This section is for as much my benefit as it is for the readers.  In my Log in Excel I record the basic facts such as mileage, splits, paces, and course.  I don't elaborate on how I felt during the workout or anything to that nature.  The reason for this is I like to keep my log as a quick reference where I can look up past workouts, splits, etc. with none of the extra stuff.  This way I can quickly identify what kind of workout I was doing at that particular time in the year.  If I want more detailed information, I keep a seperate, workout log, where I note how each medium or hard workout went.  This way If I want to know how I felt on a particular workout, I can check this.  This gives me a better gauge on the effort put forth and the conditions.  I decided to put this online for others to look at as it gives a more in depth look at what I was feeling and trying to accomplish during each hard workout.  Hope it helps.

10/15/05-Race
    Today was the big fitness and progression test for CC.  I raced at the Chile Pepper CC festival in Arkansas.  The field was loaded this year and the race was pretty crazy.  I ended up running 29:53 for 10k and getting 25th in about the same time that got me 5th last year.  The competition this year was amazing.  I started off pretty well but way far back.  I immediately saw sesar and bruce hyde within the first 200m so I just latched on to them for the first mile.  We crossed at 4:38, but were so far back it was crazy.  I remember looking up and just seeing a long steady line of people.  After the mile, I stuck with my plan of gradually moving up throughout the race.  This worked pretty well except for the fact I had a ton of people to catch up to.  I was fairly consistant through 4 mile in passing people, but then from the 4th to 5th mile I kind of fell asleep and allowed myself to get stuck in a pack.  This killed me as far as my finishing place and time would go.  For some reason, I kind of lost focus during this period and settled instead of moving.  Anyways after 5miles I got my head back in the gain and concentrated on picking off the guys in front of me.  My last 800m was very strong as I passed a couple of kenyans and closed on the pack just ahead, but ran out of room.  Overall I was happy with the way the race went, but not satisfied with the time or placing.  When I got done with the race, I could tell I had a little bit more left and feel that a 19:35-40 or so was in reach if I didn't lose focus.  But, I kind of knew that there was a chance of that happening with my strategy, as I'd only had one race under my belt and I find that it takes me until my 2nd 10k to keep focus throughout.  As far as how I felt in the race, the aerobic system was awesome.  I've never had my breathing feel so controlled during a race.  The muscular system wasn't up to par with the breathing, but that's what I expected as I haven't put much emphasis on that yet.  The development of that will come as track gets closer.  Anyways, I was happy with the fitness test and progression of training.  The race shows that training is going well and that all the LT training is helping my aerobic system immensely.  So I've got to keep things progressing and moving to track season. 

10/07/05
2.5mi w/up,  2x800 in 2:01,2:00 w/ 2:30 rest, windy!, 2.5mi c/d
    So I wake up around 6am, down some water and throw on some running clothes to jog the 2.5mi to the High School track.  Upon arriving at the deserted track I stretched, did striders and tried to pysch myself up for the quick but painful workout.  I realized that this is a hard task to accomplish at around 6:40 in the morning when your still half a sleep.  To make things even further demoralizing it was really windy because of a cold front coming in.  Ya, the 60 degree weather was nice, but the bad wind killed all hopes of running really fast today.  I eventually decided it was time to go and set off on my 2x800 w/ 2:30 rest.  The wind through off my pace judgement a little bit, causing me to start off slower than I wanted and I had to dig a bit to get the pace back down to 2:01 by the finish.  It was a solid effort, but the wind was making my lungs burn a bit, but only one more to go.  Again, the first 200m was too slow since it was into the wind, so I had to really work to get to the finish line in 2:00.  After this second 800 I laid on the ground for a bit, as it was a rough workout.  It would have been nice to see a sub 2 800 but it wasn't in the plans today.  Overall, I was real pleased with the effort put out as it was a nice short intense "blowout workout."  I figure with a calm wind it was worth 1:58's or so, so that woulda been very good for this time of year considering the amount of anaerobic workouts I've done, but oh well, can't control the weather.  Overall another solid effort and it was a long slow jog back home after this one.

