ISU Open 3000 Meters & 1200 DMR leg

At the end of my fourth straight week running more than 90 miles I was able to get two solid efforts. On Friday night I ran the first leg of a Distance Medley Relay with 3 other unattached runners. After the first hundred meters I was in last place out of ten teams but I moved my way up the field and took the lead right before the halfway point. I ran a small negative split to finish the 1200 in 2:59.3. Since the two previous days I ran 15 miles each and I haven’t been sleeping well lately I felt exhausted in the warm up but it was a confidence boost to be able to move that well. On Saturday I ran the 3000 meters in 8:16.13 but it didn’t go exactly according to plan. While I was warming up I actually felt a little bit better than Friday and I did most of the pace setting. After 1500 meters right around 4:09 my legs felt really heavy from the mileage that I’ve been running. Fortunately I was still able to pick up the pace a little even though it wasn't nearly as much as I'd hoped. Last year at this meet I ran a second faster but I didn’t run the 1200 the day before and I hadn’t been training nearly as hard so I was pretty well rested before the race. My training goal for the next three weeks is to continue to improve the quality while keeping my weekly mileage above 90. I’ll be racing the 3000 meters again in three weeks here at the Iowa State Classic. It’s tentatively scheduled for 5:00 pm on Saturday, February 10th. Complete results from the ISU Open can be found at: http://admin.xosn.com//pdf7/58910.pdf?SPSID=46591&SPID=4239&DB_OEM_ID=10700