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Wednesday’s Run

Yesterday I couldn’t get myself out of bed in time to get in my run before work so I ended up having to squeeze it in between work and mid-week Bible study. It was fairly hot, but the humidity was down just a bit. My schedule called for 6-miles at “easy” pace, so I decided to start from my house and do a 6-mile route through the streets of Bellevue. When I went to grab my Garmin I saw that the battery was dead, so I just took my basic Timex stopwatch instead.

I knew from the start that my legs felt good, but I really didn’t know what pace I was running without my GPS. The heat was pretty intense, but I maintained a steady pace and my legs felt good throughout the run. When I got back to the house my stopwatch read 48 minutes, 46.16 seconds. I used MapMyRun.com to confirm that my route was actually 6-miles, and it came out to 6.05. This translates to a pace of 8:04 per mile, which is quite a bit faster than my “easy” pace target of 9:05 to 8:26. This is actually even faster than my “long” run pace range of 8:05 to 8:25.

Not sure where this burst came from, but it was actually a big confidence boost after many slower runs in recent days.

Thursday’s Run

On Thursday I met the JSRC track group at 6pm at Vanderbilt to complete my weekly “speed” workout. I did the week 3 “speed” workout prescribed in the Hansons Advanced Training Plan. This was 6 x 800m with 400m recovery in-between each interval. This equates to 3-miles of intervals and 1.5-miles of recovery. Based on my goal marathon time of 3:15, the target splits for this workout are 3:15. While, this is the goal, the Hanson brothers really emphasize not exceeding your target pace, and even make their athletes do sets of push-ups for every second they exceed their goal.

However, “exceeding” this goal was not gonna happen on Thursday due to the nasty heat and humidity. It was 94º in full sun, with a “feels like” of 98º at the beginning of my warmup:

Tuesday’s Run

Yesterday was a scheduled 8-miler at “easy” pace. I met Brian and Nathan at the Edwin Warner Nature Center for a run in the park and on the Harpeth River Greenway. My legs were very tired, but overall the run went ok. I do wish that I could push the pace a little faster, but at this point I’m happy simply be getting in all the scheduled miles. This is especially true considering the heavy humidity. Here’s a breakdown of our splits:

Today’s Run

Since I have a day-trip to Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow for a speaking engagement, I needed to move a few things on my schedule around this week. This meant that I got to do a solo track workout this morning at the Hading Academy track. Even though I despise doing track work by myself, this workout actually went really well.

I did the week 2 “speed” workout prescribed in the Hansons Advanced Training Plan. This was 8 x 600m with 400m recovery in-between each interval. This equates to 3-miles of intervals and 2-miles of recovery. Based on my goal marathon time of 3:15, the target splits for this workout are 2:26. While, this is the goal, the Hanson brothers really emphasize not exceeding your target pace, and even make their athletes do sets of push-ups for every second they exceed their goal.

Today marked my 6th consecutive day to get in a training run, and I can’t remember the last time that has happened. I’m guessing it has been well over a year, if not much longer. Many of these runs have been fairly crummy (Sat, Sun, & Mon specifically), but tonight’s “speed” workout was BY FAR the best I’ve felt during those 6-days.

I met my normal track group tonight at Vanderbilt, but instead of joining their workout I did the week 1 “speed” workout prescribed in the Hansons Advanced Training Plan. This was 12 x 400m with 400m recovery in-between each interval. This equates to 3-miles of intervals and 3-miles of recovery. Based on my goal marathon time of 3:15, the target splits for this workout are 1:38. While, this is the goal, the Hanson brothers really emphasize not exceeding your target pace, and even make their athletes do sets of push-ups for every second they exceed their goal.

Tonight was my first track workout in over a month, and it was good to be back running with the Jim Spivey Running Club (JSRC). I intentionally shifted the Hansons Advanced Marathon training plan a bit so that the “speed” workouts would fall on Thursday instead of Tuesday. This way I can continue to run with the JSRC during the “speed” phase of the plan.

Thick humidity has descended on Middle Tennessee with a vengeance this week, and tonight was tough with temps around 85º. I know it is only going to get worse, but my body struggling to get acclimated right now.

Today’s Run

As usual for Thursday, tonights run was a track workout with the JSRC. I have been feeling crummy the past two days, so I almost didn’t go. However I knew I would regret it if I bailed.