10/04/05
1mi w/up, 2mi on soccer loop(9:24), 5R, 1.5mi on soccer to pavillion and warmup loop(7:17), 5R, 1mi on mags and step hill loop (4:44), 1.5mi c/d
    The goal of this workout was to hit around 10k goal pace, so 4:40-4:45ish.  The first 2miles went really well except for the fact that over the last mile my shoe came completely untied and it changed my foot strike a little bit trying to run at that pace while trying to keep my shoe from slipping off.  Thankfully I made it the whole way without the shoe coming off, but it was annoying.  The next 1.5mi was pretty tough as it was run on a grass/dirt combo section that included 3 right turns and two hills that were good momentum killers.  The last 1 mile was perhaps the hardest of them all thanks to my stupid choice of a course to run on.  The 1 mile loop started off flat at first with a right turn after 200m that sent me flying into some bushes.  After regaining form it's relatively flat until a slight decline that's a nice welcome from 700-800m.  After crossing the 800m in about 2:18, the fun began.  You take a left turn and run on a short sandy section before going straight up and around the "step hill" which flat out sucked.  It was pretty freaking steep and took a lot out of me, even though it was only about 150m or so in length.  After the step hill, I took a couple seconds to regain momentum before finishing.  Overall, I was pleased with how the workout went and how I felt during the thing.  It was good to mix in some difficult terrain and hills into the running to give me some added strength and get used to my rhythm being broken up a bit in races.
10/01/05
    8k Race-2nd place by 2seconds-24:46 at George Mason Race
I went up to Fairfax, Virginia for this race.  It was a pretty low key race, but American University was there and I knew they were 25th in the most recent NCAA team poll, so they have some good guys.  Anyways, I flew up friday and stayed with my brother at his house.  The course consisted of four 2,000m loops that consisted of a flat part and a hill part.  The hill was about 400-600m in length from the bottom to the top and relatively steep (well for me being from Texas it was at least).  You ran up the hill, then circled around the top and came down a slightly different way.  The footing on the course wasn't the best as it was a mix of grass and dirt but pretty uneven in some parts.  The race went out pretty dang slow as we crossed the mile in 5:08.  After this some of the American guys moved up towards the front and the pace picked up slightly.  Somewhere in that section I injected a couple of quick and short pace surges lasting about 20m or so to string the pack out a little more and to see who responded and covered the moves quickly, that way I could see who the competition would be.  At about 2.5miles I got impatient and surged for a bit taking the lead.  At this point it was just me and Steve Hallinan from American University.  It continued like this for the next mile and a half.  I led through this part surging occasionally and him covering.  For the most part he ran right off my back but occasionally fell to 10m off the back..  Unfortunately for me, each time he fell off a bit was right before we went up the hill and he'd catch back up on the hill, because for some reason I just sucked at running up the hill today.  It felt like I didn't have enough drive or push off as usual climbing a hill.  Probably happened due to a couple of things, but no biggie.  Anyways, it continued like this for a while, with me gapping him slightly, then him catching up on the uphill.  It stayed like this until a little over 800m left when we hit the hill for the last time and he surged up it and left me beyond.  It was frustrating because the breathing and such was fine, but the legs wouldn't drive up the hill.  So I got burried in the dust going up the hill and couldn't do anything about it.  Once we got to the top of the hill, we had a little less than 400m left and I took off.  I significantly closed the gap during that last 400m, but he put in a last kick in at the very end that prevented me from making up enough ground.  So I ended up about 3 seconds back.  Overall it was a good rust buster race.  There are definately a couple of kinks that I need to fix but nothing big.  I was happy that the cardiovascular system was there, just need to get the muscular system up to par when going up hills.  Anyways, the race was good and no shame in getting beat.  It happens and Hallinan is a good tough competitor.  I thought the time was pretty good for the course and the fact that we went out so dang slow.  Overall it was a good solid effort that I could be happy with.  It was nice to race up there and race somewhere different and race different people.  It brings back the excitement in not knowing your oppenents as well.  It's almost like a game of chess in the tactics used.  This race my tactics weren't the best and I knew that when I was doing them, but I wanted a strong effort and that's what I got.
Pictures of the race can be found at the following site:
http://imageevent.com/milestatpics/2005crosscountry/gmu

9/28/05
    2.5mi warm-up, 8x200 with 200 jog, 2.5mi cool down
    Today was just a light sharpening type of workout.  I originaly had a different workout planned but changed things up a bit for this week.  For instance I did some 40 second sand hills yesterday that was a decently hard workout, and was feeling a little bit fatigued today.  So I decided some 200's at mile pace would do the trick to get my muscles feeling sharp and responsive again.  The 200's went better than expected as I averaged right at 29 second pace.  It's amazing how each time I do these, they get easier and easier with the pace slowly getting faster with the same effort.  It wasn't that fun of a workout though because I did these in the afternoon when it was 102 degrees out for the temperature, not heat index.  The heat was pretty brutal and made things more uncomfortable then they should have been.  Anyways, after the workout, the legs felt a lot better and I'm feeling good with a couple days to go before a race.

