Week 2
Monday, August 6
Today was a 40-minute easy run at my team retreat outside Silverthorne followed by 6x8 second hill sprints. Average pace for the easy run was 6:29, which felt really good for being at altitude (8500 ft), and the hill sprints had about two minutes of rest in between to fully recover and are beginning to feel a little more smooth/easy.
Total miles: 6.19
Tuesday, August 7
Today is the first official practice of cross season. I did a 54-minute easy run today at Grigs focusing on effort rather than pace. Average pace was 6:34 and I definitely was a little tight in the first part of the run from doing hill sprints yesterday. Overall, it was a pretty solid run.
Total miles: 8.3
Wednesday, August 8
I did a 30-minute tempo run (around 5.5 miles) today averaging around 5:27 pace. Warmup was a mixture of drills and stretching, a mile jog, and four strides to get the legs nice and warmed up. The tempo itself felt a little rough the first mile or so while I was settling into pace but once I did it felt fairly comfortable. Cool-down was another mile jog back to the parking lot followed by core and hip mobility (which is an everyday routine after practice).
Total miles: 7.73
Thursday, August 9
Today was another 54-minute easy run at grigs. Once again I focused more on effort than pace, especially since I was a little tight/sore from the tempo run the day before. The average pace today was around 6:35 and the run went fairly smoothly once I got the legs moving.
Total miles: 8.27
Friday, August 10
I did my first double today. Focusing mainly on recovery and an easy effort, I did a 30-minute run in the morning followed by another 30-minute run later that day to hit mileage this week. Average pace for both was 6:30 (on a flat trail), but it definitely took several minutes extra for my legs to fully warm up during the second run. Legs were pretty tired today from the workload this week so today's recovery was much needed.
Total miles: 9.25
Saturday, August 11
Today we did an 80-minute long run with last five minutes at tempo effort at Waterton Canyon. The average pace was 6:10 including the tempo at the end of the run. My legs felt pretty fatigued the first couple miles but once I flushed some of that lactic acid that had built up my legs actually felt really good. The pace for the five-minute tempo effort was roughly 5:20-5:27 and it felt really controlled. (Was also the first long run this season where basically the whole team showed up which was pretty sweet.)
Total miles: 13
Sunday, August 12
I just did an easy four-mile run today. Average pace was 6:16 and I felt really good. IT band was giving me a little trouble but after icing, rolling, and taking an Advil it feels much better.
Total miles: 4
