Thursday SITREP

The fire situation seems to be getting a bit better.  Maybe that is too optimistic of a statement but for certain today the situation is not getting much worse.  They briefed earlier today that a grand total of 346 houses were lost.  Of course that number is subject to change.  My thoughts and prayers to everyone who was impacted with the loss of their homes.

Volunteered some time at ABRT this week helping with displaced animals and so forth.  Good deed for the day today was going to Wal Mart and stocking up on stuff to send to Care and Share.

I did run on Tuesday and it was on my run that I saw the fire rip up Queens Canyon before it's tragic and destructive move over the ridge... I've never seen anything like that ever.  To see flames that big and bright in broad daylight and from several miles away was just unbelievable.

Probably not going to run today.  Still recovering from SJS and not in the mood with all of the other stuff going on.  I'll start back tomorrow but I imagine that long runs are going to be a challenge the next few weeks.

I did register for the Hottest Half, Half Marathon in Dallas in August.  I figure with my luck it will be the coldest and rainiest day for that run ever.  It will be good to go down and visit friends and run.  A nice easy run for the week before LT100 at that.

Someday I will write about the SJS run and all of the things that went well that day.  I did a few different things before that while they didn't make me faster that day, definitely made things easier and more comfortable.

Hope to convince Melissa to get out of town this weekend maybe, get off of the grid and have some fun.  We'll see.

Tuesday No Track

Too damn hot and smoky out to run today.  Also the Holmes Middle School track/field is covered with tents and porta-potties for the firefighters who are kicking ass on the Waldo Canyon fire.

Gotta find a new track.  I wish CC would get theirs fixed soon.

SJS50 went well.  I didn't get as good of a time as I wanted but I definitely HAD a good time which was good.  I might write more about it later after the fire drama dies down some.  I will say that the Hokas rocked, Gummi Bears can turn a day around and I am so over sports drinks and plain cold water is the greatest thing ever.

The Hard Work

Today is going to be such an easy day.  No double runs and just a short trail run on one of my favorite COS city park trails around lunchtime.  After that, feet up till Saturday!

Getting ready for this race has been such challenge but thankfully the last few weeks of training have been very productive.  Especially since May 21, when I got the antibiotics which helped me to kick that coughing thing that had been plaguing me for nearly a month.

Lots of hard work... I read something this week that truly resonated with me.  It is from Hal Higdon's book Run Fast and he cites physiologist Al Claremont for this statement.

          "Too many people write themselves off as having bad bodies, when they posess
more potential than they realize.  They simply are unwilling to do the hard work, including speed training, necessary to convert their supposed bad body into a good one."

This sentiment sort of dovetails into another chapter from another book by Matt Fitgerald entitled Training Weight.

            "In our society, exercise is promoted as a means to achieve desired results.  Exercise product manufacturers and service providers compete by promoting better results through more efficient means.  It is assumeed that you can not possibly enjoy exercise;  therefore fitness solutions are marketed on claims of minimizing the amount of time the consumer is required to suffer through them to achieve the results that he or she wants."

Again just another indicator how people and or athletes regardless of their level of performance sometimes seek out the quick fix, the easy fix, that magic bullet.  Unless somebody is just insanely genetically gifted there is no away around it.  This thing of ours takes hard work and dedication, effort and sacrifice.  

As for me, I am still learning and that makes this whole running endeavor a lot fun for me still.  The part that cracks me up though is the complete and utter simplicity of the entire process.  I need to run faster so I go to the track which I loathe and work out there and guess what?  I start to run faster.  I suck at running in the heat and suffer greatly when the temperatures rise during a race.  So I start running in the heat of the day and take advantage of our mini-heatwave and now I feel more comfortable and confident in warmer weather. (But I am still not going to ever try Badwater.)

These were weaknesses of mine that for some stupid reason or the other I guess I ignored or just hoped would take care of themselves over time.  In regards to heat I have never taken a proactive measure to learn to deal with it but instead always relied on hope and faith for cooler weather on race days, which was never guaranteed.   Some hard work had to be done the past few weeks and I know that in the future there will be even more and I will probably discover some other simple thing or approach to work on something else.  But for now I know I have done all that I can to get ready for this one.

This video speaks volumes on how we disregard just the simplest concepts for being more fit and having a more healthy life.  And it is funny to boot!

 

What Begins in Chaos Ends in Chaos.