9/26/05
    3mi warm up, 20minutes of LT, 2min rest, 10 minutes of LT
    We warmed up on our normal 3 mile loop only to discover that it was littered with fallen trees and the whole gravel/dirt path was covered in fallen branches and leaves.  After having to climb through a couple of fallen trees we decided for our threshold part of the run that we'd have to run somewhere else.  So during the threshold I just wandered around trying to take random paths to avoid the trees.  Unfortunately a couple of times I took some trails that led straight into a big fallen tree that I couldn't get by anbd had to make a quick turn around and keep going.  A couple of time sI encountered smaller trees that had fallen over and worked on my steepling skills a bit by jumping over them.  Needless to say, this workout wasn't exactly the best for getting into a nice smooth rhythm.  I was constantly getting thrown off my stride and rhythm because of the debris, but it went pretty well.  Because of the random course, there were no splits what so ever, and I have no idea of the pace, but the effort was there, so it was a solid workout.
9/21/05
    8mi including 2.5mi easy, 2miles of 300m hard w/ 100m jog in 25-30 alternate 300 pace between 44 and 48ish w/ 41.9 fastest, 49.0 slowest, 2.5mi c/d
    I felt pretty sluggish in warming up for this one and to make it tougher it was  100 degrees with a heat index of 105.  I knew I had to get it done with though as with the Hurricane approaching, we had to switch up the schedule a bit.  For the workout I'd run 300 meters then jog 100m in 25 to 30 seconds and do another 300.  I alternated the paces on the 300's between 44 and 48 for the most part.  It wasn't until half way through the workout that the legs finally began to loosen up a bit and I was able let go a little.  It felt pretty good once this happened but it was a short tough workout.  The short rest is what made the workout relatively tough.  Overall I was pretty happy with the effort and got the desired effect for the most part that I wanted.  After the workout though it was a very slow 2.5mi run carrying the spikes back home.

9/19/05
2xmile w/ 4min rest in between (4:25,4:26), 5minutes rest, 2x1000 in 2:48, 2:51 w/ 3minutes rest, 5 minutes rest, 2x800 in 2:15,2:12 w/ 3 minutes rest in between
    After saturday's race, I needed a good workout to get me over it, and that's exactly what I got.  I was a little worried at first because it was really hot and humid out as we did it at 4 in the afternoon, and running the miles ona  black asphalt path with little shade didn't help our cause either. It was a longer session aimed at between 5k and 8k pace with basically equal rest to run ratio.  The miles were way faster than I thought they'd be both with splits of around 62, 2:10, 3:17-18.  The course we ran for these was flat and on an asphalt surface.  It has a couple of sharp turns in it though, but overall it's a fast loop.  After this, the 1,000's were run on a grass/dirt course that has a couple of slight uphill and downhills in it, plus two basicaly 90 degree turns on it where you lose all momentum.  This attributes to the somewhat slower times because the course was much more difficult than the one where we ran the miles on.  Because of this reason, on both the 1,000's and the 800's the goal was to keep the times similar to the pace that we ran the miles at.  The 800's were done on our 800 course that is the start of mag's trail.  It's a gravel course with slight uphills and downhills throughout and one 90 degree turn on it.  All of the courses are accurate as I measured them with a nice wheel. All of this was done with trainers on.  Andy had a great workout too.  He really suprised me with the times he hit and looked good doing it from what I saw.  In seeing his times and watching him end each segment it looks like he finally is over his sickness and the antibiotics and such.  This workout is another one of those where you can't really BS your way through it.  So I'm extremely pleased with how it went for both of us, as both of us surpassed our intended goal times.


9/17/05
    Well the first race didn't go exactly as I'd hoped.  Ya, I DNF'd, which sucks big time!  My stomach felt like crap for some reason.  My guess is that it had to do with a couple things.  First off I'd been on antibiotics for a sinus infection for a couple of days and that could have something to do with it.  I ate a cliff bar too close to the race and I drank a little bit too much water before the race.  Those three things combined to make me puke about 3 miles into the race. Not the way you want to race for the first time in months, but oh well, can't do much about it except learn from it.  Up until the hurling, the race had been great.  I started off nice and conservative and felt like I was jogging, so that was a good sign.  I decided to test the legs a bit by surging a little after the mile mark.  This felt a little strange at first as it took the legs a bit longer than usual to respond and feel fluid, but it eventually came.  This was probably due to it being my first race in forever.  Anyways up until the time of the puking, my breathing was good, not too hard yet as I expected.  The problem came at a little after 2 miles my stomach started feeling queezy.  After this I slowed the pace down a little seeing if this would help any.  Unfortunately, it didn't and at almost 3miles whatever was in my stomach started to come up while I was running.  So I stopped real fast threw up, hoping to get it all out, but it just kept coming.  It was really strange, but live and learn I guess.  It's real frustrating for something like that too happen when your racing along well and in shape, but not a lot I could do.  Just wait until the next race and forget about this one.

