January 12-18 Training

Monday: 3 miles (9:32). 3 miles Brixx (10:34).  On the Brixx run, I decided to just keep a very easy pace without looking at the GPS watch.  I knew I was slow, but wasn't expecting it to be that slow.  Dry needling #2 between the two runs.

Tuesday: 6 miles (9:30).  Easy 6 with 4x30s pickups.  Left leg feeling pretty good today.  My pace at the end of the pickups was 7:30, 7:10, 7:55, 7:30.  First time to open up some speed since November. It felt pretty good.
Wednesday: 8 miles (10:30). Plan was for an easy 8.  I decided to do my first ever run based on heart rate.  Once my heart rate reached 155, I tried to maintain that heart rate for the remainder of the run.  It was in the second mile when I hit the 155 heart rate.  When I was at my peak fitness last spring, my heart rate would average mid 140's on the easy runs.  Coming back from an injury time out, you can't try to run your old easy pace. This 10:30 easy pace should drop quickly over the next two months.  Patience is the key.
Thursday: No running. I had dry needling session #3 today. Left leg is feeling pretty good. Coach gave me a "rest day".
Friday: 5 miles (9:35).  Nice day to run, ran with Rodney Bice.
Saturday: .88 miles (9:26).  Went to go run 5 miles on the streets of Houston and took a hard fall before finishing the first mile.  Skinned an area below my left knee and bruised where my left leg/hip join.  It gave me doubts whether I could run the half marathon on Sunday.
Sunday: 13.1 miles (8:50).  Ran the Houston half marathon.  Weather was perfect, around 48 degrees at the start and it didn't warm up too much by the finish.  My plan was to start out 9:30, 9:20 and see if I could sneak under 2 hours.  After starting out with 9:31, 9:09, the rest of the miles were all sub 9:00 and it was feeling pretty easy.  Second half I started doing under 8:40 and finished mile 13 in 7:57 before giving it a hard finish.  This was a great course.  Very fast and flat. Would like to return and do the full marathon here.






Total miles: 39 miles:  I was hoping for a 40+ mile week, but the hard fall in Houston on Saturday took that away.  As I write this on Monday morning, my left leg is feeling close to 100%.  The only pain I have today is from the fall on Saturday.  Now it's time to shift the focus to training for the Boston Marathon, which is 14 weeks away.