Week 14- RTB Relay & USATF 5k Championships

US5km Championships - Photo by Scott Mason

Monday Sep 13

AM 6 miles, 43min, with on/off strides

PM 12 miles, 77min

warm up: 20min, light drills and strides, 1x200 in 29.54

(32.86 4 weeks ago and 31.14 2 weeks ago)

workout goal: 15:30 for 5000 of work with 400on100off

actual workout:

67.68(24.00)69.13(23.25)69.31(22.94)69.94(23.18)

69.94(23.19)69.50(23.81)67.94(23.75)69.19(23.12)

68.88(23.68)69.25(15.88)---15:17.56 for 5000m including rest

cool down 42min

Tuesday Sep 14

AM 5 miles, 35min

PM 13 miles, 1:31min, drills

Wednesday Sep 15

AM 7 miles, 49min

noon massage

PM 13 miles,1:21min at South Boston Track (next to the beach)

workout goal: 8x1k at 3:05 w/ 400 rest

warm up: 21min, light drills and strides

actual workout:

3:02.66(1:34.00)3:04.93(1:31.50)3:03.13(1:31.62)3:02.38(1:31.18)

3:01.19(1:30.19)3:01.88(1:30.62)3:01.00(1:31.82)2:58.57

--total 10,800 in 34:56.67---5:12 per mile

cool down: 25min

Thursday Sep 16

AM 7 miles, 49min

PM 12 miles, 1:24min

Friday Sep 17

AM 6 miles, 42min, drills

PM Reach the Beach Relay, 12 miles, 71min

warm up: 14min, light drills and strides,

Race #1: 8 mile leg (41:38 - first mile was in 6min)

cool down: 17min

Late PM Reach the Beach Relay, 6.5mile, 38min

warm up: 8min, light strides

Race #2: 4 mile leg (20:30)

cool down: 10min

Saturday Sep 18

AM Reach the Beach Relay, 11 miles, 67min

warm up: 10 min, light drills

Race # 3: 8.5 mile leg (very hilly) 49min

cool down: 8min

PM Off, Travel NH-Newburyport-Boston-Providence

Sunday Sep 19

AM 10.5 miles, 65min

shakeout: 10min

warm up: 21min, light drills and strides

Race: US 5k Champs, 9th American - 14:29.50

cool down 20min

PM 10 miles, 70min

131 miles

What a busy weekend! First off, this week was not supposed go the way it did. For those of you that have never heard of the Reach the Beach Relay, go here. The relay is 209 miles with 12 runners running 3 legs each (36 legs total). It starts in the mountains of northern NH and ends in Massachusetts. I ran with a very cool group of guys from the Racemenu/Mix1 team. Some of you may ask why I ran the relay knowing I would be very sore for the USA 5k. Well, my initial plans were not to run the USA 5k and definitely not to run both. It was a last minute decision as I thought I had a chance to be in the top 10 (which had been a goal of mine since last year). I had committed to doing the relay during the summer months and I simply didn't feel it would be fair to back off from the race without giving the team adequate time to recruit a new runner. Although our team did not win (finished 7th), I can honestly say I had a great time. Some of the guys on my team helped me a lot during the summer months, forcing me to get out of bed every Saturday at 8:30am to run the Boston Marathon course. For some of you this may not be a big deal, but for me it is. Also, since I mentioned Racemenu, for those interested, it's a new race management website created by our team captain J.Alain. It is linked as a facebook and I often refer to it as a combination of the "cooler" coolrunning.com and the more "active" active.com. If Check it out at Racemenu.com

Anyways, moving on to training, a lot of big improvements and sign of good things to come in the near future. In two weeks, I have been able to improve on the 10x400 workout from 15:43 to 15:17 and also on the 8x1k workout from 36:15 to 34:56. As for the 5km champ this week, I am very pleased with the top 10 finish. Being in the top 10 at a major US championship has been a goal of mine for years! I don't even care if the field was weaker or times were slow, but a goal is a goal, and now I can move on the next. As far as being tired from the Reach the Beach Relay race to running the US champs the next day, I will end this blog entry with a quote from one of the guys that was on my team:

"Fantastic 5k today Ruben... do your friends realize you did the 210 mile Reach The Beach Relay with Team RaceMenu racing over 20 miles during the previous two days and getting 1 hour of sleep Friday night" - my good friend Robert Cipriano of Somerville Road Runners