9/12/05
2mi w/up 2mi @ LT (9:54), 7 minutes rest, 2x1mile with 45 seconds rest (4:34,4:41), 7min rest, 2x800 (2:17) w/ 30seconds rest

    I had to wake up really early to get out to the park to do this one.  I woke up around 6ish, drove to the park and started the workout at about 6:45 and was halfway a sleep when it began.  Because of my sleepy state, I guess my brain and pacing ability wasn't exactly working to well.  I told myself to start off the 2 miles conservatively and then pick it up from there just like on an LT run.  However that didn't exactly happen.  I took off too fast coming through the 400 in just below 70 and upon seeing this I quickly slammed on the breaks.  Well as it turns out I slammed on the breaks too much, and ended up coming by the 800 too slow (I was trying to hit about 5minute pace plus or minus).  Of course, the whole first 2 miles was supposed to be based on feel but like I said earlier, I couldn't exactly feel much at all that early in the morning.  So after 800m, I got it all under control and got into cruise mode and finished it with no problem.  After the nice long break, it was time for the miles.  On these, I wanted them to be between 5k and 10k XC pace, so I figured I'd try and hit 70's or so.  Once again my inability to judge pace what so ever showed up.  I went out in 61, yes 61 for the first 400.  Don't ask me how or why I did that.  You'd think I'd learn from the first set, but no I didn't.  And guess what, that's not all, upon seeing this, I threw on the brakes again, and you guessed it, I overcompensated.  I ran about a 78 for the next  400.  So yes, I blew all my "cushion" in one 400.  You don't know how mad and frustrating that is during the middle of a tough workout.  Anyways, the next 800 was right where it should have been and I finished in 4:34ish.  After a nice and long 45seconds rest, I started again.  This next mile went much better as I just reeled off 70s for the most part.  After another nice long rest, I did 2x800s in 2:17 on a nice rolling hill course with 30 seconds in between.  On these two I got a nice side stitch but managed to get through them, so that was a plus.  After the workout I jogged a bit and then took a "shower" underneath some hose at the park.  It was strange having the workout done by about 8am.  Anyways, I was pleased with the workout.  It shows I'm in good shape, as I hit the times I wanted.

9/5/05
"2mi w/up, 5x400,5x300 up fence line hill w/ jog down recovery splits(74 slow on purpose, 63,62,61,62,47,46,46,45,44) 2mi c/d
    First hard anaerobic workout of the CC season as I'm now 6 weeks away from where I want to run fast.  Yes, this is really early in the CC season compared to college athletes, but you must remember that I don't have a conference, regionals, and nationals to train for.  Therefore I decided it best to train to race fast at the Arkansas Chile Pepper race and the U.S. road 10k champs.  I was really happy with this one.  This workout was a staple during my HS carear, and this is the fastest I've averaged ever, which is saying something considering I'm in CC shape and not track shape, and this is more of a track shape kind of workout.  Also I went slower on this workout in HS when I did it 2 weeks before running 4:01.  The times look slow, but this fence line hill isn't called "The green monster" by all the Klein Oak kids who run it for no reason.  It's a steady incline for 800 meters with no flat parts at all.  I felt really strong on the 400's especially.  The jog down on the 400's was faster than when I've done it before, but towards the end of te 300's I reverted back to what coach calls the "Magness shuffle."  No biggie here as the purpose of the workout was to run fast and hard, not on the rest interval.  I really like the jog rest on workouts like these because you let your body dictate the recovery.  You speed up and slow down the jog without consciously doing it, therefore your body kind of governs the rest, to make sure you are recovered just enough to do the next one.  At the end of this workout is the first time I've gone down on my knees this season which is what I wanted.  Anaerobic workouts are the only ones where you want all that lactic build up and really go after it.