Since almost everyone from our running group ran Boston on Monday, there were only 3 who showed up at the track. I ended up running all of the repeats with Andy, who is WAAAAAAAAAYYYYY faster than me (even if I were in peak fitness). He ran a LOT slower than normal so we could do them together, and in turn I ended up pushing quite a bit harder than I had planned. However, Andy kept giving me lots of encouragement (and even some coaching), and it turned out to be a great workout. I forgot my watch, so I can’t remember what all of my splits were, but here is a rundown of the intervals:

• Warmup (1.3-miles)
• 6 x 100m Stride Outs
• 800m fresh (200m recovery)
• 600m fresh (200m recovery)
• 400m fresh (200m recovery)
• 3 x 200m fresh / good / fresh (100m / 400m recovery)
• 600m fresh (200m recovery)
• 400m fresh (200m recovery)
• 800m Straights & Curves
• Cool down (.25 miles)

I felt fairly louse through the 200s, but started to find a groove during the last 3 intervals. All-in-all I’m definitely glad I didn’t bail on track tonight.

Cross-Training

After getting home I did a half-set of P90X Arms and Shoulders. Of all the P90X workouts, this one is where the after-effects of the brachial neuritis in my left shoulder rear their ugly head. I can be lifting a 30-lb dumbbell in my left arm with no issue, and then with the slightest turn it’s like I’ve got nothing at all. There was one particular shoulder workout where I could easily use a 30-lbs dumbbell with my right-arm, but could barely lift 5-lbs with my left. Anyway, I got through the workout, and should be better prepared for how to approach it again next week.

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Thursday is normally track night with the JSRC, but tonight is also “Meet the Teacher” night at Kate’s school. Because of this, John sent me a substitute workout that I could run this morning.

I was expecting it to be similar to one of our Jim Spivey track workouts, but was a bit surprised when I got the following from John…

• 10-minute warmup
• 8 x 5-minutes at no faster than 6:30 pace with 30-second recoveries
• 10-minute cool down

This is a bit more intense than a normal track workout, but I’m guessing this is more in line with what John would draw up for marathon training if I didn’t normally go to JSRC workouts. Would love to know your thoughts on this John.

Anyway, to be honest I had a bit of trepidation about this morning after my so-so tempo workout on Tuesday, and experiencing hip and quad tightness yesterday. We got a bit of a break in the temps today, and this provided a very welcome boost. It was still fairly humid, but 64º felt nice.

Nathan and I met at the Bellevue United Methodist Church parking lot, and ran our 10-minute warmup out to the new section of the Harpeth River Greenway. Up to this point we had only done easy runs on this greenway, so it was nice this morning to break it in a little. For the workout we went 5-minutes out, did our 30-second recovery, and then did 5-minutes back. 

The bizarre thing is that I felt MUCH better on the way back than I did on the way out, EVERY TIME! Nathan said he felt exactly the same way. You can see this in our average pace for the segments:

On the Way Out:

• Segment 1 – 6:48 (was still trying to get loose)
• Segment 3 – 6:42
• Segment 5 – 6:42
• Segment 7 – 6:41

On the Way Back:

• Segment 2 – 6:36
• Segment 4 – 6:36
• Segment 6 – 6:38
• Segment 8 – 6:37

The reason for this is a mystery to me. There does not appear to be a significant difference in elevation change between the two directions, and there was almost no wind to speak of. I’m guessing it was either a mental thing, or both of our Garmin watches just liked coming back better and showed a faster average. No idea.

Regardless, I felt much, much better today that I feared I would. It was a hard workout, but my legs felt strong, and the pace was not overwhelming. Also, unlike Tuesday, Nathan and I ran together the whole way, which was nice. Even though the intervals were 5-minutes each, it turned out to be almost exactly an 8 x 1200m workout. All of our segments were between .74 and .76 miles completed.

Once we finished the repeats, we ran our 10-minute cool down back to the cars at a very chill pace. In total we finished just over 8.5-miles with warmup and cool down at an average pace of 7:32 per mile.

Beast Mode…ON!

After missing last week’s JSRC track workout because of my business trip to NYC, it was good to be back with the group tonight. We continued to have a slight break in the weather with temperatures around 86º at the start. However, even with the cooler temps the humidity was still pretty intense.

