Art Museum 8.4m Tempo Run

mile 1 6.49
mile 2 14.17
mile 3 21.18
mile 4 28.17
mile 5 35.26
mile 6 42.11
mile 7 49.10
mile 8 56.26
Finish 58.42

Single Digits

Well it's that time of year again,9 weeks till Outdoor Nationals,phase two of my training kicks off next week as the race portion of my season gets underway in earnest at Widener for the Mid Atlantic Championships w/ races scheduled for New York,Eugene and Germantown on tap between June 9th and July 24th.

Easy 3 miler last nite to get the gunk out of my legs from Tuesdays russian intervals,a third 8.4 mile Art Museum Loop tempo run on tap this afternoon,I'm hoping for a better outcome than last week,we'll have to see what the day has in store for me.

On the subject of digits,what I wouldn't give for the digits of Sophie Summers the winner of this cycle of "America's Next Top Model".
I will admit "ANTM" has become something of a "guilty pleasure" the past couple of years,blame it on having a weakness for Tyra Banks.....yeah go ahead judge me!!!! but I've gotten caught up on the last two or three seasons.
This season had a twist US models vs UK models,I will confess over the past 11 weeks rooting for all 7 of the UK models and being sad when one by one they got eliminated.

I always thought the pride of Oxford Sophie Summers had a shot to win it all my only concern was could a Brit win America's Next Top Model.....it's a bit like a Canadian trying to win American Idol.....I mean it's right there in the title,anywho Sophie won and while I doubt I'll see any of her work in Vogue IT or Vogue Italia or her guest spots on "Extra" I'm delighted she won,anyone who could say"this is bollocks" on tv wins a little piece of my black pagan celtic heart!!!!

Blistering

It's often said there's a price to be paid for everything in life,I guess sometimes the question is how high a price is one willing to pay?
I knew when I switched to Saucony Hatrori flats I would be sacrificing padding on my feet,but a small price to pay for twice weekly repeats when they only weigh 4.4OZ,however on days like yesteday when it was close to 90 degrees at 3.35pm when I stepped on the track to conduct 5x3x300m w/ 800m recoveries inbetween sets that's 25 laps......
By the end of the third set I began to feel I was walking on hot coals and while I was keeping the repeats to a respectable sub 55 w/ one notable exception 300 #7 I knew upon compleation of my 15th and final 300m I would be switching to my regular running shoes for my 800m recovery jog and 3 lap cool down.

Upon arrival back home the removal of my right shoe confimed my fear,the skin on the bottom of my middle toe on my right foot had bubbled up and all but pealed its self off my toe,not a pretty picture but also not the worst injury I've had in a now 36 year career.
I don't forsee it being an issue on my 3 mile recovery run later today or tomorrows 8 mile tempo run and by the time I next slip on my Saucony Hattori flats to do battle on the track on Saturday I should be ok to conduct 6x600m repeats,as I said to one of my running buddies in an email earlier"no pain,no gain,no guts,no glory"

In closing I had to share from the time honoured British Press.....YES the same people who brought us the front page story"Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster".....
According to some, Heptathlon gold hopeful Jessica Ennis is carrying extra weight....granted the above picture is from Osaka a few years ago but my question is.......WHERE??????

5x3x300m Repeats @ Temple

49.96-54.63-51.90
54.53-53.10-53.20
55.43-52.46-53.77
54.65-52.70-53.36
54.11-52.46-51.20

6X600m Repeats @ St Joe's

72-36-1.48.0
73-34-1.47.2
71-35-1.46.3
72-35-1.47.2
71-35-1.46.8
70-33-1.43.2

An Oldie,But A Goldie

The keen eyed amongst you will have noticed a lack of work bashing on Kevinrunningfree of late.....that was until today......let the bloodletting begin!!!!
W/ a holiday weekend on tap and almost every department upping the volume of their orders to keep them sweet through Tuesday the last thing I needed was not one but BOTH the delivery people on the loading dock being given days off.....that really puts the vision in Supervision in my opinion!!!!