Wow... today's track workout started off not go great and well, never got any better.  It must be a combination of the damn wind out of the south and with me being a touch tired.  It just all felt a lot more difficult today.

The original plan was 800m warmup, 8x1000m with 400m rbi, then 800m cool down... Well that is not what happened.  It looked more like this...

800m warm up
1000m #1 4:22
1000m #2 4:27
1000m #3 4:30
1400m #4 6:30 (yeah, see, added another lap on that one cause I guess I can't count.  There's that fine WV public education system for you.. told you it wasn't going well! :) )
1000m #5 4:57
1000m #6 4:46
400m cool down (Only 400 cause I didn't want to spend another hour on the !@#$@#^^#$ track!)

I am not going to read anything into this workout.  Bad days happen and I know that I am still pretty much where I want to be.  I will do a few more miles later today after work just to loosen up but for now nothing taxing until Saturday.

If you haven't seen The Dictator yet I highly recommend it... This song is definitely ear-worm grade.

Everything is Coming Together

Just over four days until the race in Lake City and I can't wait.  Two decent runs today and both went well.  Seems as if I am either throwing everything at this race or the right elements are just in place... weight is staying down, no injuries, no cold or allergies going on, my shoe/sock combo is bombproof, I am rested, taking even more time off before the race and then traveling down there.   I've loaded up the miles, I've loaded the elevation gains in training, I even seem to be managing heat and altitude in a comfortable manner for a change.

Mentally I feel like a coiled spring and am ready to go.  My confidence is right on and along with that I know and understand just where on the course I really need to push it to get my goal time and I am even comfortable with that.  Well, I look at it this way... once up on the Divide, after Coney Peak... either I can run, or I can't... hopefully I can.

Had a fun run on section 16 tonight with Brooks.  Of course I was struggling to keep up but it wasn't as bad as normal... maybe he took it easy on me.  I did find myself stopping and walking over questionable spots on the trail like the foot bridge and one rock outcropping.  No sense jacking things up now just days before the race...

Tomorrow will be an EARLY track workout and I hope it is cooler and the wind isn't as bad up on the Mesa as it has been.  After that I am pretty much done training for the week.  Nice...

Flashed back to this today on my run.... some serious guitar sling'n in the video.



On a less positive note, I received a FedEx box from my atty in Florida this afternoon.  A lot of Dad's papers and pictures and whatnot from his condo... Not ready to open it it.  Talked to Lydia and we both agreed best to wait until after the race.  I am choosing to not deal with that stuff this week... As for the box, hell I don't know what is in there, and I never knew what he had anyway so I see no net gain opening it sooner rather than later... I'll deal with it when I get back.

San Juan Solstice! Six Days To Go!

I really can't believe that in less than six days the race will be happening.  It can't be that soon, right?

I had a decent run today despite being oncall and working. It was hot as hell out and humid in the creek bottom.  Overall though I am feeling great.  I am still psyched over how well the running above treeline went yesterday up on the peak.  Basically If I can just keep it together till Friday and not over do it, get plenty of sleep and don't get too stressed out, I think that I will be going down to Lake City in the best shape ever.

The San Juan Solstice was my first ultra ever and I ran in in 2009, the snow year.  Here is part 3 of the video series I made that day.

Coming Out of the Closet

On April 28th I was on a longish run, 20+ miles or so.  I had already ran to the Garden of the Gods and had taken the shortcut trail up to the water tower and had ran up to the Williams Canyon Trailhead and descended to the bottom of the first steep part of Williams when I had decided that I have had enough of fooling myself.  My feet HURT!

Now I didn't have any blisters or anything like that.  I was wearing my MT110's which I truly love as a trail shoe but by the time I was in Williams my feet were hurting so much that I was dodging rocks and roots trying to protect them.  That is my weak spot... I have tender feet and the constant poking and prodding of rocks and stuff poking through the soles of my shoes... well I was sick it of it.  Call it foot fatigue, call it me being a pussy, call it what you want but I was done.

At Rocky Raccoon in February everyone warned me about kicking roots and banging up my toes... really that didn't happen.  What did happen with the roots and stuff was the same old thing that always happens... my feet just got beat up from landing on the roots and stuff.

Same thing at Desert Rats... I ran the first 25 in the MT110's and that was a huge mistake.  My shit hurt at the end of the first lap.  And though I went to a more substantial shoe, my feet were just DONE!

