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....