Starting workouts, Planning races, XC season has arrived

Monday, August 25: 2:00 PM - Hill Workout (New Trainers)
20 min w/u, 16 x 350m Hills @ 62-65 sec w/ 3 min jog rest, 20 min c/d
Tuesday, August 26: 8:00 AM - 10 Miles, 67 min
Wednesday, August 27: 7:30 AM - 10 Miles, 69 min
Thursday, August 28: 8:00 AM - Interval Workout
20 min w/u, 6 x 5min @ 4:50-5:00 pace w/ 3min jog rest, 20 min c/d
Friday, August 29: 7:00 AM - 10 Miles, 72 min
5:00 PM - 5 Miles, 35 min
Saturday, August 30: 7:30 AM - 10 Miles, 68 min
Sunday, August 31: 8:00 AM - 15 Miles, 97 min

Week Total = 86 Miles, 8 Runs
August Total = 350 Miles

Today is the last day of August which typically represents the last day of summer, following summer of course is fall, which for many of us means cross country season. It's been an interesting summer and a lot has happened along the way, but I have to say I'm anxious for the fall season. It seems like I've been struggling to regain my fitness those entire three months of summer, and even though I still have a long way to go, things are finally starting to come around. After getting several weeks of base mileage in, I finally started workouts again this week. My body has felt a little beat up lately, but it feels good to start doing some quality work again. When I say beat up, I mostly mean the beginning of the season, little aches, and nagging pains type stuff. For instance, my IT Band flared up for a while last week, my patella tendon was bothering me on a couple runs, my left ankle has been tight from when I rolled it in Mammoth, my right soleus is as hard as a rock, and my wonderful plantar trouble has yet to miss a run.

Yes, these things are annoying, and I would much rather do without them, but they are things that tend to come with the territory. The one good thing about them is that they are manageable, and that is key. I have been bumping up my mileage and I am starting to introduce intensity, which means I have to be cautious, but I feel like I've been pretty smart about it all. As long as I can maintain and manage these little nagging problems, and not let them become bigger problems, I should be all set. Soaking in the creek after each run in Mammoth was a big help with this, and now that I'm back in Chino Hills, I need to keep that trend going. Since we don't have a creek, we use other methods, i.e. the Typhoon Lagoon (as seen on our porch in the pictures here). It's not quite as convenient as the creek (since we need to acquire ice and the water needs to be changed regularly), but we make it work. Other than that, I am just trying to listen to my body as much as possible and not force the volume or the intensity. My teammates are currently doing much higher mileage than I am and their fitness is probably further along than my own. Even though I'd like to do doubles every day, I choose not to and just keep the volume at a level I think I can handle, rather than doing everything that they are doing. I'm already averaging higher mileage than I was last fall, but nothing drastic. I'll try to stay between 80 and 100 miles a week for the bulk of the season, and adjust if needed.

The workouts have gone pretty well this week. We joined the OCC team for our hill workout on Monday and I thought it would be much harder on me than it was. I started out somewhat conservative, but I was still feeling it about half way through. Despite it feeling pretty tough and despite it being at the hottest time of the day, I kept the intervals pretty consistent and finished feeling relatively strong. Carlos actually got some footage from our session, which Steve posted here on Facebook. Thursday's workout was even better. Steve and I went over to the Mt. SAC course and did intervals on the trails there. It was a very solid workout, it felt a lot more controlled than Monday's session, and it was nice not having to weave in and out of all the OCC guys.

So as we start in on workouts, we are also planning for our races coming up and how we'd like the cross country season to develop. The first race on the schedule is now just three weeks away (Sept 21), which is the CVS Downtown 5K in Providence, RI. This is a great race and it also serves as the USATF 5K Road Championships so there will be plenty of competition. Steve and I will both be making this trip to the east coast and are looking forward to getting our season underway. I'm not sure how fast I'll be able to run there, but it's a good place to start and my goals are simply to be competitive and race well. Other potential races on the schedule include the following:

Oct 26 - Mayors Cup (Boston, MA)
Nov 23 - USATF Pacific Association Champs (San Francisco, CA)
Dec 13 - USATF Club National Championships (Spokane, WA)
Dec 31 - Emerald Nuts 4 Miler (New York, NY)

The main focus of this season will be the Club Nationals race with hopes of improving on my finish from last year. The rest of the races will simply be stepping stones to help get me to the competitive level that I desire. If things go well, it could be a very successful season for both myself and my team members. And if things go really well, who knows what doors could open up in the future.

Lastly, I'd like to wish all the best to those competing in New Haven tomorrow for the 20K Championships, including both current and former teammates. It's a pretty stacked race this year so it should be interesting to see how things unfold.