return void;

So this week, I ran a total of 6 times. That’s right, 6 consecutive days, I managed to lace up and run. In fact, I even created a schedule to follow which will allow me to rebuild my abilities and prepare for some races.

I decided to start by doing 2 extended interval runs a week before I go to the gym. What I’m referring to as an “extended interval run” is a run where I lump multiple intervals together and run them back-to-back without rest. Of course I can only run a few this way, but I will work my way up to running as far as my body will carry me. I ran 4 continuous quarter mile splits at 800 meter pace, which made for an 8:15 pace. I had struggled to do this last week, but succeeded both times this week.

I did manage to still get to the gym for a 30 minute workout twice. I spent 10 minutes on the stair machine, ten minutes on the rowing machine one day and bike the other, and still did a tough core workout. I have to admit, it was very gratifying to show up already sweaty, as if I am always busting my hump. It garnered interesting looks from the twenty-something girls at the checkin counter.

I also was able to hit my target pace during the intervals on Monday. Started out doing just the 4 800 meter intervals, which grew progressively slower. As you can tell from the pace chart, I walked the rest periods, which seems to greatly scew the chart. I’m not very happy with SportTracks and I’m growing increasingly frustrate with its complete lack of openness. I realize that these are the types of things that will never be fixed and asking for such changes usually results in the overly Windows forum community to write you off unless you’ve donated (read: bought the software). Downloadable shareware that’s closed source? Seriously? Hey Zone Five, 1994 called, they want their business model back.

Saturday was hell though. I made it though about 2 miles without any challenges, but started to find my heartrate had climbed up there and was not relenting. I was struggling to breath and my quads were starting to ache. It didn’t help to realize I had 4 miles left. I stopped about a half dozen times or more, as you can tell from the jumps in pace. However, there were about 3-4 times where I got lost because I decided to explore a neighborhood I had never been in. Getting lost can really take the wind out of my sails. I also made the mistake of thinking I wasn’t hungry when I left the house. I wasn’t, but quickly ran out of gas on the trail. After all of the hills, getting lost, draining my energy, and the complete frustration of not being able to keep pace, I ended the run early as to avoid continuing the horrible experience.

In the end, I think I may scale the Friday easy run back because I don’t think it helped any. It may in fact increase my risk for injury so I think I will scale back by a mile next week. Since I cut back a mile off the 6 miler yesterday, I’ll have to repeat this week next week to make sure I can continue the plan.

Here’s this week’s pace charts. I changed them to graph pace against distance since time doesn’t really help much.

Geez, that took forever to manually add each individual chart to a post like that.