So... after running the Cheyenne Mountain 50K I had an opportunity to sit down and have an honest discussion with John O'Neill about some things and after doing some more research I made a huge life altering decision...

John ordered them for me and on May 8th, I bought a pair of Hoka Stinso Evo Trail Shoes and except for track workouts I have been wearing them religiously since that day.

I love my Hokas.  There I said it... I am now officially out.  I have put 378 miles on them since my first run in them May 8th.  Those are carefully logged miles so my count is accurate. 

At first they were a mix of good and bad... I loved the fit and with the extra material in the upper my feet felt more protected in them than in a lot of shoes.  All of the EVA foam and whatnot?  Well, I wasn't quite sold yet.  They weighed about as much as my La Sportiva Crosslites so the weight was not a factor for me really but god they felt clunky.

And of course on my first run up on the Mesa I freaking rolled my ankle in them.  When that happened I had to be impartial and tell myself that it could have happened in any shoe... That was the only time that happened on a run.

But the first few days of wearing them I began to notice some things... my muscles in my legs hurt a lot more and I guess that was my body adjusting to the shoe but at the same time, my knees, hips, just my entire skeletal system altogether just felt less abused than usual.  After the first week I was liking the shoes enough to dedicate the next month to training in the exclusively and if that worked out I would race in them at the San Juan Solstice.  To me that was a huge statement and commitment seeing how important that race is to me.

As time went on and I ran in them more and more I found that I liked the shoe more and more.  I think that I fell in love with them the first long run down Rampart Range Road... I was flying and not feeling a damned thing under my feet.  The surface of Rampart Range Road is one of my least favorite to run on as it is so compacted and the rocks that are there jut out of the ground everywhere.  Hell, my feet would get sore running UP that damned road and here I was blasting down it and not feeling a thing.

Then I got to be more experimental... having the Hokas is like having your first 4x4... you know, you take it places, drive it through shit, over shit, etc, just to see what it can do.  In the Hokas I would catch myself running over rocks, or roots, or branches, or anything just to see how the shoe handled it.  More often than not I'd just laugh.

I will say that I am glad that I dedicated so much time to running in shoes with a low drop as these do have a 4mm drop.  That made the transition a little easier I believe.

After a bit I noticed something even more strange... during the afternoons when I would be working I would find myself WANTING to go run... I mean I always want to go run but this was different.  I think that at some levels that I can not even quantify or explain, there were parts of me that were enjoying my runs more so than before.   Maybe because those parts were not getting as beat up as before I suppose.  The other thing that I noticed which was magical is that when I would get up in the morning I would not be as sore or creaky in the joints like most mornings.  Or I would do a 30+ mile run and yeah I'd feel tired and sore at the end but just a few hours later my legs would feel like they were ready for more, so the shoes were working great for improving my recovery times it seemed.

The price?  God they are costly but I told Melissa more than once those first few weeks after just about every run that they have been worth every stinking penny.  I probably told her after each run just how much I loved the shoes.  If Hoka were a publicly traded company I'd probably sink a fortune in buying stock.

For at least this model, I don't think they last any longer than any other shoe for the miles... 378 miles and these are fairly trashed.  Well the outsole is trashed.  The midsole and upper is in pretty solid condition.  The lugs are not as large or as deep as on the Mafate's so I don't know how the two would compare in terms of how each model wears over time.

You can see they are a little beat up.

I still have all of the confidence in the world in this shoe and can not wait to race in them next week in the San Juan Solstice.  I don't know if they are going to make me go any faster but I am sure my feet will hurt a hell of a lot less and because of that alone I believe that I will not slow down as much towards the end.

So... a week away from San Juan... my weight is down (142 this afternoon), I am not sick or injured and I have a pair of shoes that I have a ton of confidence in.  I've been getting my miles in, as well as my elevation/hill training.  I haven't been doing as well with the altitude aspect but I will make the best of that as I can during the race.  All of that being said, I am ready for a good time (literally and figuratively) next week in Lake City.

Wearing my Hokas...

The Crags Hilton and Altitude Training Center

Paul Doyle came up with a quick last minute idea on Tuesday which was to head up to the Crags on Wednesday after work, get a run in, camp out, sleeping at altitude then get up and do a quick run early Thursday morning before heading back to the Springs and work for the day.

Melissa was leaving for a business trip on Wednesday evening so I decided to go for it.  I loaded the Jeep up on Wednesday afternoon and met up with Paul up by the Crags just a little after seven.  There wasn't any time wasted and we got on the road (and trail) headed up towards Devil's Playground.

