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Covered boats along the river in Netherlands
#7: Run through Létna Park in Prague, Czech Republic (07/29/16)
After arriving by train to Prague in the morning, we spent the day exploring the new city, and I carved out a time in the afternoon to do my run through Létna Park, a public space that overlooks the famous city-center. Immediately I could tell that the park was a local hotspot for fitness enthusiasts, so I went with the flow, progressing through the various gardens, open manicured spaces, and plazas on a fartlek-type effort. In doing so, I got to see a fascinating cross-section of the local culture, from the people out enjoying their late-afternoon meals to the skaters which had taken over the plaza surrounding Prague's Metronome Sculpture. The weather was particularly hot, so I did my best to stay in shaded parts of the area, but I still loved getting to see a non-touristed part of one of Europe's best cities in such a unique way.
#6: Englischer Park in Munich, Germany (08/07/16)
For my week's long run in the middle of our vacation, I made my way to Englischer Park, which spans almost the entire northeast portion of Munich. I had no idea beforehand how large the park would prove to be, but it turns out that it's even bigger than New York's Central Park (3.7 square kilometers in total). I was able to run almost the entire length of my long run out and back along one of its arterial trails without ever having to double back, and all of the footing was crushed gravel which is much better than the roads I had found in other cities. Since Munich is such a metropolitan city, it was a welcome reprieve from all of the traffic and noise to find such a park, and I almost felt as though a portion of the countryside had been injected into the middle of the city. I ran 13.2 miles in the trails, the last 11 of which were 6:05/mile or faster, and the run in its entirely averaged 5:58/mile, which was a solid, strong effort at the end of a long week of running and exploring with my family.
#5: First Workout back with the team (08/23/16)
With our new head coach Conrad Haber now in charge this year, we wasted no time during preseason getting straight to work, hitting either the track or the grass loop to get our first school-organized workout of the year. I had done several strong efforts in the weeks prior, so I felt confident enough to go after a lactate threshold effort on the grass. After lacing up for the first time of the season in my cross-country spikes, I plotted out the loop with cones around the other sports fields next to our regular track and began my workout, which consisted of 8 x 1000 with 60 seconds of recovery between each piece. The intention was to run smoothly at a comfortable pace from last year, and my splits were 2:55, 2:56, 2:56, 2:57, 2:58, 2:58 2:56, 2:54, for an average of 2:56, which was a really good place to start. I felt in control from the first piece, and despite having to run the majority of them on my own, my midpoint splits were even and I never fatigued to the point where I had to extend the recovery. The rest of the team saw similar results in their lane-6 tempo runs, and although some had rust to shake off after a few months of individual training, we certainly looked to be in a good place prior to the start of competition. Soon, they too are excited to be doing workouts on the grass again, which is an experience we usually save only for autumn months of training.