A number of carefully worded emails by yours truly were sent to my boss b4 days end and the upshot is a LONG overdue sit down meeting between myself and Chris plus my boss and her boss is due sometime in the future,in the immortal words of Betty Davis"buckle up,it's going to be a bumpy ride"

Being uberagravated b4 a run is nothing new.....I've been here for coming up on 13 years so I'm used to it but when work effects my ability to run at the level I expect that's a double kick in the bollocks,yesterdays tempo run was slower than last weeks 57.13/59.39 and while the heat and humidity played a factor{I can still see the tell tale signs today of being somewhat dehydrated}which resulted in a lack of knee lift and leg turn over during the run but it goes w/ the terrortory but what fried my lillywhite English/Irish arse was missing out on my 2pm tea,yogurt and fruit brake which probably didn't help my cause,but what's done is done it sucks to run subpar but as long as my next two scheduled repeats go well I can live w/ that.

So what does this all have to do w/ Ricky Waters?remember his less than steller debut for the Eagles when he ducked out of tackles as the Eagles were losing and his post game comments were"for who,for what" that's how I feel when work fucks me over..

Art Museum Loop Tempo Run

Splits
mile 1 6.29
mile 2 13.22
mile 3 20.25
mile 4 27.39
mile 5 34.04
mile 6 42.34
mile 7 49.26
mile 8 57.54
finish 59.39

Easy Tiger

It's said "the older you get the smarter you get".....I'm not 100% sure I have surficient data to back that up......however I have learnt to embrace the easy/recovery run!!
My former coach always used to tell me"no matter how slow you're going it's probably too fast" and when you know the following day is a hard day you don't want to be giving anymore effort than you need,so w/ that in mind and a 8.4 Art Museum Loop tempo run on tap I kept last nites easy/recovery 4 mile at a gentle clip,roughly 9 mine mile pace

In a short space of time returning to my former stomping ground Clark Park I've sussed out that it's roughly 7 mins there and 7 mins back and each loop beginning at 45th & Chester Ave and going clockwise up to Baltimore Ave down to 43rd St down to Woodlands Ave and up 45th St is roughly 5 mins so 5 loops = 25 mins plus 14 =39 mins,good enough for 4 miles,obviously a 5 or 6 miler requires more loops and anything over 6 milers requires an out and back down to or along the river as that many loops tends to induce vertigo.....although having ran 5,000m indoors and 10,000m outdoors I can handle 25 laps!!!!

Looks Like I Picked The Wrong Week To Give Up....

It's been a while since I've had to endure"one of those days" at work but yesterday was one such day,not one,not two,not three,but SIX 18 wheelers back to back and all w/ big arsed deliveries no wonder I felt like Lloyd Bridges in "Airplane"!!!!

As for my mile repeats....."whoa Nelly" I haven't ran that fast in two years,when I did my last set of mile repeats in April I went:5.28-5.27-5.24-5.25 which while faster than anything I'd done since August still weren't lightning quick by my standards{which are high to begin w/} so coming into them last nite the goal was to run 1.20 per lap/5.20 per mile,as you can see from the lap splits I was able to do that and then some!!
In every season there comes a turning point in training and or a defining moment,for me last nite may well be that moment,granted I'm not the finished article just yet but when I next conduct 4x1mile repeats on June 19th I hope to eliminate the 1.20/1.21 splits and maybe get down to sub 5.10 splits,the first sub 5 min mile is still a way off but on this form it's in the mail.

4x1mile Repeats @ Roxboro

1.14-1.18-1.20-1.19-5.11.2
1.17-1.19-1.21-1.15-5.12.4
1.18-1.20-1.20-1.16-5.14.7
1.18-1.19-1.21-1.10-5.11.4

Kickin It Olde Skool

After a lackluster week last week I was eager to put all of that behind me and get back to a more workman like week this week.
I kicked off the week w/ an easy 4 miler around trusty Clark Park managing to get the run in b4 the rains came to dampen an already grey and overcast day,I get the impression there's going to be a lot of that this week....yea!!!