Sunset over the Mosquito Range as seen from the back side of Pikes Peak

The run up through the woods was great.  The sun was setting to the west behind the Mosquito Range and the sunset was quite vivid and stunning.  I only went three miles up nearly to treeline then I turned around and headed back down to camp in the dark.

After an enjoyable run back to camp I had to set up my tent and as I was doing that it started to rain a little.  I took my old Sierra Designs Super Flash and it has to be staked out, as it is not free standing.  Anyway, the ground was almost impossible to penetrate with a tent stake but eventually the tent was set up and I moved my stuff in.  Paul and decided to get up around four a.m. then we both crashed, Paul in his car and me in the tent.

Believe it or not it was quite warm, even after 9:00 p.m. up there.  I fell asleep on top of my sleeping bag initially but all of that changed about 02:00 a.m. when the temperature just seemed to plummet.

The Crags Hilton and Altitude Training Center

I woke up just a few minutes after four and got myself ready to go and Paul was awake and moving around too.  I decided on just an easy hike up towards The Crags and Paul was going to run intervals on the trail then we would meet back at the camp site around six to take off.

Got back, started packing the Jeep, misplaced my keys, found keys in my shorts pocket... finished packing up and headed out at 6:17 a.m. back to town.  At that time the thermometer on the Jeep registered a whopping 36 degrees. 

The great thing about this little outing was that I learned that I can be up there in less than an hour and sleep at a higher elevation at night and come back in the mornings for work if I need to and quite easily at that.  It isn't my preferred option for altitude acclimatization but in a pinch it will suffice.

Tuesday Track

Had a great workout on the track today despite the @#$@$# winds out of the south.  It was a little warm but overall not too bad.  I am happy that today went so well.  The absolutely cool thing about today's workout was that Annie drove up to the track to hang out with me and she ran all of my recovery laps with me.  It was great to have the company!

800m warmup, 7x1000m with 400m rbi, and 800m cool down... 4:20, 4:15, 4:20, 4:17, 4:16, 4:19, 4:15.

8x1000m next week... yowza....

This Week's Meltdown

I just want to take the time to clear the air regarding my publicly stated frustrations this week.  It was a hard week and really it isn't getting any easier and I don't expect it to anytime soon.  To break it down, my rants were the products of 90% professional bullshit, followed by 10% personal bullshit.  I'll start with the professional bullshit first.

Most people, even friends don't really know what I do and I am more than okay about that.  If I talk about work I prefer to talk about what I have done recently or have to do or what is happening presently such as a shitty on-call rotation.  All of the other other details and mumbo-jumbo I just try to minimize its role and whatnot in my life.

Now there is a great amount of confusion, change and proposed upheaval in my work environment that is not only impacting me but a lot of my closest coworkers and even my immediate management (my manager an the manager of our sister team, who are awesome to work for) and none of this change is leading towards a good or even functional end.  Everything from voluntary rif's to restructuring the organization.  I am pissed but my dissatisfaction is minor compared to some of my more vocal cohorts.

Be that as it may, there have been a couple of high level briefings and meetings with executive types the past two weeks and it is those meetings and the messages in those meetings that have frustrated me the most.  One exec misrepresented and contradicted himself so bad that seriously... if he were giving testimony in court a lawyer would rip him to shreds as a poor witness lacking any credibility what so ever.  The hard part for me is that I have to reconcile somehow in my mind that this is a leader whom I am supposed to trust and look up to and be inspired by?  I fucking think not.

I watched a movie last night where the owner of a company asked an employee if he was happy there... wow... what a concept.  Something like that would NEVER be asked or even valued in our current corporate culture.

My upbringing provided me with a very strong sense of right and wrong, fair play and a somewhat reliable moral compass... somewhat.  My military training at its root I have always credited with teaching me and instilling in me a strong sense of integrity.  Integrity in my book accounts to personal strength, knowing and choosing to do the right thing. And if you choose wrongly and fuck up?  Have the strength to stand up, claim it, clean up your mess and move on.  Integrity is very important to me.  Melissa has tons of it and that is one of the biggest reasons we are together. 

I was also taught to lead from the front... I don't get that sense anymore in my professional environment... The leaders we have now are incapable of leading and have proven themselves to lack so much character that nobody in their right mind (or capable of thinking on their own) would even follow anymore... Most of my coworkers wonder, actively, why our executives hate us so much... seriously!  Yes it is that bad and it really pisses me off and there was 90% of the cause of my ranting.

