Boston Marathon vacation ends tragically with a return to work. Little recovery run this morning. Quads still a bit sore, but that's to be expected. 5.1 miles, 47:18, 9:20/mi, AHR 136 (70% MHR)

Uh.... you first.

...didn't have any coffee yet... Bear with me...that better Tim

Thats funny WRFB......Nice Marathon BTW ! Great swim this morning. It was a nice follow up to the crappy swim I had Monday. Opened with a strong 1000 yards. Followed by some drills and then 200 yd hard repeats. Left exhausted and now I feel refreshed! Got to work and someone brought in a HUGE bowl of fresh fruit. Strawberrys, mangos, pineapple, a variety of melons, kiwi, grapes.......I love fresh pineapple.....I'm eating it right now....Mmmmmm tangy and sweet. 2nd trip is going to be a must ! Outside of a little wind the weather now thru Friday is going to be fantastic! I'm going to try and arrange a group ride tomorrow afternoon. Either way, group or not I'm hittin the raod. Wishing you all a great day !

Good Morning!! I went out for a run this morning - woohoo! I even have time to post about it .... double WooHoo!! Brinkley was overly excited to see me turn on my Garmin this morning .... I wish I had some of that energy! We put in a pretty good effort for our 4 miles this morning at 9:49 pace - AHR 168. The moon was just a slice in the sky that looked so pretty just over the tops of the trees. I tried to take a picture of it with my phone - but it did not show up, so here is a picture of Carlisle instead:

Tim, that workout sounds encouraging. You might try to ease off that pace a bit. 7's ought to be fine, and 800's seem right for your first trip back to the track. Keep that rest interval short, say 200 meters. When you do 800's this will cause you to start each new one on the opposite side of the track. Keep track of your splits and let us know how it went. Don't be surprised if you go out way too fast on the first one. Your first workout is often all over the map. For everyone else, and I've posted about this before, why would I advise him to do a workout that is well within his aerobic capacity? It is just for that reason. There is little point in going to the track and going into oxygen debt and curtailing the workout because the legs tie up. Better to do a workout that allows you a sustained high heart rate, with short rest periods. You gain more training benefit from it because of the duration of the exercise, not the speed. Also, you will see that he intends to embed this workout within a lot of miles. There is no point in overdoing the speed portion first time out. As for those here who run 800's at say 3:15's or so and then take longer rest intervals, they do this because it is EASIER for them. It is far easier to run the workbout a bit faster and then stand around for complete recovery. But the quality of the overall workout is diminished and such a workout is not useful early in a program. I can explain that last comment at another time if anyone is interested. Here is what Daniels has to say about VO2 max work in general: “…the problem with working harder than the slowest pace that elicits V02 max, when the purpose of the session is to work at max, is that aerobically you can’t work any harder, which means you’re doing the extra work at the expense of anaerobic metabolism, and lactate accumulation begins to limit you as the workout progresses. Further, working at the harder-than-necessary intensity doesn’t improve the aerobic mechanisms any more than working at the minimum max intensity does. The result is that the workout becomes more stressful and the benefits no greater—in fact they could be less beneficial…nothing’s more frustrating than to work really hard in a training session and not get the desired, and deserved benefits.” At a 7 minute pace, Tim will not come close to VO2 max work, but I just wanted others to see the principle. So what happens if Tim runs 8 x 800 (not 6 x 800, notice that he isn't sure yet; it's his first one), at 3:30 for each and jogs 200 meters before starting the next one. He is going to be on the track for quite some time, at an accelerated heart rate, but still fairly aerobic. When the workout is over, he will feel pleasantly tired, and tomorrow he shouldn't be sore. And on Friday he should be completely recovered and have put a tremendous quality workout in the bank. This is the reason why I have been pretty curmudgeonly about pace times on the track. If you are a 20-minute 5K runner, that means you are racing the fiveK just faster than 6:30's. There is no reason for you to be at the track running 800's at 3:15 if you can't recover in about one minute and continue the exercise. (FiveK pace is about 90-95% of VO2 max.) Tim, I suspect is faster than this pace, but hasn't raced in a long time, so he can't be certain, and it would be good if this first trip to the track is successful and builds his desire to get back there. 3:30 pace Tim, trust me. Spareribs

2.6 easy recovery miles on our soft resevoir loop. Have tickets for the Sox game tonight. Hope the expected rain holds off.

I love Carlisle! (Puppy and Pennsylvania) 0830 room temperature e-stim to left butt then elbow to left butt then stretches stretches strethes Then about 30 minutes of Wii torture. My PT is young and innovative. She has her clients use the Wii Fit. Good exercises and a great way to measure progress. On one balance thing I am "A Couch Potato" but on a few others I am "A Fitness Enthusiast". After two months on the DL, I think things are progressing in a forward motion. Whew. Not there yet but I have hope.