Couldn't resist digging out the photo of the old Nike Athletics West running vest,back in the mid 80's there was nothing I wanted more,infact I sent off for one when I was still living in London but I think they were either out of stock or didn't have my size,I could trawl through Ebay to look for one but frankly last year when I was looking for a Kenya running vest and they wanted $100 that was enough to put me off the idea.

SOL

In keeping w/ my recent run of events my phone and internet remain unconnected......luck of the Irish my arse!!!!
Between the farce that was the moving company who bailed on me 10 mins into my move,missing the last connecting train out of New York City the nite of Florence And The Machine,the comedy of errors that was coming home from Florence And The Machine in Atlantic City,sitting around for 12 hours waiting for Verizon to show up on Tuesday,running a sub par race at Swarthmore last Monday I can now add a locked gate from keeping me from phone and internet access and a malfunctioning stop watch from recording splits yesterday at St Joe's over 6x600m.........

So a Verizon tech DI actually show up on Saturday......I know I was shocked,however in order to get to the terminal to do whatever needs doing to allow him to turn on my phone there's a locked gate that I don't have the key too,and my landlord couldn't be reached on Saturday,so that's another week of no phone and no internet till I can,get the gate unlocked,get Verizon to come back out and get my phone turned back on...........

Following the last of my New York City trips for now{all bet are off if the New York Rangers reach the Stanley Cup Finals}I was feeling the effects of my trip to Times Square to see Paul Weller,it's all well and good getting home at 3am but try getting up and doing 6x600m repeats at lunchtime the following day!!!!,had Verizon not gagged me again on Saturday I would've taken care of the 6x600s Saturday and then gone long yesterday but it wasn't to be.
In fairness I doubt my splits would have been anything to write home about even if my stopwatch had been working but I diligently went about conducting the repeat anyway to bring a frustrating week to it's conclusion.

Anyway it's a whole new week and w/ a whole new attitude and outlook I hope I can:clear out the last of my stuff from my old basement,get my phone turned back on and have internet and conduct two good repeats starting w/ 4x1mile tomorrow.

Art Museum Loop Tempo Run

From the time I knew I was moving in early/mid April I knew my 8 mile tempo run would be around the Art Museum Loop.
Where as all my Cobbs Creek Parkway runs were "eyeballed" I knew the loop was 8.4 miles as it's marked every 1/4 mile.
My splits went:
6.26
13.04
19.48
26.52
40.11
47.32
53.10
57.13
I'd like to get that down to sub 57 next week and then continue to lower my splits over the coming weeks and months.

Now You're Just Taking The Piss!

After a sub par race the last thing I wanted or needed was to sit around all day stewing in my own juices......but that's exactly what I got thanks in no small part to Verizon
In a classic"we'll have someone out to your place between the hours of 8am and 8pm to check your phone" I spent the day sat at home like a lemon waiting for them.....I don't think you need to be clairvoyant to figure they never showed up,but then to add considerable insult to injury when I called them from work today I was informed that not only did someone come out to my apartment but "we left a card"...........
DON'T piss in my ear and tell me it's rain!!!
I can't say the day was a bust I did get some work on the apartment done and make inroads into my stack of dvr'd tv shows but the fact remains I'm still sans phone and internet and now 4 miles in the hole for the week,which means I can kiss goodbye my scheduled rest day Friday,not the worst thing in the world granted but having scheduled several non running chores post work Friday I now have to squeeze in a 4 miler around Clark Park....AND wait till Verizon show up on Saturday b4 I can head over to St Joe's for my weekly visit to ye olde "Death Cage" b4 heading upto New York City to catch Paul Weller at the Best Buy Theater.

Now that the dust has settled from Monday'd disappointing race I can be objective and say I probably cut my cloth way too thin last week,the all nighter in New York last Tuesday,another late nite in Atlantic City Saturday coupled w/ not cutting back either my Friday interval workout and long run Saturday,it all adds up to a 2.11.7 800m race.....NOT a reflection of where I'm at w/ my training right now.
What's done is done,all I can do is get ready for my next race in three weeks time a 1,500m at Widener in the Mid Atlantic c'ships and hope for a morale boosting performance and time.