All through the warmup and strides I had a little twinge that ran all the way down my right leg and into my foot. It didn’t feel like a muscle strain or anything like that, but more like a nerve twinge caused by a tight hamstring. Whatever the case, it didn’t affect my stride, but just felt strange. Thankfully, once we got into the meat of the workout I didn’t notice it at all.

Here’s the rundown…

• 2.8-mile warmup
• 6 x 100m stride outs
• 4 x 200m f (100m recovery / 400m recovery)
• 4 x 250m fgfg (150m recovery / 400m recovery)
• 5 x 200m gfgfg (100m revoery / 400m recovery)
• 4 x 250m f (150m recovery)
• .78-mile cool down

All short intervals tonight, but I felt fantastic throughout the repeats. I ended up running the entire workout with Sue Anne, and it was really nice to have someone to run with tonight. Our consistency was a little wobbly during the first two sets, but we got dialed in during the third and fourth. In total with warmup and cool down I finished just over 8-miles with an average pace of 7:59 per mile.

One neat thing tonight was that Olivia, Kate, and Sara came out to meet me near the end of the workout. I got to run one cool down lap with Sara and another with Kate. Pretty Cool!

Beast Mode…ON!

At the beginning of tonight’s track workout it was 94º with a heat index of 101º. That makes two consecutive weeks of track workouts with a heat index greater than 100º (it was 106º last Thursday), and also makes me really ready for fall!

Because of the conditions, I generally felt pretty blah during the warmup, but thankfully started feeling a lot better during the workout. Here’s a rundown of the evening…

• 3-Mile Warmup
• 6 x 100m Stride Outs
• 800m f (300m recovery)
• 400m f (200m recovery)
• 600m f (600m recovery)
• 800m Straights and Curves (400m recovery)
• 2 x 400m f (30 second recovery)
• .75-Mile Cool Down

The original workout sent by Jim Spivey had an additional 1600m (fgfg) between the 600m and the 800m straights and curves. However, John made some modifications due to the heat and high humidity. Overall I ran pretty conservative again tonight, but felt really good throughout. My splits were right in line with what I was shooting for, and stayed pretty consistent. By far the hardest interval for me was the first 800m, but I continued to feel better from there. I did have a little twinge in my right quad tonight that I’d never felt before, but this didn’t have any effect on my stride and got better throughout.

After a couple of weeks running with Nick, I was back to running by myself, a distant second to our short-distance specialist Paul. There were a couple of times where Aine hung just a few strides behind me, and I told her after the workout that I am really impressed with her progress this summer. She is going to be flying in the fall when the temperatures drop.

In total I finished 7.2-miles with warmup and cool down at an average pace of 8:03 per mile. Very pleased with tonight’s workout, especially considering the conditions.

Beast Mode…ON!

Two weeks ago at our weekly track workout with the Jim Spivey Running Club (JSRC), it was 102º at the start with full sun. Last week it was 72º with overcast skies and some rain. Tonight the roller-coaster continued with temps around 94º and a heat index of a whopping 106º with the nasty humidity.

Tonight it felt like running inside a bowl of very warm soup, and honestly the conditions were more difficult than when the temps were at 102º a couple of weeks ago. All of this led us only having 5-people at the track tonight and me taking a very conservative approach to the workout. Here’s a rundown…

• 2-mile warmup
• 6 x 100m stride outs
• 800m straights and curves (400m recovery)
• 4 x 250m gfgf (150m recovery / 400m recovery)
• 3 x 500m f (200m recovery / 400m recovery)
• 800m straights and curves
• ~.75-mile cool down.

I generally felt pretty good through the intervals tonight, though the humidity did start to get to me during the 500m repeats. It was also about this time that John started pulling people out of the workout due to the conditions. However, because of my fairly conservative pacing, I was able to finish the entire workout with my legs still feeling fairly good.

Sometimes when I overdo it during a workout, I feel so trashed at the end that my cool down is more like a shuffle. Well, I’m pleased that tonight this was not the way I felt. I only needed around .75-miles for the cool down to finish off 7-miles total for the night, but my legs felt fresh enough to run quite a bit farther.

It was nice again tonight to have Nick with us at the track, which gave me someone to run with for at least half the workout. We stayed together through the 250s, but he had a gear at the end that I just didn’t want to try tonight.

At the end I spent some time talking to John about the night, and also about my training in general. So far I’ve been really pleased with the schedule he has put together for me, and also with how my body has been responding. I’m really excited about my training, and already looking forwarding to racing season this fall.

Beast Mode…ON!

