I wish I’d stayed asleep today

Kenya update #4

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Right now I’m in the middle (actually two thirds through) of a triple run day. It kind of happened by accident and it’s actually a little annoying.

On Friday there is usually a large group which does a progression run of about an hour. The first 20 minutes are fairly easy, the pace then increases for 20 minutes and by then it’s quite fast for the last 20 minutes.  In the last 20-30 minutes the pack thins right out as people get dropped.

This morning I went to meet with the masses at 6:10.  When I got there I chatted to the small group I typically run with. When the masses started running my little group stayed put because they didn’t want to run with such a massive group. Their plan was to run 8km slow and then reconvene at 9:30 to run a tempo. When we started running I was tempted to run ahead to the massive group and do my original plan but I felt I should stick with these guys who have welcomed me into their training group. On top of that their tempo run also fit into my training plan and I wouldn’t have to eat as much dust with 9 guys compared to 60.

Back to why this triple run thing is annoying. I typically wake up at 5:50 and I’m out the door just after 6:00 and I walk to the meeting point for 6:10 and run at 6:20. On days where I have a fast session I’ll wake up at 5:35 to get a little more food into my belly. Also, I like to get the bulk of my mileage done by 8am so I can eat a big breakfast. Lastly, I like to take a nap before lunch, I fall asleep faster at night if my nap is earlier in the day.

Today I woke up early for an easy 8km, ate a measly breakfast and can’t nap until after lunch. I realize these points are all petty and should be posted on whitewhine.com.

However the real reason why it sucked that I didn’t go with the big group was because the guys I ran with never picked up the pace for proper tempo. We ran our first 4km just under 4:00/km, and then 4km at 3:40/km.  At that point I was getting myself ready to rock the last 10km, however we never went any faster and actually slowed down. This was a run that was tough but not a workout. I’m going to take this as a blessing in disguise because I’m pretty tired and towards the end of my biggest mileage week ever (seeing that I complete it).  They said this was going to be a moderate tempo even though the average pace was slower than their “slow” long-run this past Saturday, go figure?

Another 9km this evening with some strides. At least I won’t be dead tired for these strides like I would have been if I cranked out a workout this morning.

Tuesday was Paul’s last day here in Iten. I did a track workout that morning by myself with over 100 other runners working out. He got some more good footage so once again I’ll levae that workout for the doc.