The other 10% is personal and mostly is centered around dealing with my father's death and cleaning that up.  It is hard on me handling the estate portion, the administrative part because to do that I try my very best to compartmentalize it, be objective, fair, completely unemotional and level headed. In other words, handle it in a professional nature.  There is some more of that military training..  This is a dirty, dirty job to manage and we are months away from closure on it.  I know as the only and oldest son it is my duty to take care of this and I will, but fuck me it is hard at times.  Because (as far as we know so far) no clear direction was left behind, we are muddling through a lot of grey right now and that can be uncomfortable.  That is the administrative part of it... Then there is the emotional aspect that to be honest I really have NO idea how I am handling it.  Am I grieving more than I realize?  Am I not grieving enough?  I will substitute the word grieving with processing as it sounds more positive, but still,  I wonder how I am doing?  

So there you have it... just a lot of the ugliness in life I was dealing with this week.  Throw in some other personal disappointments as a customer with businesses local and not local and I was pretty much done.   On my run the other night just a lot of this sort of welled up and I just wanted to express my dissatisfaction with everything as a whole.  I also will NOT recant any of the words I used.  I just wanted to clear it up so nobody was thinking anything dire was in the near future...   

I am okay.

Tuesday Part II

Longs Ranch Road up to Bob's Road to Barr Trail then back down.  1:11:45 up.  39:47 down.

I Did Win a Race Once

Seriously... no kidding!  I swear!  It was in the fifth grade and it was the 100 yard dash on our track and field day at Fayetteville Elementary.  I knew that I was going to be running that race some time in advance and I wanted to win so I trained.  Really as a fifth grader I understood the concept of training. (The movie Rocky had influenced me I think and this was also the start of my wanting to be a boxer when I grew up phase.)

Of course I had no CLUE as to what to do so I asked my stepfather since he was the uber athlete what he advised and he told me if I wanted to win the 100 yard dash, then I'd better learn how to sprint 120 yards.

So imagine me on football field all alone running from the end of one end zone all the way to another for a couple of weekends.   It wasn't fun, but he was right, I won by half a football field I think...

It is sort of a funny story but it is what was on my mind a lot this morning and today at lunchtime when I was doing my track workout.   There are key fundamental elements missing out of my running bag of tricks and speed is definitely one of them.   I don't relish the thought of spending hours doing nothing but running left turns but if the end justifies the means, then so be it.  And just like I trusted Jack's sage advice in 1979, I will again rely on the concept that the hard work like I put in back then will pay out dividends.  Back then it was a barren football field... today it is a windblown track up on the mesa.

800m warmup, 6x1000m with 400m rbi, and 800m cool down... 4:23, 4:18, 4:17, 4:25, 4:27, 4:23.

Not sure what happened with #4 and #5 except maybe the wind.  It was ripping out of the south like always.

A Not Really Quite Summer Yet Night's Dream

About mile 20 into the night... about to start up Long's Ranch Road.

One thing that I have learned in regards to ultra training is that you have to be flexible.  Long runs take time and sometimes life happens and you have to adjust.  For instance, the plan for this weekend was that I was on-call Friday night, and I had expected to get at least a little sleep that night then meet up with the CRUD runners the second half of the Ring The Peak run.   That was to be my long run of the week and then I'd pick up a few miles on Sunday.

WRONG!

Work had other ideas and after being up all night Friday night, Saturday morning, I was finally able to crash around 10:00 a.m.  After four hours of sleep Saturday morning/afternoon I was a walking mess.  Zombie's are more functional.  I scrapped any plans of doing any running on Saturday altogether.  Going to bed for a real night of sleep late Saturday night I told Melissa that I wasn't sure when I would wake up on Sunday morning but that I was going to sleep until I did.  As far as a run went on Sunday I told her also that I would figure it out the next day.  I knew that I had or wanted to get in a long run but I wasn't quite sure how to fit it in with the remaining time for the weekend.

Sunday morning I woke up and as I was being lazy and not wanting to get out of bed yet I came up with the plan... Melissa was to be on travel the following week and was leaving later on Sunday afternoon.  I could not in all good conscience take off for several hours and then miss hanging out with her for what little time she was going to be home so I decided my run would wait until she was ready to leave... So I hung out at home and did things around the house until later in the afternoon... also it gave me a few hours to hatch my plan... 30 miler... Park in Manitou, up Barr Trail to the .5 mile to Barr Camp sign, then back down to Bob's Road, Long's Ranch Road, Waldo Canyon, back up Longs Ranch Road to Bob's Road to Barr Trail then back to Manitou.  Lots of climbing and the way things were looking... a lot of time in the dark!