Back To The Drawing Board

It's never easy coming to the blog after a below par performance...and it gets no easier w/ age let me tell you!!!
If there's one positive I can take from Monday's 800m race at Swarthmore it is that I went in not knowing where I was at w/ the 800m,I hadn't ran a meaningful 800m outdoors since 2010 Nationals in Sacramento{I ran 2 800s in the 10 and 11 Track Pentathlon but there were multi events so I don't count them}and my last 2 indoor 800s were possibly while my anemia was beginning to wreak havoc on me last year so I couldn't really count my 2.06 and 2.10{that said my 2.06 in Feburary got me a world ranking albeit in the lower portion of the rankings but a world ranking none the less!!!}either.

Now having said all that.....I don't feel 2.11.7 is an acurate picture of where I'm at right now,my training leads me to believe otherwise,the problem now is that while looking for answers from Mondays race I now find myself w/ more questions!!!!
The worst thing I can do now is panic{Nationals are still 11 weeks off}and begin to second guess myself,I'm "all in" as far as 800m and 1,500m racing is concerned and refuse to suffer a knee jerk reaction to the first bad race at 800m.

The bigger picture is what do I do for my next race? the clock is ticking on the Nationals countdown,had I ran what I thought I could run on Monday{2.05/2.06}I would've jumped in the 800m at Henderson in West Chester on June 9th w/ the high schoolers and looked to shave another second off that time....that now seems unwise and unlikely,chances are I'll run closer to home at Widener in the Mid Atlantic C'ships also on June 9th and maybe double the 1,500m is scheduled to go off at 10am w/ the 800m at 1.30pm,ample recovery time,I'd like to think even off the back of the 1,500m I can run a faster 800m than I just did on Monday.
As I'm reading the first of two David Miller Seb Coe biographies"Born To Run" I'm painfully aware of the pratfalls along the way to a major championship,that said just because I want to run the 800m and 1,500m like Seb it doesn't mean I want to go through what he went through between 82-84 leading upto LA and the 84 Olympics!!!

Twilight Last Chance Meet @ Swarthmore

Cliff Notes
Heat#11
11/11
2.11.7
Gory Details to follow......

Can You Hear Me Now?

Still waiting for the phone to be turned on at the new pad,4G's me hole I've got NO G's right now!!!
Here's a cliff notes version of last week:
Monday Easy 4 miler around Clark Park
Tuesday 6x600m at St Joe's at 7.15am!!!!
Wednesday Easy 3 miler around Clark Park
Thursday easy 8 miler down to Kelly Drive and back
Friday Ladder Interval at Roxboro 4x200m.300m,400m,600m
Saturday Long Run 14 miles down to,around the Art Museum Loop and back
40 miles.
Next stop the Last Chance Twlight Meet at Swarthmore tonite for the 800m in my outdoor season opener.....fingers crossed I can blog it tomorrow!

6X200m,300m,400m,600m @ Roxboro

33.37-51.46-70.58-1.49.2
35.26-51.47-72.76-1.50.5
32.96-51.32-70.14-1.48.6
33.54-50.59-69.86-1.49.8

Cosmic Love

On the day I snagged pit tickets for Florence & The Machine at Camden in September....my third Flo show this year.....to date{haven't ruled out Jones Beach the weekend b4 Camden!!!}here's Tuesday's set list from Radio City Music Hall

Only If For A Night
What The Water Gave Me
Cosmic Love
All This And Heaven Too
Rabbit Heart
Spectrum
Heartlines
Leave My Body
Lover To Lover
Shake It Out
Dog Days Are Over
Encore
Never Let Me Go
No Light,No Light

See you at The Borgata tomorrow nite!

Speechless

Still realing from the fabulous Florence & The Machine show in New York City at Radio City Music Hall on Saturday on Tuesday,it's seldom I'm ever at a loss for words but Ms Welch's performance was beyond superlatives....plus my internet at home hasn't been turned on yet....maybe by the time I do it all again at The Borgata in Atlantic City on Saturday it will be or things have settle down at work.....