8/31/05
5mi at MP(27:17) on hill circuit, 2min rest, 2mi @LT (10min) 1mi c/d
    Today was a good combination marathon pace/threshold workout.  The purpose of this workout was to get some high end aerobic running at marathon pace, and then get some running right on the edge at Lactate Threshold.  I planed it this way so that I could run the first 5 miles with Andy as he did a 5 mile threshold run on the hill circuit.  This worked out great as we both got to run with someone during part or all of our workout.  The course we run is a tough one.  It's a 5 mile loop that hits all the hills at the park.  There's a nice combination of short and long hills including longer 800m hills of both grass and gravel, short very steep hills, and 300m or so medium length hills made up of all sand.  Another reason I like this course is we have only one true split and that's an 800m split up the green monster, that really tells you nothing because this split is within the last 1 mile of the course and it's always really slow because it's the toughest 800m on the course.  Anyways, the first 5 miles was really good for both of us.  I got to keep an eye on Andy and monitor his breathing, form, and ability to talk to make sure he was running the threshold correctly and not racing it like so many do.  He did a good job of running it the right way and I was surprised how fast he ran without going over the edge.  I know it doesn't make much difference, but on a flat course his 5 mile time would be impressive for being under control.  After we made the 5 miles, I took 2 minutes rest and then ran 2 miles at LT.  It was a bit strange at first as it took me about half a mile to find this zone, but once I found it, it went real smooth and I fnished up strong and comfortably hard.

8/29/05
2mi w/up, 5x800(2:22-2:23, last 2:14) on mags slight hill 800m course, with 800 recovery run at 2:50 (every other one, recovery on tough uphill, up step hill), 2mi c/d
    Today's workout was a good aerobic capacity workout.  I worked it out where me and Andy would be running most of our 800's together.  He got to stand around and rest, while I did a fairly quick 800m recovery run.  I enjoy this type of workout with the recovery being spent running at a fairly decent clip.  It's a good way to prepare both mentally and physically for the long 10k race.  Plus Andy got to see his progress as he did 6x800 with 2:50 or so standing rest.  The only downfall to this is we had to do it at 3:30 in the afternoon, which meant it was really hot, but what can you do.  The goal was for me to hit about 10k pace and Andy to hit slightly faster than 5k pace.  The course we ran was a gravel trail with slight uphills and downhills throughout and basically no flat parts.  Also, it has one hairpin turn where you lose all momentum or go flying into trees, which I've done on more than one occasion when trying to finish up a workout fast.  You run an 800m one way on the trail, stop, then run it the other way back to the start.  The one's going back are slightly harder because they start going up a decently steep hill for a short bit.  Thus we try and run both the ones going out and back at the same speed, even though the ones back are slightly harder.  My 800m recoveries we made up on the spot.  On the ones going  out, the recovery 800m was way harder than I thought it would be.  This was due to the 800m loop back to where we finished and would start again, containing the step hill, which is short, maybe 100m hill, but very steep.  So this made this recovery pretty hard to stay on pace.  The other recovery was much easier as it went400m out, then turn around and 400m back on a flat gravel trail.  The workout went real well as I hit paces without straining, and felt comfortable enough to drop the fifth one to 2:14 without too much effort.  The workout also ended up being good for me working on sudden pace change.  At the end of the workout I was tired, but not drained.  I finished with just bending over and then recovering quickly, so no "drop dead" feeling or anything like that.  Andy also finished the same way with his 6, and averaged faster than last time he did the workout even with higher temperatures and slightly less recovery.

8/26/05
1mi w/up, 10 mile at MP 54:20 (27:18,27:02) on 5 mile hill circuit loop, 1 mi c/d
    This was my first attempt at the full 10 miler in a long time.  This used to be another staple of my old High school days.  We'd do a 10 miler hard maybe 2-3 times per season.  Hard was a subjective term as some days we ran them as a "threshold" type effort, and others we just went for it and went pretty close to all out.  My all out PR in HS on the course was right under 54 minutes.  That should give you an idea of how tough the course is, as I ran that when I was in about 4:01 shape, granted I wasn't nearly as aerobicly developed as now, thanks to a couple of years of high mileage training.  Anyways, the course contains a variety of hills ranging from short steep hills to long hills greater than 800m in length.  Also their is a variety of surfaces on which you run ranging from sand to grass to gravel.  For some strange reason, the park ranger people decided that more sand was needed, so they took the once grass 800m hill and turned it into an 800m hill with a good deal of sand on it.  On most parts of the hill you couldn't avoid the sand either, because on one side of you is barbed wire and the other trees, so I could tell that one would be fun.  Anyways, today wasn't one of those days that I run all out.  It was supposed to be a controlled run at about marathon pace, maybe a little faster.  But the whole point was a long steady run at a high end aerobic pace.  I'm happy to say that I accomplished this.  I was smooth the whole way with the only real struggle coming on the 800m sand hill and the short steep "original" sand hill.  I was surprised by my overall time at the end.  I expected it to be a lot slower, as we have no splits on the course, with the effort I gave.  It gives me some confidence to know that I can run the same pace I did in HS only with a controlled effort, never going over the edge.  Based off this I think I could run in the 52ish range on this course with going real hard.  However, I'll save that one for another day.