Making progress

Decent week of training thus far. I have no idea what I did on Monday, although I am sure I did something. Who knows. The days tend to run together, punctuated by the 6 hours or so of sleep that I am able to link together.

Tuesday did a nice workout on the track: 8 x 800m. To make things interesting, I tried to put surges in the 800s to simulate cross efforts. First 200 really hard, settle in for 400, last 200 really hard. Was able to hit around 2:41 per 800 doing this. Not too hard of an effort; just enough to get the heartrate up and work the turnover. It was depressing in that the light was disappearing rather quickly, even though we started at 5:30. Winter in NE bites.

Wednesday we had a nice cross ride in Concord. About 7 of us screwing around, going hard, easy, riding different terrain, etc. I finally got my tubulars mounted, and wanted to test them out. Seemed to work fine. Thanks to Jorge for hooking me up with the final step of mounting. Very helpful and educational. Of course, if I race poorly, it is his fault. I reserve the right to make whatever excuses are most suited to account for any abysmal performance. Also good to have some excuses pre-race. And if you having an exceptionally poor race, it is a good time to think about what excuses you will use at the end. Saying something like "I don't make excuses" is just evidence of a lack of originality or creativity.

Thursday a wonderful 8 mile run at 4:45am. My legs felt below empty. But, it was nice to do an easy run in the pitch black and drizzle. I watched Ghosthunters last night, so that made running in the dark fun. I wish I had a graveyard to run by. Good for speed work.

Onto Gloucester this weekend. I have a Belgian-stew recipe in the slow cooker for tonight. Calls for 2 12oz beers to cook in. Can't wait to taste it. I love cross season. I have no idea what I did before it that was meaningful (oh yeah, marathons).