Pint Night and Comparing Two Track Workouts A Year Apart

Pint Night
On Monday night, I left work early in order to get to Pint Night at Fleet Feet Lincoln Square with plenty of time to spare and of course instead was stuck in traffic for an hour and 45 minutes and arrived late. Since I was running 15 minutes late for the run, instead of going home and changing clothes, I drove directly to Fleet Feet. Unfortunately, I only had my workout clothes from earlier in the day in my gym bag. So, in the Fleet Feet bathroom, I changed into my already worn workout clothes, putting on an outer layer shirt that wasn't too funky and wearing my fresh cotton undershirt. Then I took off on the run to try and catch up with Maggie and Erin who were already out and about. I took a shortcut going by the Lincoln Square McDonald's parking lot where a crime would happen 10 minutes later*. Anyway, I ran at a fast clip to the turn-around at the Chicago River and spotted two runners running with a stroller. Sure enough it was Maggie and Erin pushing her daughter along. We said our hellos and I got to enjoy half of the run portion of Pint Night running and chatting with them. Once we arrived back at Western Ave., a police car with lights and sirens on came out of nowhere and we had to hurry across the street. It was undoubtedly on it's way to McDonald's.

In happier news, once we arrived at Fleet Feet we got a picture:

Erin, A, Maggie and Me outside Fleet Feet

Then we headed over to the Grafton for a pint. After some conversation with Erin about her move, her daughter started getting tired, so they decided to leave. Then Erin, being the hardcore runner that she is, ran home pushing the stroller!  Not more than a couple of minutes later, Lynton showed up. Maggie, Lynton and I chatted for another 20 minutes before it was time to leave so I could get dinner. However, before we left, a Fleet Feet rep at the bar told us that there would be a bonus Pint Night on Monday, where we would be able to get more than one free pint. So, since I am taking next week off of work, it could get crazy. Watch out! :)

Track Workouts 2012 vs 2013
The Lincolnwood Turkey Trot is on Sunday, so I needed to get a little pre-race speed work in this morning. The race has some cool trophies for the top three finishers in each 10 year age group, which are good motivators for me to do well. I won this at last year's race:

2012 Lincolnwood Turkey Trot 3rd Place AG

Before a race, I like to take a look at my fitness and try to guage how fast I will run the race. I do this by analyzing workouts and mileage from previous years and comparing them to the current year. This also helps me determine what a realistic race pace should be. So for this year's analysis, I took a look at my splits from today (11/21/2013):

Today (November 2013) at the Track

1.75 mile warm-up

1.00 mile @ 5:58/mile, .22 walk

0.75 mile @ 5:57/mile, .17 walk

0.50 mile @ 5:45/mile, .21 walk

0.25 mile @ 5:10/mile

1.66 mile cool-down

...and compared them to my splits from my last track workout before the 2012 Lincolnwood Turkey Trot (11/15/2012):

November 2012 at the Track

2.00 mile warm-up

1.00 mile @ 5:59/mile, .25 walk

0.75 mile @ 6:05/mile, .25 walk

0.50 mile @ 5:58/mile, .25 walk

0.25 mile @ 5:06/mile

2.8 mile cool-down

Comparing the two workouts, one could argue that I am slightly faster now than I was at this stage last year. However, I have not been putting in the same number of weekly miles as I was last year. So the question is: Will my five week old marathon endurance still be around for miles five through 6.2 to keep me in the top three for 2013? Will a fourth turkey trophy be mine in the near future? Stay tuned and find out on Sunday! Looking forward to see loads of running bloggers there on Sunday as well!

*Lincoln Square is generally a safe area, this was the first crime of this nature in over six years there!