Foot Pursuit Week - Week of 4-21 to 4-27

Going to try to get some good trail runs in, an early-to-midweek long run, and have some gas in the tank for the Rhode Island State Police "5K Foot Pursuit" race, one of my favorites and my 5th time running it.  My training schedule for Cayuga is pretty much out the window at this point, it just hasn't lined up with what I can do on any given day.  I give Beth a ton of credit for sticking to hers so faithfully, I haven't even come close...but hey, looks like the weather's going to cooperate this week as well!

Previous Foot Pursuit 5K results below:

2010:  190 of 417, 26:17 @ 8:28
2011:  333 of 692, 27:20 @ 8:48
2012:  226 of 759, 24:30 @ 7:55
2013: 164 of 847, 23:39 @ 7:37 (The day after blowing up at the TARC 50K)

I can do a bit better this year!

Monday, 4-21 - 4.4 Miles (Trail) - Mount Misery run.  Good spot, and I saw several people out there today hiking the trails, always nice to see on a sunny day!  Snagged more miles, and almost 500' of elevation gain, which is something the training schedule I had been using didn't mention?  Feels great to comfortably run in shorts and a t-shirt, have I mentioned that?

Tuesday, 4-22 - 5.2 Miles (Trail/Dirt Road) - Pachaug Forest trails and service roads.  Sunny and 65-70 degrees!  There are a ton of options in Pachaug, and while I've done lots of trail runs there, I'm still not 100% comfortable with where some of the roads and unmarked trails lead.  I don't mind getting lost sometimes, but if I need to meet the school bus in the afternoon, the last place I'd want to get turned around in is Pachaug.  With that in mind, I decided to start on a section of trail I knew pretty well, and then run service roads for the middle part of the run.  Easy pace, one good hill to climb, and I increased my knowledge base of the forest just a bit.  Oh, and Happy Earth Day!

Wednesday, 4-23 - 0 Miles.  Planned 0, 1 hour karate class, and some weights/stretching.

Thursday, 4-24 - 10 Miles (Trail/Dirt Road) - Pachaug again.  This time I added the Fire Tower service road, which loops around the back side of Mount Misery and gave me a chance to add some extra vertical feet.  The original plan was to get out there early, use my truck as a home base/refueling station, and do as many loops as possible before I had to be home to meet the bus.  Unfortunately, I had a lot of things to do at home (namely clearing and mulching the flower beds), and got a late start.  So 10 miles it is.  Success would be following that up with another medium/long-ish run tomorrow, then dialing back on Saturday to allow for a good showing at the race on Sunday...

Sunny and breezy Mount Misery

Our friend LeNan's wedding favor was a bag of flower bulbs, coming in nicely!

Signs of good weather ahead!

Friday, 4-25 - 6.7 Miles (Trail) - Pachaug/Nehantic Trails with Jim.  Haven't run with Jim at all since he switched to first shift, and as I was tied up with projects from morning until mid-afternoon, I shot him a quick message about going for a run.  He drove up to meet me and we made the short drive to Pachaug, where I wanted to expand the loop I've been running to include more trail/less road.  Having not run in a couple of weeks, Jim said he was up for 5-6 miles anyway...so we ended up adding an extra section of the Nehantic Trail and subtracting Cutoff/Fire Tower roads.  Cool stuff, and next up is going to be the Pachaug/connector/Quinebaug/Nehantic loop?

Saturday, 4-26 - 0 Miles - Home projects day.

Sunday, 4-27 - 5+ Miles (Road) - Warmup, cooldown, and RISP "5K Foot Pursuit," Narragansett.
Result:  22:22 @ 7:12, good for 81st out of 770.  (1:17 faster than previous best time)

Picked up Colburn and his friend Tom and we made the drive down to the beach.  Noticeably cooler and cloudy, and I was happy I'd packed a long sleeve shirt in the bag.  Ran into a lot of WTAC team members before the race, but decided on a solo run/pit stop on trails across the street with little time to spare.  At the true "shotgun start" I lined up 4-5 rows back, and tried to get a good, steady pace going.  At the first mile mark, I was pretty sure I'd beat my previous best time by a fair amount, but wasn't going to PR.  No worries.  And hey, there's Jeff Walker snapping pictures!  Ran with Steve for the first mile, but he'd biked from Westerly before the race, and had to stop briefly to massage out a leg cramp.  Mile two was pretty uneventful and my slowest mile overall, and mile three is really nice, along the ocean and sort of into the wind.  And there's Jeff again!  I tried to look less fatigued for whatever pictures he got, not sure how I did...

Finished up and was able to find Beth in the last 2/10 mile and run with her to the finish.  She did awesome, and came in well under 30 minutes.  Quick cooldown on the Canonchet Trail before the afterparty and checking everyone's results.  Seth PR'd, as did Shara, Garvin took 2nd and Tommy 3rd, and overall everyone did really well today.  WTAC took the Men's and Women's titles too!  Big post-race cookout, good time chatting with everyone, and then we headed out.  Great day at a great event, and Trimom did a fantastic job running it.

Overall I'm happy with the result.  I haven't been doing any speedwork either, should probably fit that in somewhere...?