(Finals) Week in Review

67 miles
10k Tempo on track at alternating paces
15 miles with 5 mile tempo at 600, 551, 500, 557, 547
13 Hours for Accounting Final
2 Hours for Managerial effectiveness final

I was really proud to have hit 67 during my first finals week of the Fuqua MBA.  This week featured the much-hyped accounting final, where I had heard stories and rumors that the test would take up to 18 hours.  For those that don't know, when I was at Wake, I had never gotten a B in my life, and suddenly I got a C- in my first Financial Accounting course.  I skipped right over the B's and plopped right on the low end of C.  It was devastating.  In order to seal my admission to the undergraduate Calloway School of Business, I had to retake the class in the Summer term.  So, yes, this was my THIRD time taking this subject, and unfortunately I don't remember much from either of those two course.  So I completed the final on Friday and it "only" took me about 12 hours.  After that, all I wanted to do was watch an episode of New Girl and eat chocolate.  I decided to sleep in the next day and do all the things that I don't typically get to do, like go to the farmer's market and take a field trip to Umstead to run easy with Amanda.  It was a great way to just take a mini-break before I begin to prepare for Term 2.

It's clear from the above that workouts this week were secondary to my finals, but I still got them in.  My long run wasn't perfect, but I somehow still hit most of the splits prescribed by Coach T-bone.  It was my first "meh" workout in a while, so I was definitely due for one.

Week in Review

77 miles
12 mile MLR
6 x mile on track
20 Miles Long Run

This week I nailed all of my workouts.  Leading up to my finals, I worried that the heavy workload from accounting and managerial effectiveness would take a toll on my fitness and affect my ability to successfully complete workouts.  In fact, running still seems to be an outlet for stress relief, rather than building more stress.  If it becomes a stressor, then that means I need to take a day off.   This week I had Billy's company for a mile repeat workout on Duke's track and then Amanda and George joined me for a long run on the ATT.

Mile Repeats:
Splits (Rest)
556 (56)
547 (1:26)
542 (1:59)
533 (2:25)
528 (2:59)5:24 
The goal here was to get faster each mile and to increase the rest after each interval. I was told to stop whenever I could no longer hit the split at 8 seconds faster than the previous.  This workout was great because it gave me an option to stop whenever my body told me enough was enough.  I really wanted to hit sub 5:20 but I think that another part of me just wanted to workout to be done.  Billy stepped out for a couple of laps on this one and, when I was solo, my pace faltered on that last interval, preventing me from hitting my goal of sub-520.

Point-to-Point 20 miler in 2:15
The goal for this workout was to run a 10 mile progression steady (620-640) at some point during the run. Since Matt graciously decided to pick us up at the end of the Tobacco Trail, Billy, Amanda and I set off from her house, with the only way to get home literally 20 miles away.  It was a great way to make a long run fun.  Fortunately, my legs felt fantastic, so after coming through 10 miles in 70 minutes, I hit the accelerator and began cruising.  From 10-15 miles, we were hitting about 630-640 pace. From miles 16-20, I felt really good and began hitting 610-620 pace and closed the final, 20th mile in 5:59 pace.

I was really excited about this workout.  Not only did it tell me that I've still got a lot of strength and endurance, it told me that I hadn't lost my marathon touch.  After this long run, I am a bit bummed that I couldn't work it out to do a full marathon this fall, but I just keep reminding myself that I truly do have the rest of my life to continue pursuing my marathon dreams and chipping away at my PRs.

Week in Review

70 Miles
tempo Workout
200m on / off workout
15.5 mile long run easy

I'm super behind on my blog because finals week took over my life from the week of September 23 - 29.  I honestly don't remember what happened this week except that all of my workouts were really great.  Things are definitely moving in the right direction!

Solo 200m on / off

Goal:
10 miles with 20 minutes of 200m on/off at 40s/50s

Actual:
3 miles warmup
4 miles in 23:17 of 200m on/off on the track with slow laps 48-49 and fast laps around 38-40 with last one @ 36
3 miles cool down for 10 miles total

I waited until after my MBA classes today to do this workout.  Since there's a mile race tomorrow in Raleigh, that meant that I had no company for this one, and it wasn't as bad as I had expected. I knocked out 16 laps on the track with purely my own motivation preventing me from quitting.

Tempo in CLT

Goal:
2.5m @ 600, 800m jog, 1m @ 540 or faster, 800m jog, 2.5m @ 600

Actual:
3 miles warmup at 530am
2.5 miles via 557, 602, 251 for 14:50 total
800m jog in 3:43
1 mile in 531
800m jog in 412 includes quick water stop
2.5 miles via 551, 552, 251 for 14:34 total
2 miles cool down for 12 total

It definitely doesn't feel like September yet! The humidity this morning in Charlotte was strong and I could tell by the amount of sweat drenched in my shorts after just ten minutes of running.  Further solidifying my belief that Charlotte is quite possibly one of the best cities for "urban running," a group of about 8 people headed over to the Dilworth Speed Loop to knock out a variety of workouts.  For this one, I had the company of David Willis and Billy Shue and we are all in about the same shape, so it worked perfectly.  While it was not as easy as I would have liked for the last 2.5 miles, I felt really great on the fast mile. Slowly getting into half marathon shape again!

Week in Review

70 Miles
0 Doubles
Workout 1: 10 miles @ 644 average
Workout 2: 12 miles with 10 x 1000m @ 334 average with 1:00 rest on Duke track
Long Run:  15 miles with 6.5 miles in 613 average via 624, 627, 619, 614, 608, 601, 2:55 last 800m

Overall, after just three weeks of having real half marathon workouts since my two down weeks during my MBA, I'm finally beginning to feel like I'm in shape!  I feel pretty strong in my workouts and I have a lot of confidence that I can maintain my fitness throughout my MBA.  It seems fairly manageable to run about 70 miles a week without sacrificing the quality of my school work.