6x600m Repeats @ St Joe's

73-33-1.46.9
69-35-1.44.9
72-35-1.47.3
73-35-1.48.6
74-35-1.49.0
74-34-1.48.0

Doubling My Considerable Pleasure

Alrighty then! tomorrow sees the first of two Florence & The Machine shows in the next five days,fingers crossed I should have phone and internet access when I return from Radio City Music Hall on Wednesday so expect a gushing full concert review from yours truly,having jammed to "Ceremonials" last nite tonite "Lungs" will get the full treatment and maybe if there's time "Unplugged" b4 heading up the turnpike to the Big Apple tomorrow,the girl from Camberwell and the kid from Lewisham just off Broadway....see dream really do come true!

No Place Like Home

"I'm faced w/ the facts and a fist full ot threats I stand quite amused at the end of the bed.
I have no defense for what I've said as a handful of love whacks me right around the head.
She's growling and stalking and grabs from a pile a book that she throws and it missed by a mile.
I'm holding a pillow and as naked as sin I'm backed into a corner w/ a wastepaper bin
Then up on the matress there's no place to go
I'm guilty as guilty,but there's no place like home"
No Place Like Home-Squeeze

Well the trauma of moving is over......thank christ! having lived in Port Richmond for 14 years from 92-06 I've now had 4 locations in University City in just over 5 and a half years and frankly I'm in NO great hurry to move again.....or anytime soon!
Trauma aside I'm delighted to be moved into my new apartment,after 5.5 years of going the room mate and house mate route I'm looking forward to having my own place again,I thought about that great line Mare Winningham used in "St Elmos's Fire" to Rob Lowe"last nite I got up,went to my own kitchen and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich....and it was the BEST peanut butter and jelly sandwich I ever had"...nuff said!

Aside from being sore from a ton of lifting on Saturday and having a pile of clothes and boxes all over my living room and bedroom I still went to the track yesterday morning for 6x600m repeats.
I hit Finnesey Field at St Joe's for the first time in 5 years to get my repeats in,St Joe's has always been closer than Temple but it always seemed everytime I went there I couldn't access the track.....well not yesterday!
I did antisipate being on a hiding to nothing what w/ everything but I'd rather go,try and fail if need be than not go and beat myself up mentally for A blowing a 40 mile training week and B not seeing what I could do.......

Went:71-34-1.45.6
72-34-1.16.9
74-35-1.49.8
75-35-1.50.9
76-37-1.53.9
75-35-1.50.7
3/6 which is a mild setback after going 6/6 last week but given the circumstances I felt pleased not only w/ the effort but the fact I even showed up at all,as I repeated say{no pun intended!} yearly more than once"the difference between standing on the podium or standing next to the podium at Nationals is going out to run on days you just don't feel like it"and believe me today was once such day!
Another 40mpw in the books w/ 2 interval sessions and tempo run and a long run,here's to more of the same next week in my final week of training b4 the race calender kicks off at Swarthmore next Monday.

The Long Goodbye

I'm not someone who embraces change willingly so the fact the next few days will see my prefered schedule turned upside down is somewhat of an issue for me,that said moving to my own apartment is something I've wanted for a while now so whatever disruptions I have to endure over the weekend to facilitate said move will ultimately be well worth it.
In order to "have my cake and eat it"this weekend,move get my repeats in and log a 40 mile week I had to "go long" today,I'll obviously take tomorrow as my token rest day for the week b4 hitting the track on Sunday for my weekly 6x600m repeats.

It was somewhat ironic that today was my long run,an extended out and back along Cobbs Creek Parkway,a route that's been the bulk of my training runs over the last three years and four months.
There is a chance I'll return to Cobbs Creek Parkway in the fall when I look to notch 10 milers but that's fall it would be remiss of me to wax lyrical about fall training when my summer training is only four weeks old.

