Robots and Zombies and Opera, Oh My!

Week 14: 3/14/11 - 3/20/11 (4 weeks remain)

Monday: Off day.

Tuesday: 14 miles. Went to do an interval workout at the track, but once again, the f*$@ing lacrosse team had closed the track because they "needed" to "play a game". How inconsiderate! Ended up switching some workouts around for the week, and doing the medium-long day today.

Wednesday: Didn't run - spent all day at the MIT 150th Symposium on cancer research, followed by a midterm from 7:00 - 10:00.

Thursday: 8 miles with 5 x 600 meter intervals. Got out of lab late today, and by the time I got to the track, lacrosse had closed it off AGAIN. I thought briefly about running the interval workout on the treadmill again as I had last week, and then decided that since running on the treadmill sucked, I would just go back to the track later after the lacrosse team had left. Got back to the track at 7:00, did a 2-mile warmup, stretched out, and then started the workout.

The plan was to start one interval every four minutes, with the goal of running at or below 75-second quarter pace (5:00/mile pace), corresponding to 2:00/interval. The actual times I ended up running were 1:48, 1:47, 1:48, 1:48, and 1:48, which comes out to 72 seconds/quarter, or 4:50/mile pace.

Surprisingly enough, I hadn't actually planned to go that fast for these intervals; as before, I basically just ran the first one at a pace that felt like a reasonable balance between comfort and sustainability, and I just so happened to come in at 1:48. Since this turned out to be significantly faster than I had originally planned without seeming out-of-control, as in the case of the last time I ran this workout I once again basically just made a game-time decision to revise my target pace downward to 1:48. I was also pretty happy to see that there was a 1-second spread over the entire set, which was lot tighter than the spread the last time I ran this workout (also I'm not known for my reliability when it comes to calibrating my pace :-P).

But most importantly, I didn't feel at any point during the workout like I was really straining - I was running relatively quickly, but it felt almost effortless. I think this is a pretty good indication in terms of my current level of fitness - looks like the hard work is finally paying off :-).

Friday: Also didn't run - didn't get up until noon as a result of spending the previous night out (St. Patrick's Day and Kimchi's birthday). Moderately beat. Then had to rush out for the opening night of Death and the Powers. Robots + zombie apocalypse + opera = win :-D!

Saturday: 9 miles, general aerobic.

Sunday: 16 miles. I had originally planned to get up and run this workout in the early afternoon - unfortunately, I ended up not waking up until 12:00 or so (was out until 2:30 at Vamsi's place the night before with some Caltech guys who were in town visiting). Got a call at the last minute to show a visiting student around town (also from Caltech :-), and consequently didn't get back until 4:30. Had dinner scheduled for 8:00 in Harvard square, and didn't get out the door until 5:00 or so, so I ended up having to run this workout at a pretty high intensity, much higher than I had originally intended. Was pretty beat by the time I got back, but actually quite pleased with how much the LT/VO2 max stuff has been working over the previous couple of weeks - there's been a noticeable improvement in speed.

Total weekly mileage: 47 <-- on the low side again, but still of high quality.