At 5:30pm last Thursday night it was 102º when I started my “warmup” for track. Tonight at the same time it was 72º and sprinkling rain, and it felt AWESOME. It was still crazy humid, but the lower temperatures were none-the-less very welcome.

All of this led to the best I’ve felt at a track workout in quite some time. Here’s a rundown for the night…

• 2.75-Mile Warmup
• 6 x 100m Stride Outs

• 600m f (200m recovery)
• 400m f+ (200m recovery)
• 4 x 150m f (50m / 400m recovery)

• 800m f (300m recovery)
• 400m f+ (200m recovery)
• 800m Straights and Curves (400m recovery)
• 600m f

• 1-Mile Cool Down

It was good to run most of the warmup and cool down with Paxton since we haven’t run much together lately. Also, I’ve basically run the track workouts by myself for the past month and a half, but tonight we had a new guy join our group named Nick who ran most of the intervals with me. He was a 400m track runner in college, and is now training for a full Ironman this fall. It was obvious that he has some serious speed in his reserves, and a very enviable running form. It’s easy to forget how nice it is to have someone to run with a track.

I felt like I had my target pace dialed in tonight, and this resulted in consistent splits throughout the workout. For example my 400m (fresh+) was 1:21 in the first set and 1:20 in the second.

My 600m (fresh) was 2:06 in the first set and 2:06 in the second. My 800m (fresh) in the second set was 1:26 for each of the two laps (2:52).

In total with warmup and cool down I completed just under 8 total miles with an average pace of 7:59 per mile.

After the workout, Olivia, Kate, and Sara joined me and the rest of the group for dinner at the Dog of Nashville, which was a great time as always.

Beast Mode…ON!

Yesterday, I ended up missing my first scheduled training run in more than 10 weeks. I woke up yesterday feeling pretty rough with a sore throat, headache, low energy, etc. My schedule called for 40-minutes easy, and I thought that if I just took it easy and drank lots of fluids I might feel better later in the day and be able to get it in. Well, at 7pm I decided that I was feeling worse instead of better and sent my coach (John) a text to let him know it was likely not going to happen…

While I expected a sarcastic response, I thought this was pretty funny. Turns out he was with another friend of ours from the running group who is constantly giving me a hard time about Boston, and was feeding him the quotes to send back. John went on to say that it was a “No Brainer” to take the day off if I wasn’t feeling well, so that’s exactly what happened.

Fast forward to today, and I have been feeling better throughout the day. By the time I needed to leave work and head to the track I was feeling good enough to give it a try. My biggest concern for tonight’s workout was not feeling sick, but the heat. This was what my phone said before I stepped out of the car and onto the track…

I believe this is easily the warmest track night I’ve ever participated in, and I could feel it from the first strides of the warmup. However, other than it being crazy hot, I felt really, really good. My legs continued to feel good, and my energy level did not seem to have been negatively affected by being under the weather the past couple of days.

Because of the heat, John led us through a fairly short workout tonight. Here is the rundown…

• 2.5-Mile Warmup
• 6 x 100m Stride Outs
• 3 x 400m (400m recovery)
• 2 x 400m (400m recovery)
• 1 x 400m (400m recovery)
• .82-Mile Cool Down

He told us to take the 400s very, very easy. We only had a few seconds recovery between each 400m interval within each set, so most of mine were in the 1:30 to 1:35 range. It was hot enough that I could feel my pulse pounding in my face, but otherwise I felt pretty good considering the heat and that I had not been feeling well. In total with warmup and cool down I completed 6-miles with a 7:46 average pace.

Beast Mode….ON!

With John (our coach) out of town for the next two weeks at the Olympic Track & Field trials, and not receiving an official workout from Jim Spivey, Dan suggested the group do 400m intervals at track tonight. However, our normal 400m workout is 3 sets of 3 x 400m repeats, but tonight we did 4 sets of 3 x 400m repeats! This is almost 4.5-miles of intervals, which is pretty long for our group. On top of this it was still 95º at 6pm, so needless to say it was fairly tough.

Here’s a rundown of the night…

• 2-Mile Warmup
• 6 x 100m Stride Outs
• 4 Sets of 3 x 400m vf (200m recovery / 400m recovery)
• 1/2-Mile Cool Down

For a normal 400m workout we will do a mixture of “fresh” and “good” paced repeats within each set. However, with the very high temps tonight, and the longer workout, Dan advised us to do each one at “very fresh” pace which should be 3 to 5 seconds slower than “fresh” per interval. Recently my “fresh” paced 400m splits have been around 82 to 84 seconds, so tonight I was shooting for something between 86 and 88.