I'll miss Cobbs Creek it was a good training route but times change and so do training runs,who knew when I last ran around Clark Park in early January 2009 that just over three years and four months later it would again become the venue for my easy/recovery runs.

Between the move,not having phone and internet for a few days and going to New York City on Tuesday my blog entries will be patchy over the next few days,I hope to blog from work on Monday and fingers crossed come Wednesday I'll have phone and internet at the new apartment,till then wish me luck as the old adage about moving being one of the three most stressful things one encounters in life is very much front and center.

I Can Has Runaround Too??!!

T minus two days till my move but this evening was moving day for Precious,I thought it would be good for her to get a run of the new place so I took her down to the new apartment b4 I move in so she could get a feel for the place plus the chance for much needed "runaround" which has been in short supply in recent weeks after a couple of "climate changes"w/in the house and while I've been less than pleased by them I've known for a few weeks that I was moving so while it sucked to deny "little girl" runaround time she's now free to run her little white paws off in the new place w/ no one to stop her.

On the subject of running,yesterday was my easy/recovery run {6 miles} and today was my tempo run,my last along Cobbs Creek Parkway,for the record my splits were:
Cedar & Cobbs Creek-3.37
Baltimore Ave-8.45
Whitby Ave-13.40
Turnaround-24.28
Whitby Ave-36.04
Baltimore Ave-41.07
Cedar & Cobbs Creek-46.55
Finish-50.05

19 seconds down on last week,out in 24.28,back in 25.37 I was guilty of not being 100% focused given there's alot of things going on connected to the move but I'd rather run and give myself another complete week of training while time is still on my side,next week will be my 5th week of uninterupted training prior to my season debut at Swarthmore and thus beginning the race phase of my training where on race weeks I'll only get one repeat a week,ergo the need to "make hay while the sunshines"move be damned.....that said I'm tickled pink to be moving!

Boxes

W/ phase one of my summer training drawing to a close w/ my season opening race scheduled for Monday May 14th it was important to get another solid interval session in yesterday.
Like the 4x1 mile repeats a fortnite ago the 5x1,000m repeats are an old friend,initially brought in 2 years ago to help w/ my 5,000m races I found it a useful repeat for my 800s and 1,500s and thus kept it in my rotation although last year I upped it to 8x1,000m as I prepped for the 5,000m at Worlds.
Coming off of an easy 6 miler on Monday I was primed and ready for another brisk set of repeats at sunny Roxboro and sunny it was w/ temps close to 78 degs when I arrived at 4.30pm.

Six lap warm up b4 getting into my flats,the plan was to go 1.20-1.20-35=3.15.......
I almost cocked it up on the opening 400m posting a 1.13 b4 easing off the gas on the second lap to clock 1.26 and closing in a modest 36 seconds to open in a brisk 3.05.0.
After that things settled down,1.18-1.21-33-3.12.0 for #2,1.18-1.19-36-3.13.5 for #3
1.20-1.20-34-3.14.3 for #4 and 1.19-1.21-34-3.14.6.for #5.
Obviously I was a little concerned on #4 and #5 that my bravardo on the opening 400m would come back and derail my hopes of going 5/5 at sub 3.15 but I was able to hunker down and dig deep over the final 5 laps.

Once again,w/ almost deft precision{or should that be deaf precision!!!}I had to weave around a walker in lane 1 for most of my workout......inspite of numerous other walkers who chose the outer lanes,"Budwiser King Of Beers" kept walking in lane 1 and kept giving me "daggers' everytime I blew by him and cut back into the inside of lane 1,it's funny I came across a blog entry from 08 where I bitched about the lack of respect I get from lane 1 walkers at Roxboro,nothing has changed in four years.....of course that summer in Spokane I got silver in the 800m and gold in the 1,500m so maybe it's an omen as Lisle is now 14 weeks away......

May Day

5x1,000m repeats @ Roxboro
1.13-1.26-36-3.05.0
1.18-1.21-33-3.12.0
1.18-1.19-36-3.13.5.
1.20-1.20-34-3.14.3.
1.19-1.21-34-3.14.6.
More details to follow....