Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Shaking off the rust

I need to give myself a swift kick in the pants for my lack of blogging lately.  I apologize to any of you who read my blog regularly.  Life has been busy lately for me.  I have been working more hours than normal and when I'm not working, training, or competing, I am trying to get other aspects of my every day life under control.  Not that there is anything negative going on in my life at all...just the joys of the real world!

After a solid month of training, it was time to shake off all the cobwebs.  The Penn Relays was my opening race this past weekend.  Going into the race, I knew that I was fit.  Training has been going great and my body was responding really well to all of the work we were doing.  I wasn't concerned with my time as much as I was about going out there and competing.

I have always loved the Penn Relays, so to open up my season there was a lot of fun.  I was able to spend my warm up on the infield of the stadium and witness the chaos that is the USA vs the World Relays events.  In high school it was always my dream to be able to be in the infield, and I was finally able to experience it.  The crowd is always loud and the atmosphere is as good as it can get in the stadium.  There were times when I couldn't even hear myself speak and I found myself standing in awe of the noise that the spectators created.  It truly is one of the best meets in the world.


My view from the infield of Penn Relays

My warm up felt great so all I needed to do was go out on the track and race smart.  The pacing was fine for the first 1200 meters.  My instruction from coach was to sit back and let the pack to the majority of the work.  With 300 meters to go, I felt the need to get up towards the front before it was too late.  I moved up into second place and started to kick for home.  Unfortunately, I ran in lane two for too much of the last turn which was a mistake on my part.  I was working to hard to hold my position instead of tucking into the poll until the home straight.  I wasn't able to pull off the victory, finishing in 3:58.5 for second place.  I had mixed emotions afterward because no matter what race I'm in, I want to win.  But, I was able to take a look at the race differently after my cool down and my post-race talk with Coach Gags.  A season debut at 3:58.5 is not a bad result.  I will be able to run a low-key 800 this Friday night at West Chester Henderson which will be a good test to see where my 800 fitness is at!

Here is my training from the past two weeks.  Below you can find a link to my post race interview on FloTrack!


April 14-20

Monday
Morning-
6x800 (2:20, 2:16, 2:12)x2
4x200m
Afternoon-
Weight Session
Total Mileage: 10


Tuesday
8 mile recovery run
Drills/Strides


Wednesday
Morning-
4 mile tempo (5:20, 5:17, 5:12, 5:10)
6x150m hill
Weight Session
Total Mileage: 11

Thursday
8 mile recovery run
Drills/Strides


Friday
Morning-
 1x1000, 2x600, 2x400 (mile pace)
Afternoon-
Weight Session
Total Mileage: 8
Saturday
12 mile long run

Sunday
OFF

Total Weekly Mileage: 58 (6 days)


April 21-27

Monday
Morning-
5x800, 1x200 (25 sec), 1x400 (800 pace)
Afternoon-
Weight Session
Total Mileage: 9


Tuesday
8 mile recovery run
Drills/Strides


Wednesday
Morning-
8x400 w/ 1 min rest
1x300 @ 40 seconds
Afternoon-
Weight Session
Total Mileage: 8

Thursday
8 mile recovery run
Drills/Strides


Friday
Morning-
6 mile shake out run
Strides

Saturday
Penn Relays OD Mile
3:58.5
2nd place

Sunday
13 mile long run


Total Weekly Mileage: 59


For questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to post below or email me directly at mikeruttrunning@gmail.com!

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