Sunday, January 27, 2008

Catching Up: Marathon Recovery and a 10K Race

Now that the marathon is done, it's time to start thinking about the HARRA Spring Series and its shorter races.

21¼ miles last week after the marathon
M – rest, 47°F at 5AM, arms sore, legs sore and using the handrail to go downstairs, a few twinges from left outside Achilles/foot
Tu – rest, 53°F at 5AM, legs sore and using the handrail to go downstairs, a few twinges from left outside Achilles/foot
W - rest, 49°F and raining at 5AM, walking downstairs easily without the handrail by the afternoon, still a few twinges from left outside Achilles/foot
Th – rest, 53°F 5AM, no more niggles from the left outside Achilles/foot
F - 7½ miles recovery run, average pace 8:18 mpm, 48°F at Noon [SeaC/NtrailMBtrail/SeaC]
Sa – 4¾ miles recovery run with BARRA, average pace 10:01 mpm, 42°F at 7AM overcast cold and windy, [2xNtrail]
Su – 9 miles, average pace 7:21 mpm, 52°F before Noon, Partly Cloudy [SeaC/Ntrail-2M/SeaC]


41¾ miles for the week
M – rest, 57°F at 5AM
Tu – 5¼ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:20 mpm, 67°F overcast and mist at 4AM [Dow/Ol]
W - 5 miles on the track, with 3 miles fairly hard, average pace 6:36 mpm, miles splits for the hard 3 miles were 6:15, 6:09, and 6:00, 51°F at 7PM with mist [B'Wood Track]
Th – 5¼ miles recovery run, average pace 8:17 mpm, 48°F at 4AM [Dow/Ol]
F - 4¼ miles recovery run, average pace 9:02 mpm, 42°F at 4PM [FlagR-P-P]
Sa – 9½ miles with a 10K race at an average pace 6:09 mpm, 43°F at 8AM and overcast [Angleton]
Su – 12½ miles, average pace 6:49 mpm, 55°F from 1:30PM, Partly Cloudy with filtered sun, [SeaC/Ntrail-MBTrail-2x(2M-MBT)/SeaC]

Wednesday's track workout went well and I had pretty high hopes for Saturday's 10K race in Angleton. The weather Saturday morning was very good, with just a light north wind, an overcast sky and cool temperatures. Unfortunately I don't think I was quite ready to race a 10K. I ended up with a 38:14; 3 seconds slower than my 10K PR of 38:11 set on the same course way back in January 2003. Back then, the Angleton race was two weeks before the Houston Marathon. On the positive side, I ran much better than last year. 38:14 age-grades out to 79% (79.4% if you add my months past 48) using the 2006 WAVA factors. I think it's interesting that the 2006 age-grading is relatively higher for the shorter races. Under the old 1994 WAVA factors this would only be a 77.4% performance. Looking forward to the Spring series of shorter races, I'm hoping I can follow the old 1994 factors and get some new PRs.

Here's the Angleton 10K course:

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On the personal side, my son came home this weekend. He is on terminal leave with a medical discharge from the Army. This long ordeal is finally over for us, but I still can't forget the other soldiers from his unit who are over there now and the thousands of families who are still struggling with this war.

2 comments:

Mir said...

Nice work on that 10K! So soon after the marathon and still only 3 seconds off your PR, that's amazing.

I'm so glad to hear your son is home. Many thanks to him for serving. I wish all of them could come home!

GB said...

I'm glad your son is home and I hope he's okay.

My ex husband was on the inactive Army Reserve list forever, and he got orders to report for physicals in March. Our kids are not too happy and his wife is beside herself. I just hope for the best for him, and of course for our kids.