As has been the case for the past few weeks, I basically ran tonight’s workout by myself. While my legs felt pretty good throughout, I did have some difficulty dealing with the heat and this led to a little less consistency between repeats than I would have liked. This was especially true during the first one and last one. Here is a rundown on my splits per set:

• Set 1 (86, 88, 84)
• Set 2 (88, 88, 86)
• Set 3 (86, 88, 89)
• Set 4 (88, 89, 90)

By the last set I could feel the heat pulsing in my face, but tried to stay as consistent as I could until the end. I lost a couple of seconds during the final two repeats, but overall I’m pretty happy with the workout and how I felt. Just like last week I drank 64 ounces of fluid during the evening + a little bit more from the water fountain at the track, because it was HOT! Final total with warmup and cool down was 8-miles completed at 7:35 average pace per mile.

My daughter Kate came with me to the track tonight, so we got to enjoy another impromptu daddy-daughter date night after the workout. We had dinner at Pei Wei followed by FroYo at Sweet CeCe’s. Great night!

Beast Mode….ON!

Our track group has been temporarily displaced by the Nashville Strider’s Track Series which is being held at Vanderbilt on Thursday nights in June. Fortunately, Jenny from our group is a teacher and the cross country coach at Harpeth Hall, so with her help we received permission to use their awesome track facility in the interim…

Tonight I felt really good during the workout, and I’m sure the continued mild weather conditions had a lot to do with it. The temperatures were around 80 degrees at the start with clear skies and low humidity.

Here’s the rundown…

• 2.5-mile warmup
• 6 x 100m stride outs
• 600m f (200m recovery)
• 400m f (200m recovery)
• 800m straights and curves (400m recovery)
• 2 x 400m f (1-min standing recovery / 200m recovery)
• 2 x 400m g (1-min standing recovery / 400m recovery)
• 1000m f (200m recovery)
• 1-mile cool down

Beginning with the second interval, John split us up into groups based on our pace, and I ended up running the entire workout by myself. The thing that made tonight’s workout challenging was the relatively short recoveries between intervals. However, I felt good enough that even with the short recoveries I ended up running faster splits than normal.

For example, lately I’ve been running my 400m “fresh” intervals around 84 or 85, and my 400m “good” intervals around 80 or 81. Tonight my three “fresh” 400m splits were 83, 81, and 80. My two “good” 400m splits were 76 and 77. On a side note, that second “good” 400m repeat was a mistake. The workout actually called for a “good” followed by a “fresh” on the second 2 x 400m repeat, but I misread it.

Final total for the night was 7.6-miles completed with warmup and cool down. My daughter Kate came with me to track tonight and ended spending most of her time playing on the school playground. After track we had a little impromptu daddy-daughter date night with dinner at Pei Wei and dessert at Sweet CeCe’s. Fun times!

Beast Mode…ON!

Tonight’s track workout was long and TOUGH. With a storm front bearing down on Nashville, we started everything a few minutes early. Also, even though the temps were slightly lower than the 90 degrees we faced last week, the humidity was NASTY! Here’s a rundown of the night…

• 2-Mile Warmup
• 6 x 100m Stride Outs
• 800m f (300m Recovery)
• 2 x 400m g (200m / 400m Recovery)
• 600m f (300m Recovery)
• 2 x 400m g (200m / 400m Recovery)
• 800m f (300m Recovery)
• Two Laps of Straights & Curves
• 1/2-Mile Cool Down

After our first 800m interval, John broke us up into two groups with Nathan, Sue Anne, and I taking the lead. Both of them were just a hair faster than me tonight, but it was nice to have someone to run with after basically running solo last week. All three of us were struggling with the humidity, especially for me during the 600m interval and the final 800m were my heart rate went above 190.

Even though the humidity was awful, I still managed to crank out fairly consistent splits throughout. My beginning and ending 800m intervals were 2:57 and 2:55 respectively. My four 400m repeats were 1:24, 1:21, 1:21, and 1:21.

