Run With Garrison

Aloha Everyone,

It’s been about 10 days since I put my 4T’s out there and I wanted to let you know how things were going so far… I have been successful with 3 of the 4 T’s and I have some solid ideas on getting the 4th lined up. Here we go.

Track—I have been to the track 3 times now. Last Monday I put together a nice little Yasso 800 workout of 10×800 with equal time rest. I was hoping to average about 3:00-3:05 and I averaged 2:55 and felt great. Probably the best I have run this workout in about 14 years. The next track workout was 2 days ago-Tuesday where I ran 8x mile with 60-65 seconds rest.The goal was to run about 6:15-6:20 since this workout really busted me up 10 weeks ago. I averaged about 6:33 for 4 of them and I had to stop because I cracked. Well, this time out I finished all 8 and averaged 6:06 with a 5:58 last mile. I was pumped to say the least. I felt solid and in control. The 6th rep was the toughest of course. Mentally, I felt up for the challenge. Today I jumped on the track for a 3rd time with a plan of 16-20 400’s with 1’R (100m walk/jog) shooting for an average of 88. After running 12 with an average of 85 and change, I decided to give myself a “Get Out” effort. My former athletes know these fairly well. Occasionally I would offer to shorten the workout if they could hit a particularly lofty time for a longer effort than the prescribed workout. I chose the mile because I owe my friends JJ and Ryan a “gut check mile” time. The Gut Check Mile is a totally different story that I can address in a later post. Last year, around this time I ran a 5:16 mile fresh and in April of 2011 I ran around 5:30 if I remember correctly. Today, I offered myself a get out time of 5:20. Meaning, if I ran sub 5:20, the workout was finished. If not, then I had 4 more 400’s to blast thru. I gave myself a 300 meter jog after the 12th 400 and then headed out for the mile. It was tough but I finished it up in 5:17! Yep, I am a bit excited because I felt those 12 400’s and I was happy that I could tough out this effort.

Tantalus—Last week I put in 1 solid Tantalus effort from my house, about 15.6 miles and felt really solid on the run. Nothing crazy, just a nice climb with solid focus.

Trails–I finally got up and ran on the tantalus trail system and had a really fun run. Lots of roots and rocks with only 1 fall so I was very happy with the effort. This will become a staple of my running week for sure because I really need to work on my technical trail running. As a matter of fact, that is tomorrow’s workout. So if you are on the trail tomorrow, please say Hi.

Training Partners—This is where I have fallen short. I have a few guys in mind and funny enough, most of their names start with T as well. I just need to track them down and get a plan in place.

Everything else is good. The past 2 weeks I have been able to hit 80 miles per week with a day off. This week should be 80-90 miles and I am feeling stronger every day. This Fall should be fun. The calendar is shaping up this way…

August 12–Skyline 50k Castro Valley—Zeke’s Ultra Debut
September 1–Tantalus Triple Trek 50k–Honolulu
September 2–Honolulu Marathon Readiness series 20k–have some fun
September 22–Noble Canyon 50k San Diego
October 13–Dick Collins 50 Miler–Castro Valley

Thanks again for all the support and thanks for holding me accountable!

MIchael