready to stretch the legs again, so I decided that I would combine my long run and workout in one go. (Note that Coach has left me to my own devices for the next few weeks so he won’t have to associate himself with anything I decide to do workout/racing wise for a while!!)

I headed to the Race Fest 10k course in Southpark (in anticipation of racing there next weekend) and proceeded to run the somewhat hilly course twice with a 1 mile jog back to the start line in between. What I had originally anticipated being a ‘steady state’ run actually turned into more of a tempo effort as I covered the first loop in 36:30 and the second in 36:34 (5:53 pace). I was pretty happy with how this turned out as I was wearing trainers not flats and didn’t look at the watch at all during the second loop. The only downside of the run was that it reminded me what a brute of a course this will actually be to race on next week, miles 2,3 and 6 in particular! I’ll have no expectations for this race other than to race competitively. There are rumors of cash prizes for the top three but I already know of two faster guys than me that will be toeing the line so I may be fighting for the scraps. Whatever, it should be a good race and it will be nice to be racing in Charlotte again.

That left me on 55 miles for the week and I had earmarked an arbitrary total of 60 as my goal for the week. I ended up doing the requisite 5 as a recovery run later in the day which meant that I could keep Sunday completely free for Easter fun with the fam and large slices of sports watching (UK soccer and US Masters).

The next few weeks will be very busy on the racing front and I’ll try and put the fitness I have gained training for Myrtle and Richmond into good use and have some fun taking on some lower key races. After Race Fest I’ll be doing my annual philanthropic visit to Gastonia for the Run For The Money 5k and the week after that the Skyline 5k. I’m targeting a fast race at Skyline as last year’s race provided me with easily my best road 5k performance of the year and it should be a highly competitive race with cash prizes this year for the first time and it being the first race of the Grand Prix series. With that race in mind I am going to try and hone some speed over the next three weeks, planning the same workout each week leading up so I can get a gauge of where I am leading into the race. Fun times…