The total for the night was 7.2-miles completed with warmup and cool down, and 4.3-miles of this was the actual workout. This is a fairly long workout for our group, and I really felt it at times tonight. However, even though it was a hard one, it was a very good workout. At the end Nathan commented about how this was the type of workout where it would have been easy to quit if you were by yourself. It is really awesome to have the camaraderie and accountability that come from running with our awesome group!

Beast Mode…ON!*

*John said this to me tonight about halfway through the workout with a fist-bump, and I really needed it 🙂

Wow, it was hot at track tonight! 90 degrees at 6pm!! Here’s the rundown on the workout:

• Warmup – 2 Miles Easy
• 6 x 100m Stride Outs
• 3 Sets of 1000m f (200m recovery) / 400m f+ (400m recovery)
• Cool Down – .75 Miles Easy

I felt sluggish all during the warmup as my body was trying to adjust to the warmer conditions. It was quite a shock to my system after a couple of morning runs this week with temps in the 50s and low 60s. By the time we got to the stride outs I started feeling a little bit better, and tried to push the pace a bit to get my body ready for the workout.

John, our coach, was not at the track tonight so we were on our own to complete the workout. Once the first set started I was essentially running by myself (there were two guys who were faster than me, and the rest were behind me). When I finished the first interval and recovery I decided to just go straight into the second interval by myself instead of waiting around for others to join me.

As for the workout, my legs still felt sluggish during the first 1000m but this improved greatly with each set. However, unlike my legs, my breathing and heart rate were really feeling the effects of the heat throughout the workout. In spite of this I was very happy with the consistency of my splits, and came out of the workout with a big confidence boost.

My 1000m splits for the three sets were 3:49, 3:51, 3:49. My 400m splits were 1:24, 1:22, 1:24. The 400m intervals were especially tough tonight since there was only a 200m recovery after the 1000m. This didn’t allow much time at all to bring your heart rate down before starting the 400m interval.

Even though it was very hard in the heat, I thoroughly enjoyed doing the workout with the JSRC (as usual). My final total with warmup and cool down was just over 7-miles completed. After the workout, Olivia and the girls met our group at the Dog of Nashville for an enjoyable dinner. Great night!

Beast Mode…ON!

Tonight’s track workout with the JSRC was tough, but it was a good kind of tough. Part of the challenge was the heat which was still in the low 80s at 6pm. The other was short recoveries. Those short recoveries made it hard to maintain effort throughout the intervals.

Also, coming into the workout my legs were a bit fatigued from P90X Legs and Back on Monday and running trails yesterday, but I was able to loosen them up pretty good during a 2.5-mile warmup.

Here is a breakdown of the workout…

• Warmup + 6 x 100m stride outs
• 800m f (300m recovery)
• 400m f (1-min recovery)
• 800m f (400m recovery)
• 1200m Straights and Curves (1-min recovery)
• 600m f (200m recovery)
• 300m f (1-min recovery)
• 600m f (cool down)

With warmup and cool down my total was 7.2 miles completed. By far the toughest part for me was going from 1200m straights and curves directly into a 600m with only a 1-min static recovery. However, I was able to maintain fairly consistent splits all the way to end, and am pretty happy with my overall pacing.

Just like last week, I ran this entire workout with Nathan McCall who has made incredible progress since joining our club last fall. Unlike me (adult onset runner), Nathan was a 4-year collegiate runner at Appalachian State, so I’m expecting that pretty soon he will be lapping me during the workouts 🙂 …In the meantime it has been great to have someone else running at my same pace the last two weeks.

Beast Mode…ON!

It was a warm day in Music City and a warm evening at track tonight with the JSRC. Our group was a bit smaller than usual since we had 11 people participating in either the Southern Indiana Classic or Boston Marathons last weekend. However, we were joined for the first time by my friends Mark and Josh from our church, and it was good to have them with us.

After a 3-mile warmup, including 6 x 100m stride outs, our workout consisted of 3 sets of 1000m (300m Recovery), 400m (400m Recovery). For the first set my legs felt very rubbery, especially during the 400m interval. I told Paxton this must have been due to the hard tempo effort on Tuesday morning. However, I felt much better during the second set, and fantastic during the final set. After the workout John said that this was good, but maybe in the future I should think about pushing the pace a little bit more or running an extra set since I felt so fresh at the end.

We finished up with a nice, easy cool down jog around Vanderbilt, which marked 8.4-miles completed for the evening. After track most of us headed out to the Dog of Nashville for a fun dinner. Great evening!

Beast Mode….ON!