The elevation profile for my nocturnal wanderings.

 After caching water at the base of LRR, I drove to Manitou and started running about 5:30 in the afternoon.  It was warm out but not too bad.  The trip of Barr Trail for the most part was non-eventful except for the heavy rain which started about the time I reached the top of the W's and lasted till almost No Name Creek.  By the time was down to Highway 24 and about to crossover to go to Waldo, it was pretty much dark.  Headlamp time!

So far I had made my two splits... the first one to the .5 mile sign and the second one to the bottom of LRR but here is  where the drift occurred.  I was in Waldo a lot longer than I planned on being so my time was off almost 30 minutes by the time I was back across 24 and on my way up LRR.  I hadn't taken into account just how much more slowly I move in the dark especially on trails when I am being careful.  Running in Waldo though, alone at night and with it so quiet was a real treat.  The moon was not out from behind the clouds yet but there was still a lot of ambient light too.

But once I got back to Long's Ranch Road and was starting up I was at mile 20 of my little adventure and the options to bail or cut the course short started to run through my head... I could chop it down to 24-25 miles, 28???  Or do I stick to the plan.  Well, once I got past the Ute Pass Trail cutoff, I was at least committed to the top of Long's...  The trip up Long's took time but believe it or not the split up and well, all the way to Barr Trail via Bob's road was right on.  I had figured that at sometime on that climb I would have to put on a heavier shirt over my T shirt but I never got cold.  Even once hitting Barr Trail and starting to descend I was still warm.

My time down Barr Trail back to Manitou wasn't that great either... again I just wrote it off as running trail in the dark and the slowdown that I normally experience.  Even though it was slow I still felt strong even if it was the middle of the night. It even stayed warm all the way to the Jeep.

Running through Manitou some kid was standing outside The Keg, no shirt, no shoes and I swear just his boxer shorts talking to two young, dare I say ladies... He saw me running towards them and looked surprised.  He asked me what I was running from in kind of a smart ass tone.

I turned and looked at him as I was passing, I smiled and with a raised voice so that they could hear me, I answered, "Old age!"

It was a great run, in the middle of the night and except for the little bit of rain the weather was just perfect.   When most people would be sleeping and dreaming, I got to have one of the best trail runs ever and that's pretty cool.

87 miles last week... 16,968 feet of climbing in 18 hours and 30 minutes pretty much.  

PTL!

Pass the lighter!  Cubans!!!! 

Careful opening and inspection.  Everything looked solid.

Pretty damned happy... Cohibas and Montecristos.   Hard work paid off!

Today has been rough and definitely a plan B,C,D kind of day.  On-call rotation last night was insane, I didn't get any sleep and didn't even get to bed until ten this morning.  Of course for me the Ring the Peak run was definitely out... I got about four hours of sleep then we went and saw Snow White which was pretty good.  I sorta fell asleep during the movie but it was just me tired, not the movie so much.

So today is a bumming around day with the intention of knocking out a big one tomorrow.  Felt great after yesterdays track workout which was a surprise... I'll take it.  

But the great surprise today was the box that arrived... talk about something turning a frown upside down... :)

We got some work to do now... Friday, Track.

I have had a good day overall... two hours of work this morning followed by a ton of errands, lunch with Christoph at Kings Chef, more errands and a track workout at the Holmes Middle School track.

I don't remember the last track workout I did but I know that it was with JT, it was cold as hell out and the sun was not up yet... oh yeah it was before the CC track was demolished so it definitely was a long time ago and today sort of proved that.

800m warmup, 5x1000m with 400m rbi, and 800m cool down... 4:27, 4:32, 4:34, 4:31, 4:24.

Personally if I had to run intervals I think I prefer 400's and then 800's before 1000's but I think for that fact alone I will focus on 1000's this summer.  Forget mile repeats... not going there.  Starting at five this week, next week I will do six adding one a week until I reach 10x1000m and I will just hold there for the summer.  At least that is the plan for now.  :)

I've been wanting to save this for a special occasion, like for Brooks but it seems fitting for today.  Have a good weekend!